Public Beta of Office 2010 Available in November

Today Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the public beta of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010 will become available in November.

Office 2010, formerly known under its code name "Office 14", is going to be released in two different flavors: 32-bit and 64-bit, making it the first Office to support both platforms. Another interesting tidbit is the ad-supported, free, and reasonably slimmed-down, Web-based version of Office 2010, which was announced at the Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles, September 2008. Businesses, which want to use the Web-based version without the ads, will have to pay a fee to Microsoft.

During his keynote address at Microsoft Corp.'s SharePoint Conference Ballmer said: "By taming the overflow of information across systems and technologies, SharePoint enables organizations to thrive. SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business."

"Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Visio 2010, that are designed to give people the best productivity experience across PCs, phones and browsers."