Solid Mobile Phone: Office 14 crawls toward beta

Microsoft has already started testing some of the components that make
up the Office 14 wave of products. Capossela wouldn't go into too many
specifics about when Office 14 would ship, but said Microsoft hoped
not to be too far beyond its typical cycle which sees new versions
roughly every three years.

Just because Office 14 won't be fully released until next year doesn't
mean consumers will have to wait that long to try out the products.

In an interview this week Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said
that Microsoft will offer more details on the beta "relatively soon,"
noting that Office has traditionally made its products available to
millions of testers well before the final version ships.

"That's been true of the suite," he said. "That will certainly be true
of the suite this time and of the Web apps."

With Office 14, Microsoft has said it will offer desktop versions of
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as versions that can run
online in a browser, be it Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox. As
previously noted, that means that for the first time Office will also
work on both Linux and Apple's iPhone. CEO Steve Ballmer told
financial analysts last week that Office 14 would not come out this
year.