RSSMicrosoft Plots Out Office 12 Timeline
By David Worthington | Published November 3, 2004, 11:21 PM
Microsoft has been quietly briefing select partners on its plans for its forthcoming Office 12 series of desktop productivity and server products. According to Microsoft Watch, Microsoft's internal calendar has Beta 1 penciled in for August 29, 2005 with a second beta lined up for December 5, 2005.
Unconfirmed reports point to an array of new Office server products on the horizon. These include server versions of Excel, Visio and potentially InfoPath. The extension of Office System server development has left the rumor mill whirling about potential Web services.
In addition, Microsoft Watch has reported that Redmond may launch a new charting application as part of the Office 12 desktop SKU. The charting application may draw on Longhorn's Avalon graphics subsystem. The subsystem could also be back-ported to legacy edition of Windows to make the Office System more widely available.
According to details leaked from the internal timeline, Microsoft expects to ship the final product on July 17, 2006. The Longhorn wave of products is expected to start shipping in 2006.
Bad news for anyone who had SA when Office 2003 first came out till July of this year. Going further, SA might be a good buy since your likely to get a new version before it expires. But MS might just push the date back and require more people to reinvest in SA to get the new verison.
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|Yeah, but you have to keep in mind, that even if you go through a cycle without upgrades, it can still cost less.
Initial SA purchase is about 30% over regular price without SA. Future renewals however are about 30% of the regular price, so after the initial purchase, you could go 6 years and 1 version covers the renewals costs!
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