“Microsoft Office 2010″ coming in…you guessed it…2010

Office junkies will start of today feeling a bit better about themselves knowning that Microsoft’s next update to the butter of their bread and butter business, Microsoft Office, will get a major update in 2010.  Previously dubbed Office 14, announced yesterday, the next office suite will officially be called “Microsoft Office 2010″ and will enter “technical preview”, (more or less a beta), by later this year with a release to manufacturer date sometime in the first half of 2010.  Now don’t start hyperventilating quite yet.  The info I just shared doesn’t mean that Office will ship to the masses in the first half of 2010, but to manufacturers.  From their it is up to the manufacturers to push it out to the rest of us.  Why the vaugness in the public release date?  It will safeguard Big M from breaking release date promises and claims – certainly understandable.  In other Microsoft related news, Windows 7 still hasn’t been given a birth date by M either.  The general consensus is that Windows 7 will ship by the end of 2009, however repeated claims by Microsoft have somewhat made that 2009 release slip into 2010.  All is rumor and speculation for now, so we’ll just have to wait it out.

Source: Alley Insider