Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Microsoft’s Next Office Suite, ‘Office 15,’ Enters Technical Preview





PCMag.Com - Office 15, the next generation of Office, has entered the technical preview state, Microsoft said Monday, with a public beta expected this summer.

The company said that it couldn’t share much about the new release, just that it is the “most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division.”

“The goal of Office 15 is to simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio,” PJ Hough, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office division, said in a blog post. “Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before.”

The technical preview stage means that Microsoft brings in trusted customers and long-time clients to test the first early alpha builds and provide feedback for the final releases. The builds are evaluated under non-disclosure agreements.

Hough said that Microsoft will have more to share about the software after the public beta is released this summer.

So far, Microsoft hasn’t released the level of technical detail that it has with its Building Windows 8 series of blog posts, where company executives have painstakingly released details, development plans, and the justifications for various features of Windows 8. Of late, Microsoft has revealed the REFS file system and picture passwords, along with the developer preview that was released in September.                More