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Microsoft Launches Office 2010 With Web Apps and More Mobility

by Caleb Johnson on May 13, 2010 at 12:30 PM

Office 2010 Logo
At a live event in New York City yesterday, Microsoft launched its Office 2010 software package. The ubiquitous productivity suite, available now for volume license holders, can be downloaded starting May 11th, and will hit store shelves in June. The updated package focuses on making Office more mobile and Web-friendly, which is likely Microsoft's response to the growing popularity of Google's free online applications. It can be installed on PCs that run Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista or Windows 7, meaning, essentially, if you've installed Office 2007, you can install Office 2010.

Microsoft's first step is launching Office Mobile 2010 (available today on Windows Marketplace), which works on phones running the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system and contains full versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It also integrates with SharePoint 2010 and will turn your mobile device into a Bluetooth controller for slideshow presentations. The next step is the ability to access and use Office's three chief programs -- Word, Excel and Powerpoint -- on the Web. However, right now, these apps can only be used with volume license editions of the software

We haven't taken Office 2010 for a test run yet, but PC Mag got their hands on a Professional Edition, which retails for about $500. PC Mag suggests there are three types of folks who should upgrade to Office 2010: people who need to create documents and presentations with lots of graphics; larger businesses who will use the software to share files and tools; people who need to create spreadsheets that are bigger than the 32-bit Excel's 2-gigabyte limit. In other words, there's not much need to drop a few hundred if you're just planning on using Office 2010 at home.

In its own full review of Office 2010, V3 takes a similar stance. Office 2010 has some visual enhancements over previous versions, but that's not enough to warrant an upgrade for most people. The Web apps, which seem to be Microsoft's main selling point, work across different browsers and look nice, but, as we stated earlier, they aren't available to the average consumer yet, and not on Macs until 2011. For now, we'll stick with our older versions of Office. And, unless you fall under one of the three previously mentioned categories, you'd likely do well to follow suit. [From: Reuters, Engadget, PC Mag and V3]

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Word, MicrosoftWord, mobile apps, MobileApps, office, office 2010, Office2010, powerpoint, SharePoint, top, windows, windows 7, windows mobile, word

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