Neowin already reported that Office 2010 Beta 1 due in early July will not be available for public testing. Now Microsoft has confirmed that it will indeed not release a public beta of Office 2010 for testing, to the general public and will limit the Technical Preview to a group of thousands of invite-only users starting in the third quarter of 2009. The second beta is due in early November and it is not clear whether Microsoft will open it to the general public.
“The technology preview, as Microsoft will call the beta program, will involve ‘thousands of users’. At this point there is no plan. (to offer the beta to the general public) “.
Office 2010 Beta will be given to workers in Microsoft’s largest corporate accounts as well as run-of-the-mill consumers. It has already been confirmed that Microsoft will ship both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2010 and is expected to be released during the first half of 2010.
Earlier this week we learned that Microsoft would be giving out the Office 2010 Technical Preview to select testers on an invite-only basis. In January, screenshots of the alpha (then still codenamed Office 14) were leaked a week after select testers got them. This time, testers don’t even have the Technical Preview yet, but new screenshots have already arrived (see below). Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit, and both flavors have been leaked.
The most important part to remember here is that this version is build 14.0.4006.1010. The build number of the official Technical Preview, which is scheduled for two months from now, is not known, so it is perfectly possible that this is not the build that testers will be getting.
Office 2010 includes Access 2010, Excel 2010, InfoPath 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Project 2010, Publisher 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010, SharePoint Workspace 2010, Visio 2010, and Word 2010.
Installation
Honestly, this really isn’t much different from the Office 2007 setup. You may note that not all the applications are here. That is because this setup is for the Professional Plus SKU. I did not bother taking screenshots of the installation for Project, SharePoint Designer, or Visio. Without further ado, here are the screenshots
As you can see, some applications have changed a lot more than others. The ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency’s sake. The splashscreen you see for every application is actually animated, which is why the colours at the bottom will look slightly different from screenshot to screenshot. The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the no file/orb menu is no longer a menu. When you click the colored office button, you get a screen that is shown in the second screenshot for each application.
With the announcement today around the five SKUs of Office 2010, we wanted to confirm what flavors each application would be available in. Microsoft confirmed in April that Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, the first release of Microsoft Office to do this. Microsoft was willing to build on that information today.
“Customers will not be required to upgrade 32-bit PCs and laptops to 64-bit hardware to run Office 2010 suite products,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. “SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 will be available in 64-bit versions. Customers that currently have SharePoint Server 2007 installed on 32-bit hardware will need to upgrade their hardware to 64-bit to deploy SharePoint Server 2010. Certain hardware configurations and operating system versions customers currently have deployed may require an upgrade to run server and client products.”
The most interesting part, however, was when we asked about whether or not both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2010 would come on one disc. A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars: “Yes, both will be available on the same DVD.” We first pointed out that this was a possibility in May after noticing an error during the 64-bit installation of Office 2010. Today’s statement from Microsoft confirms our initial suspicions.
At this year’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), Microsoft announced that Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 have reached the Technical Preview stage. As announced in May, Microsoft is giving tens of thousands of people the opportunity to test Office and Visio. All WPC attendees (cost of entry is $2,000) will receive invitations to participate in the Technical Preview program, as will hand-picked testers.
Microsoft acknowledged that the reason Office 2010 is not ready for a public release is that this release is not yet feature complete and is solely being made available to garner feedback for the engineering team.
In addition, Microsoft announced that the Web versions of its applications will be available in several flavors, including a free, ad-supported version.
Reducing complexity
One of the significant improvements that Microsoft deserves applause for is the streamlining of the number of editions from Office 2007′s eight to Office 2010′s five. The most obvious change is that OneNote is available in every single SKU. The five SKUs are as follows (Microsoft has not yet revealed pricing):
Office Home and Student: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote
Office Home and Business: same as above, plus Outlook
Office Standard: same as above, plus Publisher (only available via volume licensing)
Office Professional: same as above, plus Access
Office Professional Plus: same as above, plus SharePoint Workspace and InfoPath (only available via volume licensing)
Testers will be getting access to the Office 2010 Professional SKU. When a recent build of Office 2010 leaked yesterday, we noted that it was curious it was referred to as “Mondo,” which signifies Ultimate, because we were told by a good source that the Ultimate SKU had been killed off. This has been confirmed today, as was the removal of the Enterprise edition and Basic edition, but it only leaves more questions about yesterday’s leak of build 14.0.4302.1000.
Embed and edit video files directly in PowerPoint 2010.
Microsoft has indicated that with the new version, picture and video editing is coming to PowerPoint, new data visualization capabilities are being added to Excel, and that co-authoring (two or more people can work on a project simultaneously and see their changes in real-time) is coming to Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote. In addition, Outlook is getting advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities (as well as the useful Ignore function for “Reply All” chains that was detailed in April). Finally, the company also noted easy document preparation through the new Microsoft Office Backstage view, as well as a feature called “Sparklines” in Excel for visualizing data and spotting trends more quickly. With Office 2010, the Ribbon has been added to Outlook, Publisher, and OneNote, which used the old menus in Office 2007.
With Sparklines in Excel 2010, you can take advantage of charts within a single cell.
If you don’t get into the Technical Preview, don’t worry; the public preview of Office 2010 is slated to arrive “this coming summer.” Office 2010 is the first release of the productivity suite that will come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors (possibly on one DVD). Microsoft is aiming to release Office 2010 in the first half of 2010. If you’re interested in learning more, we recommend checking out the Office 2010 website as it has good video footage explaining what’s coming.
Office Web Applications
The most ambitious goal Microsoft is striving for with Office 2010 is making it available via a familiar experience across the PC, phone, and browser. As such, there will be Office Web Applications (browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote), which were announced in October 2008 at PDC, in both free and pay-for versions. Microsoft is planning on supporting Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. They will be powered by Silverlight, though it is not yet known to what extent.
Unfortunately, today’s Technical Preview does not include access to the Web Office applications; testers will get access to those in August.
Editing a file in the Word Web application.
Microsoft today announced that the applications will be available in three ways: at no cost but with ads through Windows Live, on-premises for all Office volume licensing customers, and via Microsoft Online Services where customers will be able to purchase a subscription as part of a hosted offering. The Office Web Applications will be only part of the Professional Plus and Office Standard SKUs. Nevertheless, it appears that all consumers will have access to the free version via Windows Live.
The sleeping software giant has woken up. Microsoft is no longer dismissing Google Docs. Its response is a free version of Office, easily one of the biggest cash cows the company has. We’re reserving judgment until we see the final version, but it is promising to know that such a traditional software company is responding to the “threat of the cloud” to its core business by embracing it
The web has been abuzz the past few weeks with chatter about Microsoft’s announcement today at its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans about the new version of Microsoft Office 2010. There’s even a mini-movie about its debut. Facing potential challenges from Google’s browser-based Apps products and its new Chrome OS, Microsoft has been touting its three screens strategy, which is the ability for products to synchronize across the phone, browser, and desktop, for some time now.
With the release of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Visio 2010, we finally see the implementation of Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s mantra. We had the opportunity to see an in-depth demo of the new suite of products from Microsoft’s Group Product Manager for Office 2010, Chris Bryant. Here’s a complete breakdown of all the functionality that has been added, including screenshots:
The Move To The Browser
Most certainly a direct response to Google Apps, Microsoft is rolling out lightweight, FREE, Web browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. All based in the cloud, the web-based versions of these products have fewer features than their desktop cousins but still give users basic tools to edit and change documents.
PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint has been upgraded not only with a new browser version, but also a slew of bells and whistles have been added to the desktop version. Users now have the capability of editing video and images within PowerPoint with a basic video editing tool (not so different from the capabilities of iMovie) and an image editing tool, which is like a basic, simple version of Adobe Photoshop. Microsoft has also added the ability for users to launch a WebEx-like live sharing feature with other users. So if you create a slideshow in PowerPoint, you can share it with other people in real-time (which can be run on top of Sharepoint).
Here’s what the video editing tools look like in PowerPoint:
To share a deck with other users, you send an email to individuals with a link. Once they click the link, they will see the slideshow within the browser. This feature can also be used on a mobile phone’s browser. You can also create a slideshow in the desktop version and then publish it to the web version to access it via the browser. The browser version of PowerPoint doesn’t include the video editing features, but most of the functionality of 2008 is included in the browser version.
Excel 2010
Excel spreadsheets can now run in the browser, and similar to PowerPoint, spreadsheets can be published to the browser via the desktop version. The browser version of Excel has limited features, but offers more in-depth functionality than Google Spreadsheets. Microsoft has added a particularly innovative feature called Sparklines, which gives a visual snapshot image of a data trend over time within a cell. You can also share Excel via the browser with other users and set special permissions on who can access the document.
Here’s what the web version of Excel looks like:
Word 2010
Bryant says that the number one piece of feedback from users producing documents on Microsoft Word is that they want to preserve the look and feel of a document created in the desktop version in the browser. Microsoft calls this “document fidelity” and created the browser version of MS Word accordingly. In the browser, documents retain the same look and feel as in the desktop. The browser version still has the “ribbon user interface,” where you can change fonts, size, formatting, styles etc.
An image of the web version of Word:
Microsoft has also updated the desktop version to have collaborative features so that multiple users can be editing a document at once. This collaboration is not available in the web version, unfortunately. Microsoft says that users don’t want this feature but this might be a move to protect the Office revenue model.
When two people are editing the same document (in the desktop version) at the same time, Word will notify each user when there are changes that need to be synced with their document. The copy/paste function of the desktop version has also received an upgrade, where you can see see a live preview for the paste function. The paste function also has an advanced option to create and insert screenshots. To make moving around a long document easier, Word now has a visual navigation pane and section header breakdown which makes it easy to jump around different sections of a document.
Outlook 2010
Outlook 2010 now has a ribbon user interface, like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. The UI of email conversations has been upgraded to look almost like a message tree, allowing users a more visual view of sent and incoming emails. Search functionality has been improved as well, making it much easier to find content. Also, you can preview calendars in emails and choose to ignore selective email conversations.
Sharepoint 2010
Like Outlook, Sharepoint now gets a ribbon UI, making the document-hosting product more similar to Microsoft’s flagship products, like Word. You can tag authors of documents now and can share documents and files more easily.
Microsoft says that its browser versions have been tested on all major browsers aside from internet Explorer, including Firefox and Safari. Office 2010 is still being tested and reworked to function on Chrome. Microsoft also announced that it is streamlining the number of Office editions from eight to five. Office Web applications will be available in three ways: through Windows Live, where consumers will have access to Office Web applications at no cost; via on-premises versions; and via Microsoft Online Services, where customers will be able to purchase a subscription of MS Office. Microsoft says Office 2010 will be available in the first half of next year.
The key part of all of this news is the free, browser-based versions of Microsoft’s most popular Office products. Bryant says that Microsoft expects the browser products to be especially popular amongst student, but I think that the web-based applications will be hugely popular in the enterprise space as well, as long as there are security precautions taken to put documents in a secure part of the cloud.
But as more and more businesses are becoming comfortable with trusting cloud environments, Microsoft’s move to the browser could pay off in a big way, especially because it’s so easy to use both the desktop and browser versions of products interchangeably. The more successful Microsoft is in its browser strategy, the more they validate Google’s approach in the space, which will eventually put price pressure on Office.
By definition cryptography is the process of converting recognisable data into an encrypted code for transmitting it over a network (either trusted or untrusted). Data is encrypted at the source, i.e. sender’s end and decrypted at the destination, i.e. receiver’s end.
Result:- Performance may be degraded such that the victim, the victim and intermediary networks become congested and unusable, i.e. clogging the network and preventing legitimate users from obtaining network services.
