Tech Olive

Microsoft Office 2010 has finally reached the release to manufacturing (RTM) stage, which means that development on the new Office suite is complete and ready to be distributed. Microsoft will first give copies to manufacturing partners and OEMs, then businesses will get it, and then finally customers should expect to be able to grab a copy sometime in June.

“RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone. It is also an appropriate time to re-emphasize our sincere gratitude to the more than 5,000 organizations and partners who have worked with us on rapid deployment and testing of the products. Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version – that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads.” — Microsoft Corporate Vice-President Takeshi Numoto.

So, it looks like Microsoft benefited from using a beta testing program (just like Windows 7), something that they didn’t use for Vista.

[TechNet Blog]

Good news for all prospective buyers of Microsoft Office 2007. If you buy the 2007 suite between now and September 30, 2010, you’ll be able to grab Office 2010 for free when it’s released this June. We’re not sure why you would want Office 2007 anytime after June, but who knows what crazy things people do these days.

[Microsoft]

Microsoft has come out with a release candidate version of Office 2010, which will only be available for a select group of testers. As of now, Microsoft has only released one build of Office 2010 to the public, which is the beta, so it could be that Microsoft is only giving the public one pre-final build before the final version releases, which isn’t surprising of Microsoft.

Office 2010 is still on track to release this June in 32- and 64-bit flavors and have the same system requirements as Office 2007.

via [CNET News]

It’s been confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson that Office 2010 is arriving in June of, you guessed it, 2010. There’s also further talk about the new Office Web Apps, which is basically a direct rival to Google Docs. To read all the juicy details and speculations about Office Web Apps, hit up the link below.

via [Betanews]

The beta version of Microsoft’s new Office 2010 (build 14.0.4536.1000) has been upped and ready for download by MSDN and TechNet users. The beta also comes in 32- and 64-bit flavors. If you’re not an MSDN and TechNet subscriber, you only have to wait a couple days, since the beta will available to the public this Wednesday, Nov. 18.

via [Redmond Pie]

The next time you buy a new Windows PC, you might find that it comes with a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition, which is a limited functionality version and will also be infested with advertisements. Don’t worry though, Microsoft will make it as easy as possible for you to purchase the full version of Microsoft Office.

The reason for the ads are unknown, but we think it’s a clever trick to make the user want to upgrade and purchase the full version due to the major annoyance of the ads. Just a guess though.

via [The Register]

The technical preview for Microsoft Office 2010 is coming this July and leaked screenshots have already been collected for build 14.0.4006.1010 (this build has also hit torrents). Check out some of the screenies below and click the link at the end for the complete set.

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