I wanted to post quickly to acknowledge the information that you have seen today around bits of Office 2010 being leaked. While all of us here are happy to see the incredible excitement and engagement (and are absolutely chomping at the bit to reach the July milestone) we aren’t quite ready to release the technical preview bits. I would encourage all of you to wait until the official bits are available to ensure the best possible experience and not miss out on anything we may include.
As a heads up, because we want to ensure our customers are safe, we have been monitoring various torrents and already detected quite a few that were infected. As a reminder, the Win 7 leak was used as a vector for attack and it’s not surprising to see this being used the same way. So, please be aware that if you download this torrent there is a very good chance you are also getting some unexpected malware with it.
In the meantime keep checking back as we will certainly have more updates.
Reed
First, thanks to everyone for the support and excitement. I promise there is a lot more on the way. With that being said, I did want to acknowledge two things that you may have read about:
1. Groove becomes SharePoint Workspace. This is true. Please read the Groove SharePoint Workspace team blog here for the scoop.
2. OneNote and SharePoint Workspace going into the ProPlus SKU. Also true. This matters more for our VL customers but we want to make this public today. Read this and our other OneNote blog for more information on the changes.
For those that may not be familiar with OneNote or haven’t used it as much at this point, head over to www.iheartonenote.com to see what real people are doing with it today. This site is run by real OneNote users but has some incredible content.
Thanks again,
PS
For those that haven’t heard, the official twitter tag is office2010movie. Also, there's backlog of comments to look through after the traffic today but we will try and answer them all tonight or tomorrow morning.
Today, at our annual TechEd event held in the US we are announcing that attendees will make up the first segment of our limited Technical Preview program that will kick off in July. We have some additional content we will be releasing going into this milestone so keep checking back (check out www.office2010themovie.com as well).
So while we aren't ready to start demoing and sharing all of the features quite yet, we have heard the feedback loud and clear that requirements for running our software needs to be available ASAP (you will see if you look here that our server products have released similar information). To that end, this post will cover the preliminary system requirements for Office 2010.
1. Office 2010 will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
2. Office 2010 will run on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
3. You don't need to replace hardware that is capable of running 2007, it will support Office 2010. Like Windows 7 has demonstrated, we realize that taking advantage of the hardware you already own is just as important as supporting all the new technology coming out.
Below, we have tried to cover some of the common questions that we are anticipating on this topic. If we missed something please let us know in the comments. Anything that we can share at this point, we will.
Q: What is technical preview?
A: Technical preview is an engineering milestone leading towards RTM that Office 2010 and related products will reach in July 2009.
Q: Will customers or partners be given access to the products at the technical preview milestone?
A: Beginning at the technical preview milestone, we will conduct an invitation only technical preview program where participants will able to experience Office Professional Plus 2010 and Visio 2010. You can sign up to be on the list for entry at office2010themovie.com.
Q: Will I need to upgrade hardware to install Office 2010 and related products?
A: Office 2010 Suite products are offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions so customers will not be required to upgrade 32-bit PC’s and Laptops to 64-bit hardware to run Office 2010 Suite Products. Certain hardware configurations and operating system versions customers currently have deployed may require an upgrade to run server and client products.
Check back frequently as we will be sharing more information as we march closer to July. If there are things you want to know about, topics you want discussed, etc. then please let us hear it.
Reed Shaffner
Office TPM
This blog is being created by the Office team to help our IT professionals and enthusiasts get a better idea of what we are building with Office 2010 and discuss the key issues that matter to you. We are all incredibly excited to start talking about the new version of Office and hope you will participate here.