Office 2010 tech preview roundup
What a week! At the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Stephen Elop demonstrated Office 2010 for the first time and the feedback I have heard from people I talk to is “GIMME NOW”.
Technical Preview is essentially a pre-beta engineering milestone – very interesting to developers and IT Professionals managing complex environments, but much like a house that is almost finished, it may not be a comfortable as a full release.
But, if you are reading this blog, you probably spend more time with Office than you do with your own loved ones – so the evolution of such an important product is kind of a Big Deal. Here is a fairly comprehensive list of information to get up to speed on 2010.
Proper published information:
Blogs, Blogs, Blogs:
- Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog – includes a really good post about the “Backstage” view, and how it is a continuation of the UX decisions of Office 2007.
- Daniel Escapa’s OneNote blog – perhaps the best place to go to find technical information on OneNote 2010
- Microsoft SharePoint Team blog – for some details on the SharePoint strategy. I’m sure there will be much more at this years SharePoint Conference.
- Excel Team blog – discusses some of the new performance investments and something that I am very excited by, “Project Gemini”
- Outlook Team blog – I am quite excited about the little things in Outlook – being able to see a calendar snapshot before I accept a meeting request, ignore a rambling reply-all storm and quicksteps will all save me a little bit of time every day, which will add up to a lot of my year.
- PowerPoint Team blog – good showcase of all the new transitions in PowerPoint and a hint of a new powerpoint viewer :).
- Word Team blog – multiediting – when I was at school, we called this cheating. Now, we call it collaboration!
- InfoPath Team blog – InfoPath 2010 is shaping up to be a very solid release for the little form engine that could. Picture Buttons, Quick Rules, Quick Publishing, Mashups and a First Class People Picker!!!
Documentation and Specifications:
For the alpha-developers out there, this documentation will be also very useful for you.