Microsoft has opened the floodgates for public downloads of Office 2010 Beta 2, along with its smartphone sibling Office Mobile 2010.
As tipped last week, Microsoft has overnight launched the latest Beta 2 test version of Office 2010 for public downloads.
Just be prepared for a bit of a wait – when the suite landed on Microsoft’s subscription-only TechNet and MSND services at the start of the week users were reporting barnstorming speeds of around 100KB/s as the download servers took a pounding.
And at the time of writing, Office 2010 wasn’t linked from Microsoft’s
Office Beta site – users have to go through the standard Microsoft
Office page and be armed with their Windows Live login.
This lets you fetch the app-packed Professional Plus 2010 test build, which is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions and runs on Windows XP SP3, Vista SP1 and Windows 7 (along with Windows Server 2003 R2 and 2008).
As with the public previews of Windows 7, Office 2010 Beta 2 requires a product activation key which is detailed during the download process.
And if you’ve managed to get your mitts onto a smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.5 you can also hit the Windows Mobile Marketplace to fetch your oven-fresh copy of Office Mobile 2010 Beta 1. This includes updated mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote along with the new SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010.