Office 14 Crawls Toward Beta
Microsoft has already started testing some of the components that make up the Office 14 wave of products.
With Office 14, Microsoft has said it will offer desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as versions that can run online in a browser, be it Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox. As previously noted, that means that for the first time Office will also work on both Linux and Apple's iPhone.
Microsoft has already started testing some of the components that make up the Office 14 wave of products. Capossela wouldn't go into too many specifics about when Office 14 would ship, but said Microsoft hoped not to be too far beyond its typical cycle which sees new versions roughly every three years.
The last version of Office, Office 2007 was finalized and made available to large businesses in late 2006 and had its consumer launch with Windows Vista in January 2007.
As for the new Web-based products, Capossela reiterated that they are already being tested "with a small set of people."
"We will look to expand that number relatively soon," he said. The final version, though he said, won't come until the desktop version of Office 14 is also done. "In terms of when things will be completely done we'll take the beta name off when the wave is completely done," he said.
For businesses, though, Capossela said Microsoft is competing plenty well with its current suite, Office 2007. Although the company had some high-profile customers consider a move to Google Apps, Capossela said that the pressure has actually waned some.
"The bloom is off the rose I would say when it comes to Google in the enterprise," he said. "Last year there was a nice halo effect for their brand for their business offerings."
But he said, the actual business adoption of Google's productivity software has been low. "I think the reality is Google isn't an enterprise company. Microsoft wasn't an enterprise company a long time ago and it took us years to earn the credibility."
Capossela pointed to the fact that many of Google's products, even the ones it sells to businesses are still in beta form.
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