Yesterday (June 29), Microsoft announced yet another delay in the launch of its Office 2007 suite of software.
According to the developers, the reason for this delay is concerns about the software’s functionality following the public release of its beta versions.
Microsoft currently plans to finalize the code for the latest version of Office by the end of this year. Previously, this work was expected to be completed by October 2006.
In March, Microsoft announced that it would release Office 2007 to the market in January 2007, coinciding with the launch of Windows Vista. However, the developer now only states very vaguely: “Office 2007 will launch in early 2007“.
“Based on the results of internal testing and the feedback from participants in the Office 2007 Beta 2 regarding the software’s functionality, we have decided to adjust the launch plan for this software suite to early 2007 instead of the end of this year,” a Microsoft representative confirmed. “The feedback on the quality and functionality of the software will determine the specific launch date for Office 2007“.
It remains unclear whether the delay in the official launch of Office 2007 will affect the launch plans for Windows Vista or if both products will be released simultaneously.
“We are currently evaluating the impacts of changing the release timeline for Office 2007 on our specific plans,” a representative from the Windows development team stated. This representative also emphasized that Microsoft still aims to deliver to users by January next year.
Gartner analyst Michael Silver believes that the delay in launching Office 2007 could impact some businesses, especially those that purchased software licenses at the end of 2003. Typically, Enterprise Agreement (EA) or Software Assurance (SA) contracts include clauses stating that the new software version covered by the agreement will launch approximately three years later.
Microsoft indicated that the official release dates for Office and Vista will depend significantly on when the software code reaches a certain quality level. The developer announced that a nearly finalized version of Windows Vista will be released in the third quarter of this year.
Also, yesterday, Microsoft reported that the number of customers downloading the trial version of Windows Vista has reached the target limit set by the development team. It is expected that today Microsoft will cease the download of the Vista trial.
Alongside the public release of the Office 2007 trial version, Microsoft also launched a trial version of its web-based office suite.
Hoàng Dũng
