Office 2010 in six version glory coming next summer
The most widely used productivity application on the planet is Microsoft Office. Microsoft makes the lion's share of its money from sales of Office and its Windows operating system.
Windows 7 hit the market recently and has been racking up impressive sales numbers. As of mid-November, Windows 7 had been able to grab 4% of the PC market. It took Windows Vista months to reach the same point.
A new version of Office called Office 2010 is also set to launch -- Neowin reports that the launch is scheduled for June 2010. The new version of Office will support ribbons for all products and a new Version of Office for Mac users will launch some time in 2010.
In all, six different versions of Office will be launching. Perhaps the most important to users on a budget will be the free version offering Word and Excel with ads to support the cost and limited functionality. Exactly what functions will be limited is unknown at this time.
Other version of the Office 2010 suite will include Starter, Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus. The Professional Plus version is available in public beta right now.
Applications available in Office 2010 include Access, Excel, InfoPath Designer, InfoPath Filler, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, SharePoint workspace, Word, and Communicator. Microsoft is also updating Visio and Project to 2010 versions, neither of which are included with any Office 2010 version.
Users who have a TechNet or MSDN subscription should be able to get the full version of Office 2010 ahead of the rumored June launch date. The beta version of Office 2010 available now does require a license key from Microsoft.
