Microsoft sent out an invitation this morning to a big list of peeps to test out Office 2010, which I was happy to accept! I am very impressed with this release of Office 2010 so far but I was also impressed with how I was able to access and download it – using Microsoft Connect.
For those of you wondering what the email says (yes, I have already been asked):
Welcome! We are pleased to invite you into the Technical Preview program to be among the first people in the world to experience Microsoft® Office 2010.
The following link will bring you to Microsoft Connect, where you will find downloads available for early, pre-release versions of Microsoft Office 2010 products. You will also find product information and have the chance to participate in newsgroups to engage with our product teams and other program participants. Please note that there is no technical support offered for this program.
To get started, please click on the link below. This is a one-time-use only url associated with this e-mail address, so it cannot be shared with others to join the program. This will bring you to the Connect site where you will need to sign in with your Windows Live ID account. If you do not have a Windows Live ID, you can create one from the Connect site.
Your ticket to the Technical preview: LINK REMOVED
So right off the bat I open Outlook, Excel and Word and they all load within 3-4 seconds and are ready to use within 5-7 seconds. This is EXTREMELY FAST and an ENORMOUS improvement over Office 2010! Microsoft has made some serious improvements to Office 2010 apps, both visually and behind the scenes. I love how they have really utilized the real estate at the top of all applications as well as improving the Office ribbon (from 2007). The Office button is much more efficient as well but most important to me is the fact that I am clicking less and working more with this version of Office.
So there you have it – lots of good comments for Office 2010 and we’re only on the Technical Preview! For benchmark purposes: I am running Office 2010 TP on my Macbook Pro 13 (Intel 2.53 Core 2 Duo, 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Ram, 256GB SSD) via VMWare Fusion v2.0.5.
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Cheers,
Kate
MSFT Office Outreach Team