"We are hoping to have millions of people download and test the products, as we depend on that feedback to shape the final product," said Kurt DelBene, senior vice president of the Office Business Productivity Group at Microsoft. "To get the broadest range of feedback we are making this beta available in seven languages -- English, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, French and German -- more than any other Office beta program in the past."

The Debut of Mobile 2010

A centerpiece of the announcement is Office Mobile 2010, which DelBene said makes the Office experience across the PC, phone and browser a reality. Office Mobile 2010 includes mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and new SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010, and is available worldwide in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

"We're also announcing several new features in Office 2010," DelBene said. "One key new offering is the Outlook Social Connector, which brings communications history, business collaboration , and social-network feeds directly into Outlook, with support for Windows Live and SharePoint Server."

Microsoft also announced plans to deliver a new product named Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP. With tens of thousands of joint customers around the world, DelBene said bringing SAP applications and business processes together with Microsoft SharePoint creates the opportunity to release a new wave of productivity gains for end users.

DelBene said Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP will make way for customers and partners with the opportunity to compose solutions based upon Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and SAP. The solution is for release in the second half of 2010.

Introducing Project 2010

Other highlights of the announcement are Project 2010 and Visio 2010. With Visio 2010, Microsoft focused on three key things.

First, DelBene said, is ease of use with Visio 2010 incorporating the Office Fluent user interface and design philosophy to help people complete tasks and create better-looking diagrams with greater efficiency . (continued...)

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