Office 2010 heads to the finish line

Jevon Fark just posted details about the roll-out of Office 2010.

Starting today, consumers who purchase and activate Office 2007 will be able to download Office 2010 at no additional cost when it becomes available in June 2010.

For businesses, we will launch the 2010 set of products, including Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 worldwide on May 12… For consumers, Office 2010 will be available online and on retail shelves this June.

I’m still lukewarm about Office 2010, just as I was (and am) lukewarm about Office 2007. There are some significant improvements, but to me it’s hard to justify spending big bucks to change from Office 2003.

Office 2010 due on June 15, per Paul Thurrott

Paul’s WinInfo Short Takes this weekend includes this confirmation of what many of us have suspected for a long time:

(Office 2010 for Windows, meanwhile, will become generally available June 15, 2010.)

Yes, it’s a parenthetical expression, about half the way down the page, under a heading for Office 2011 for the Mac.

Office 2010 Release Candidate out

If you’re one of the select few in Microsoft’s TAP (”Technology Adoption Program”) you may have been offered a chance to run Office 2010 RC 1.

Ars Technica has the scoop:

“Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the Technology Adoption Program (TAP),” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. “This is one of Microsoft’s planned milestones in the engineering process; however they do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly.”

… The Office 2010 beta that Microsoft gave out to the public three months ago was build 14.0.4536.1000 and has already been downloaded over 2 million times. Since then, and even before then, there have been many leaks of other builds; the latest one we’ve seen is build 14.0.4734.1000, which leaked out only last week

UPDATE: Neowin reports that the RC version (Build 4734.1000) is now available to all Technical Beta participants. No, if I was in the beta, I couldn’t tell you. But Neowin can.

Office 2010 pricing announced

Microsoft says that 2,000,000 people have downloaded the beta version of Office 2010. I hope they all understand that they’ll have to uninstall it before installing the real version. Anyway…

MS just announced pricing for Office 2010. The best part of the announcement: you can buy a “card” that has an activation key – no need to buy the whole stupid box, if you can beg or borrow a copy of the bits. I hope that’s the way MS will head for all of its products. (The next logical step is to encourage distribution via torrents or the newsgroups, which are infinitely more efficient and “green” than shrinkwrapped boxes.)

The fine print: if you buy a box, you can install copies of the software on two different PCs. If you get the card, you’re limited to one.

The prices:

Home & Student (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote): $149 boxed, $119 product key for one PC only. There’s a three-license Family Pack coming. After re-re-re-reading Microsoft’s announcement, it isn’t clear to me if the $149 boxed price is for the Family Pack, or if there’s a separate Family Pack product, with its own price.

Home & Business (adds Outlook): $279 boxed, $199 product key.

Pro (adds Publisher and Access): $499 boxed, $349 product key.

The Pro Academic version (which is only available through Academic outlets) is $99 for the boxed version, and there doesn’t appear to be a key-only option.

Note that there’s no “upgrade” pricing, no confusing licensing terms, no talk about “qualifying” systems, or meaningless requirements such as a “student” reside at your home. Just four options – three, if you think of Academic as an island unto its own. Bravo. Something else Microsoft has (finally!) done right.

There’s some bogus wording that the two-license allowance is only for “your PCs” – and I bet we see something about the Family Pack only being installed on three “Family” PCs. We’ll have to see if Microsoft attaches some bogus restrictions to the definition of “your” and/or “Family.” But in general, they’re headed in the right direction.

Okay, so call me old-fashioned, but I still don’t see anything that really grabs me in Office 2010. Maybe working with it for a while will change my tune.

Meanwhile, there’s a fire sale going on for Office 2007.

UPDATE: Ed Bott has a good analysis of the pricing and the major changes it represents.

Free ebook: “First Look at Microsoft Office 2010″

I’m pleased as can be that Kathy Murray (the brains behind Green Home Computing For Dummies) has just released an ebook for Microsoft Press about Office 2010.

Yes, you read that right. Office 2010.

You can get your free copy of First Look at Microsoft Office 2010 (in PDF format, no less) from the MS Press blog. Weighing in at 184 pages – yes, it’s absolutely free – the book focuses on changes between Office 2007 and 2010. A must-read.

Office 2010 due in June?

Neowin reports that the next version of Office, Office 2010, is scheduled for release in June. Their article doesn’t name the source, but it sounds very authoritative to my jaded eye. Er, ear.

Office 2010 will be released in six different flavours, including a free version that includes Microsoft Word and Excel, but comes with limited functionality and includes advertisements.

That agrees with what I’ve heard.

Neowin also has a good overview of the new features. I’m not absolutely bowled over by any of them, but the ability to have a menu-like interface rings my Office-experienced chimes.

But I’ll have to confess that my immediate reaction is, “we waited three years for this?”

Office 2010 Beta now available to everyone

Hot on the heels of its release to MSDN and Technet subscribers, Office 2010 is now available to the unwashed masses. You can download your own copy today, but of course the usual caveats are in order: don’t ever install beta software on a production PC, and don’t use beta software to handle real data. Yes, I violate my own rules from time to time, but with Office 2010, a great deal of caution is in order.

Also remember that, just like Windows 7, when the “real” version comes out you’ll have to uninstall the beta version and start all over.

There have been problems in the past with data compatibility between beta versions of office and the shipping versions: it’s possible that any document you write with the beta of Word 2010 may not be usable in the final version of Word 2010, for example. So be careful, OK?

P.S. Yes, what you’ve read is true. Office 2010 brings back the Office 2003-style menus. Sorta. You aren’t a slave to the Ribbon any more.

Office 2010 Beta now available on MSDN and Technet

Mary Jo Foley reports that Office 2010 Beta 2 is available to MSDN and Technet members, and will be more widely available later this week.

Microsoft made the beta code available to subscribers to its MSDN and TechNet services. Microsoft is expected to open up the beta, so that anyone who’d like to try it can download it — possibly this week (though Microsoft officials refused to confirm that when I asked them today).

Microsoft also has made the 64-bit Beta version of Office Web Apps — its Web-centric versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote — available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers today. (No word yet if/when the 32-bit version of Office Web Apps will appear on MSDN/TechNet). The public also is expected to get the refreshed Office Web Apps bits, possibly this week. Again, Microsoft officials won’t confirm the public availability date, beyond saying it will be “in November.”