Office 2010 beta available to millions

Office 2010 to arrive in the first half of next year

Software giant Microsoft announced today at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles the availability of the first beta of its Office 2010 productivity suite.

Microsoft Information Worker Business Group leader Jacob Jaffe said that the beta could be downloaded by millions, rather than just the 30,000 people the technical preview was made available to.

Jaffe said that Microsoft's Office product team had been working on Office 2010's look and feel back in 2007: "We were planning this package before we released Office 2007, and that's pretty typical for us."

Jaffe said the beta differs from the technical preview in some areas. "We've introduced a new file tab, and a new set of visuals to make the way that you work with software much more straightforward. You can also save documents directly to Windows Live SkyDrive [Microsoft's online storage service], from within the desktop application," he said.

All Office 2010 applications will be delivered in 32- and 64-bit formats. Office 2010 can be installed on Windows XP with service pack 3 applied, Vista, or Windows 7.

For enterprise customers, Office Professional Plus 2010 and Office Standard 2010 will be available only via volume licensing, including usage rights for on-premises web applications.

Smaller businesses will use Office Professional 2010 and Office Home and Business 2010, and for home use there is Office 2010 Home and Student edition.