Beta announcement:

As previously posted on "Now it's Official" I’ll proudly present the official news of the day:

Today, Microsoft is releasing the public beta of

• Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010 and Office Web Apps for business customers.
  Millions of people can download the beta at the following links:

SharePoint Foundation 2010 (Windows SharePoint Services 2010 Beta)

Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise 2010 Beta

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products (Beta) Management Pack

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 (Beta) Management Pack

Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Beta

Microsoft SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Enterprise 2010 Beta

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Beta (64-bit)

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Beta (32-bit)

Note!  The public beta will be shown as Build  14.0.4536.1000

• Office Mobile 2010 has also reached the public beta milestone and is now available on
  the Windows Mobile Marketplace  for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.
  
• As part of the beta Microsoft is unveiling several new capabilities, including:
  
  • The Outlook Social Connector, a new feature which brings communications history, business and social networking feeds into the Outlook experience.
    
    • At beta The Outlook Social Connector will support SharePoint social networking and support Windows Live at launch.
    • Microsoft is also announcing that Linked-in and Facebook will be the among the first third-party social networking sites that  have providers for the Outlook Social Connector.
    • Microsoft also released the Outlook Social Connector SDK for developers to build connectors to third-party social networks.
  • Technology and design advancements, including deeper integration between Office 2010 and Office Web applications, improved navigation, visual design and icon updates, a new Office logo and increased performance and stability.
• As a result of the continued partnership with SAP, Microsoft also announced intend to deliver Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP, which will expand the long standing solutions that blend the worlds of process and collaboration. The solution is planned to be released in the H2 2010

Find more Links and resources on my previous post about “2010 and the new features”

Installation notice for the SharePoint Server Public Beta
on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows 7

If you will be installing the SharePoint Server 2010 Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7, then you will need to download and install an update from http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806  to resolve an issue that occurs in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when provisioning Service Applications or when accessing pages that make service calls. 

Without the hotfix, these operations will result in an error

"System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'.

Note!

Attribute names are case-sensitive!
(C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\<Service Area>\client.config line <Line Number>)". 

If you have already installed Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on a server running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 does not need to be reinstalled when the update becomes available; however, Service Applications that have been successfully provisioned without the update installed may need to be removed and re-provisioned once the update has been successfully applied.

have fun with the new “Wave 14” ;-)  Steve Chen