David Flynn14 November 2009, 12:56 PM
Microsoft will release public beta editions of Office 2010 and the online Office Web Apps components this coming Wednesday.
Following a round of invitation-only beta testing earlier this year, Microsoft will unleash Office 2010 Beta 2 to the public this Wednesday, Australian time, at the kick-off to its annual Professional Developer’s Conference in Los Angeles.
Unlike July’s ‘technical preview’ beta edition, however, this broader public release of Office 2010 will also include Office Web Apps – the slimmed-down online companions for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (OneNote is currently missing from the mix).
Documents will be stored on the Windows Live SkyDrive service and can be edited or created within the Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers. Office 2010 will also support the saving of local documents into SkyDrive folders.
Microsoft’s revamped Office Beta site stands ready to serve up Office 2010 Beta 2 to the public
(children in cardboard planes not included)
Microsoft has already updated its
Office Beta site in readiness for next week’s download-a-rama.
Users will be able to fetch Office 2010 Beta 2 in Home & Business, Professional and Professional Plus editions. These are tipped to be
available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and run on Windows XP SP3,
Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
Judging from the artwork on the page it also looks like Office will get a new logo – a less colourful but warmer and more stylised version of the interlocking Office brand.