Office 2010 u-turn as public beta plan restored
Microsoft has promised that it will provide at least one public beta to Office 2010, saying that its assertion to the contrary earlier this week was "the wrong impression". "Although we are not disclosing a date for the public beta, there definitely will be one," a company spokesman said yesterday. "This development cycle for Office is no different than years past; technical preview is usually invite-only, but still goes out to hundreds of thousands of people, and there is a public beta cycle where millions can download and try Office."
On Wednesday, a different company spokesperson said that Microsoft had no plans to distribute a beta to the general public - as it had done with Office 2007 - but said that a closed test involving "thousands" would begin during the third quarter of 2009.
The spokesman on Thursday declined to outline a timetable for Office 2010's public beta, to specify the number of betas Microsoft will produce and to say what it will be called. "We have not locked on that yet," he said, referring to the last of the three questions.
