Office 2010 Technical Preview

Microsoft yesterday released infomation and a few videos on the next incarnation of Office in Office 2010 (suprised at the name arnt you ) which will also have a free online light version (Office Web Applications) which will likely merge with the already fairly successful Office Live which has been around for a while.


Old favorites are back and updated are:
Word
Outlook
Excel
Access
PowerPoint
InfoPath
Visio

It will also come in 32bit and 64bit versions (about time it has a full 64bit version, although one thing to note when I installed earlier is you cannot run 32bit Office 2003/2007 with a 64bit Office 2010)

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/


Have no idea when this may get released as a public beta preview, as for now its selected partners and techbeta testers, but first look at it earlier and it loads and runs quick on Windows 7, not installed on Windows Vista yet.

 

Hi Steve


I managed to arm twist our IT dept for Office 2007, but that was a favour as while they have it via MS Licencing, its still under test and not rolled out to all, the faulting point is that one you mentioned "Change" they feel the Ribbon menu will confuddle the secretaries!

While it may some, TBH most will adapt in time and I find that the ribbon menu has increased my speed using office apps, no longer do I have to go through a main menu then submenu and then sub sub menu to get to a task.

2010 adds a new menu options, can hide the ribbon easier and you now have BackStage, which is good for quick access to general tasks and document managment, see the below from Word 2010

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/678/44690668.jpg


Also has many new colaboration tools, including one I was reading earlier in a tech doc on being able to work on a document simultainiously with someone else, Outlook and its calendar looks much better.

 

Reason was that in newer versions of Windows the Start Menu was changing and it was not a menu that the majority of power users requested added back as this could be done http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822573 while some users like it, a company cannot satisfy everyone, so testers and partners that are the mass users of Office went with dropping it (was dropped from Office XP so not in 2003 or 2007 so not a new ommission and one that is Office 2010s problem)

Always wondered if you could do a custom install of say Office 2000 and use its Shortcut bar, not tried it yet as not found the time and need to download Office 2000 to try.

Hi

Dont know 100% your question of OOP and inheritance as I dont delve into VB too much in Office myself, so would be a option for you to try it out yourself as the beta is free to use (expires in October 2010) http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/

Pity I didnt know your question 3 weeks ago as I was at MSFT for a conference and Office was one of the sessions, so could have asked one of the Office team.

As for release date, they never release the exact date, even to those who are close to Microsoft as in MVPs, but my educated guess knowing the beta process would be around Q2 of 2010, so May - Sept. If your a partner, have MSDN/TechNet then you may see the final a month or so earlier than the public.