10,000 testers from Microsoft have received an official notification regarding Office 12 and are allowed to download this office software suite.
In the introduction to this beta version, Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela remarked about Office 12, “This is a very important and significant release in over 10 years after many years of research and development.”
Like its predecessor, Office 12 Professional will include: Word, Excel, Access, InfoPath, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Outlook. Users will get to experience the new interface that Microsoft has meticulously crafted, replacing the old toolbars. Office 12 also introduces several new features, including a “To Do” bar for viewing emails, tasks, and projects all in one square, along with support for reading RSS feeds.
Despite the numerous changes, the size of the Office 12 Professional CD is also maintained at 400MB by Microsoft. FrontPage 12 focuses on SharePoint development, akin to Expression Studio, and becomes a professional web development tool for Microsoft with a dedicated size of 200MB.
A new addition to the Office 12 suite is Groove’s Virtual Office, accompanied by three add-ons: Groove Management Services, Groove Data Bridge, and Groove Relay Server.
Microsoft plans to release Office 12 beta 2 in the spring of 2006 and will expand the testing audience further. The final version of Office 12 is expected to be released by the end of 2006.
The list of applications in this first beta version of Office 12 includes:
Microsoft Office “12” Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” FrontPage, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Groove, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Groove Management Services, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Groove Data Bridge, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Groove Relay Server, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” OneNote, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Project Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Visio Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” InterConnect, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Business Contact Manager, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Windows SharePoint Services, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office “12” Server, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Visual Studio Tools plug-in for Microsoft Office “12” InfoPath
Microsoft Office “12” Open XML File Format Compatibility Pack
For more information about the release of Office 12 Beta 1, you can refer here.
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