Microsoft releases Office 2010 beta to all

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By Tim Danton

Posted on 18 Nov 2009 at 18:00

The first and only beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 is now available for anyone to download. Today also marks the debut of Office 2010 Web Apps in the UK.

The download version is Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 and will keep working until October 2010. It includes all the major applications, including Microsoft Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.

Jacob Jaffe, head of the Information Worker Business Group of Microsoft UK, claims Office 2010 will help businesses gain greater insight. “It’s about how we help people make better decisions more quickly and cope with massive amounts of information – how do I get to the information in that Excel document?

“And how can we work together? Not just in the same company but for people in disparate places and time zones.”

New features

New features include Sparklines in Excel, which show trend data for a set of figures in a single cell, a new file-management interface called Backstage view, and the ability to rescue unsaved files - say if you've been working on a document for an hour then close it without saving.

Jaffe also believes Microsoft can offer something different than its rivals. “We feel we’re uniquely set up to deliver an experience across all platforms,” he said, referring to the fact Office 2010 documents can be shared without any loss of fidelity between PC, web browser and phone.

The mobile version of Office 2010 isn’t yet available to try, but we include Microsoft-supplied screenshots in the photo gallery (top left of the screen). UK users can now access the Web Apps via SkyDrive, Microsoft’s free online storage service.

To try it, you need to upload an Excel .xlsx document to SkyDrive, then click on it. You should see an Edit link in the menu line. Alternatively, you should find a “New” option in a SkyDrive folder, which offers “Excel Workbook, PowerPoint Presentation, Word Document or OneNote Notebook.”

Note that the Microsoft Office 2010 beta download measures 700MB. PC Pro will distribute it with the DVD edition of issue 185 of the magazine, which goes on sale in mid-January.