Tech Ed North America 2009 kicked off today, where Microsoft extended its first invitations into the Office 2010 Technical Preview and demoed Office 2010 onstage at the first major event since PDC.

• Registrations began for the Office 2010 Technical Preview program.  Attendees will get the first opportunity to opt-in at Teched to the invitation-only Office 2010 Technical Preview program which will launch in July. (Office client only)
• IT Professional Community viral site launched.  IT Pros, and others, can sign up to be on a “waiting list” for the Technical Preview program at www.office2010themovie.com.
• System Requirements announced.  Preliminary system requirements for Office 2010 were shared today and can be found here.
• Outlook 2010 demoed for the first time onstage!  Bill Veghte, SVP of Windows, got the conference underway with a message to IT Pros and developers including a demo that featured Outlook 2010 working with Exchange 2010.  Click here to see the keynote.

“Office 2010 will help you do more with less, stay competitive, and prepare for the future by providing IT with a flexible platform and end users with tools to more effectively work together to bring ideas to life across the PC, phone, and browser.  We’ve barely just begun to share the upcoming innovation with the world, but every step we take to prepare our customers for this game-changing release is an important one.”, Takeshi Numoto, CVP Microsoft Office