The PC Report

Today, as announced via the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft has released their Office Web Apps which tie in with the release of Office 2010 next week. Available now via office.live.com you will be able to edit and create Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets and OneNote notes for free and stored via Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud service. Of course because the apps are free and on the web, there is limited functionality compared to the full Office 2010 software suite

The Office Web Apps are available around the world, but as of right now they are only available in English until Microsoft translates the suite. Using your SkyDrive, you are given a free 25 GB of online storage which is plenty for your online documents, as well as uploaded documents from the desktop version of Office 2010. Web Apps also allows collaboration between multiple people editing a single document simultaneously, which is a nice addition if you want a group Office project.

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Microsoft Office 2010, along with SharePoint 2010, were launched officially today during an event at the NBC Studios in NYC. Stephen Elop, president of the business division at Microsoft, lead the event and launched the new products, along with a lot of the usual marketing stuff like mentioning how the new software will benefit your business and save you money. Outlook 2010 with the new social integration features was a major focus of the presentation along with the collaboration capabilities of Office 2010 when used in conjunction with SharePoint 2010.

Other than that, Microsoft announced that Office 2010 will be available to the general public on June 15 as expected, with a continuing program running between March 5 and September 30, 2010 where if you purchase and activate a copy of Office 2007 you will be eligible for a free upgrade to Office 2010 via an online download. There will be 5 editions of Office 2010 available at launch, ranging from US$99 to US$499 depending on what programs are included.

For all you TechNet or MSDN subscribers, Microsoft has just released the final build of Microsoft Office 2010 for your downloading pleasure. Then final build (4763.1000) that is on these networks should be identical to the Office 2010 builds that will be shipping out to users sometime in June. Volume License customers will have the RTM available to them for download on April 27.

Keep tuned to The PC Report, as we should have a full review of Office 2010 coming in the next few weeks.

Microsoft have revealed through their company blog that Microsoft Office 2010 has released the final development milestone – released to manufacturing (RTM). Following this milestone, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to download the Office 2010 RTM on April 22 followed by Volume License subscribers who will be able to grab the RTM on April 27. General availability is rumoured to be on June 15 this year. Microsoft had this to say about the RTM milestone:

RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone. 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! The feedback that we’ve received from all these programs has shaped the set of products we’re excited about, and that I’m sure will delight our customers.

Microsoft has already revealed the pricing structure for Office 2010, with the Professional edition retailing for $499 with every Office application. Four other editions will be available for lower costs. Microsoft is also running a deal where if you purchase a copy of Office 2007 between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010 you will be offered a free downloadable upgrade to Office 2010 at no additional cost. Stay tuned to The PC Report for our Office 2010 review following the MSDN/TechNet release.

A few days ago Microsoft decided that it would share with the world the current status of Office 2010 on the development scale. They revealed that Office 2010 is on schedule to be released to manufacturers (RTM) sometime next month. Microsoft also revealed that they will be releasing Office 2010 to businesses on May 12 this year, around a month before the June 15 release date for the general public.

If you purchase a full copy of Office 2007 and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010 you will be able to download an upgrade to Office 2010 when it becomes available for free. Upon the release date of the latest Office, the price will vary between US$159 and US$499 for the boxed edition.

According to Windows watcher Paul Thurrott, Microsoft Office 2010 will be hitting general availability on June 15 this year, while insiders at Microsoft say that they will RTM Office 2010 sometime in late March/early April. Currently, Office 2010 is in the Release Candidate stage, with the RC being released to testers a few days ago.

When available, Office 2010 will be on offer in five different packages: Starter (the free version with ads), Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional and Professional Academic, with pricing ranging from US$99 to US$499. Also, if you purchase a copy of Office 2007 between March 15 and September 30 this year, you will get a free upgrade to the equivalent version of Office 2010.

Microsoft Office 2010, the next big revision of the Office line-up that in recent times we’ve been able to test thanks to the beta, has finally got it’s pricing information released. There will be two options: one is to buy the boxed set which comes with an installation CD and a product key that will work on 2 computers, and the other option is to buy just the product key on a card, that is cheaper and only works with one computer only.

The prices are as follows:

• Professional - $499 boxed, $349 for product key
• Professional Academic - $99 boxed only (only available at academic resellers)
• Home and Student - $149 boxed, $119 for product key
• Home and Business - $279 boxed, $199 for product key

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According to the latest report, Microsoft Office 2010 will be launching sometime in June 2010 for Windows, with the Mac OS X version to follow sometime later in 2010. On that day in June, six versions of the Office 2010 suite will be launching: Starter (with ads), Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional and Professional Plus. Like Windows updates, Microsoft will be launching Office with a full version and upgrade version.

Pricing is yet to be announced, however it is expected that the full version will show up on TechNet and MSDN before the street release date. Until then, you can download the public beta or check out our updated and revamped Office 2010 Beta overview.

We’ve seen a few things about Office 2010 over the year, and with the recent announcement that you can grab the Office 2010 Beta from Technet/MSDN, and shortly afterwards the general public, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on the latest update to the well known Microsoft Office branch. We do realise that this is just a beta and that the full version will be coming to us in the near future, but we still couldn’t wait to test it out.

Upgrading from Office 2007 to the 2010 beta was a breeze thanks to the installer for the beta, however it took a loooooooong time to do it on my relatively fast Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 and 3GB of RAM. The installer appeared to get a colour refresh, with a nice yellow/white tone to match the new, all-yellow Office logo; if you remember, the Office 2007 installer was blue. Entering the key to activate Office was a bit more difficult than 2007, however we hope that they add the key input to the installer rather than buried away inside the actual applications.

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It was released to Technet and MSDN, now it’s available to anyone who wants to try it out. You can grab a copy of the Office 2010 public beta in either the Home, Business, Professional or Professional Plus suites from the Microsoft website right now.