RSSMicrosoft launches Office 2010 technical beta a few days early
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 16, 2009, 5:39 PM
Participants in the first Technical Preview for Microsoft Office 2010 received invitations this morning to join the Office 2010 technical beta build 4536.1000. Not long afterward, the link to the technical beta went live on MSDN and TechNet.
Ironically, once again, attendees at Microsoft's own PDC 2009 conference were the last to know about it, unless they were checking their own e-mail. The first hint that something was up came up during an unrelated demo during Day 0 of the conference. At the bottom of a screen where taskbar demos were being shown, the new icons for the Office 2010 apps showed up. Now, it appears all Office apps will be represented by their initials, not just Word.
In the new artwork package this year, we're noticing that the Office logo not only gets a tweak (arrows pointing to the center of the various boxes) but a color scheme change. As Google commandeers more of Microsoft's four-color product logos, Microsoft itself has been signaling shape and design over color, especially with Exchange Server and SQL Server. Now Office gets an all-gold scheme -- gold used to be Outlook's color.
Technical Preview participants were not necessarily MSDN or TechNet members, so in actuality, the Technical Beta is being extended to two groups, the second of which are comprised of active contributors to the Preview program. Today's release may impact the anticipated schedule of the keynotes somewhat, which originally had been spread out over two days. We had anticipated the Office beta launch Wednesday.
We'll dive into the download tonight and let you know what we find.
No support for Windows XP 64-bit. Neglected bas**** step child.
Score: 0
|Crashed within 4 minutes. Yeah I know it's a beta and all, but jeez, at this point since 2003 all Microsoft has really been doing is glossing over the same program again and again with ribbons and fades. You think they'd get basic functionality down by now?
Score: 0
|Nothing beneficial for most businesses – no reason to upgrade/purchase –
Like Vista – all bling – no function.
If they wanted to improve Office they SHOULD have -
1. Made outlook open multiple e-mail accounts as full exchange -not an additional mailbox with some functionality or pop/imap with very limited functionality but two seperate exchange profiles simultaneously from multiple exchange servers.
2. Full OLE support for pictures in access – umm wasn’t that functional with Office XP – why take that out? Why should someone have to code to add pictures to a personal database? Might was well use oracle or a real database if you are going to have to use code. Adding Office XP photo editor is the work around but why not just add photo editor back into office if that is the solution?
3. Offer the old menu bar for people (most of my clients) who don’t want to learn the new menu bar. You can finally modify the ribbon to some extent in 2010 however my clients just want their old ribbon bar. Frankly I have no issue with the new menu bar but I’m one person and most of my clients don’t like it so prefer to stick with office 2003. MS could make money selling the new version if they just offered the old menu as a choice with the new ribbon.
Nothing beneficial for most businesses – no reason to upgrade/purchase –
Like Vista – all bling – no function.
If they wanted to improve Office they SHOULD have -
1. Made outlook open multiple e-mail accounts as full exchange -not an additional mailbox with some functionality or pop/imap with very limited functionality but two seperate exchange profiles simultaneously from multiple exchange servers.
2. Full OLE support for pictures in access – umm wasn’t that functional with Office XP – why take that out? Why should someone have to code to add pictures to a personal database? Might was well use oracle or a real database if you are going to have to use code. Adding Office XP photo editor is the work around but why not just add photo editor back into office if that is the solution?
3. Offer the old menu bar for people (most of my clients) who don’t want to learn the new menu bar. You can finally modify the ribbon to some extent in 2010 however my clients just want their old ribbon bar. Frankly I have no issue with the new menu bar but I’m one person and most of my clients don’t like it so prefer to stick with office 2003. MS could make money selling the new version if they just offered the old menu as a choice with the new ribbon.
Score: 0
|Regarding your first item - they totally added full multiple exchange account support. It only took like a decade, but man is it sweet to finally have this ability.
Score: 0
|Access should be abandoned. There's no reason in 2009 anybody should be using it for a serious database. It has never scaled well and it has ALWAYS had stability and corruption issues.
Score: 1
|Thank you for telling about the launches of beta 2010.
Acai Berry
Score: 0
|The only social networking offered now is Sharepoint.
Score: 0
|hey i'll try this out tonight after work.. vdown style
Score: 1
|I didn't get an invitation, but I'm running the first technical preview. Guess I wasn't an "active contributor".
Score: 0
|Sure enough, just checked my Technet account, indeed it is there in both x86 & x64 iterations. Downloading the latter now.
Score: 0
|There is a reasoning behind this few days early launch of public beta... because a guy had it sent to him directly from MS stuck on some cool USB Key n decided to leak it earlier than he should have...
The story behind it is:
Microsoft's highly anticipated Office 2010 beta suite has leaked this week on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
The build, numbered version 14.0.4514.1009, is tagged with the "beta 2" naming. The leak reportedly requires keys to install but accepts Office 2010 Technical Preview keys. Michael Aulia of Craving Tech posted some screen shots and his initial impressions after Microsoft sent him the beta directly.
From the screen shots posted it's clear the UI has been refined in the Office 2010 beta and the program icons have been updated. It's widely expected that a public beta build of Office 2010 will be available next week. Microsoft has kept quiet on the reports but has hinted on the official Office twitter account "MS Office team has some exiting news to tell at PDC. This is a must attend event. Stay tuned!" and a follow up post hints at possible social networking features in Outlook, "would you like your inbox to talk to your social networks? Useful integration or distraction?".
Score: 1
|