Microsoft released Office 12 beta

10,000 Microsoft testers have received an official notification from Microsoft about Office 12 and allow these test members to download this office suite.

In the introduction to this test version, Microsoft vice president Chris Capossela commented on Office 12 ' This is a very important and meaningful release for more than 10 years after many years of research and development .'

Like previous versions, Office 12 Professional will include: Word, Excel, Access, InfoPath, PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook. Users will be able to 'touch' the new interface that Microsoft has created, replacing the old ones. Office 12 also has many new features by itself, including the ' To Do ' bar to view mail, tasks and tasks in a single square, and support RSS reading.

Although there are many changes, the capacity of Office 12 Professional CD is also kept by Microsoft at 400MB. Frontpage 12 focuses on SharePoint development like Expression Studio and becomes a professional web development tool for Microsoft with a capacity of up to 200MB.

A new member of the Office 12 suite is Groove's Virtual Office, with three additions: Groove Management Services, Groove Data Bridge and Groove Relay Server.

Microsoft plans to release a copy of Office 12 beta 2 in the spring of 2006 and will expand beyond the test audience. The final version of Office 12 will be released at the end of 2006.

The list of applications in this 1st Office 12 suite includes:

Microsoft Office '12' Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' FrontPage, Beta-1 buildMicrosoft Office '12' Groove, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Groove Management Services, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Groove Data Bridge, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Groove Relay Server, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' OneNote, Beta-1 build
Project Microsoft Office '12' Project Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Visio Professional, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' InterConnect, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Business Contact Manager, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Windows SharePoint Services, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Office '12' Server, Beta-1 build
Microsoft Visual Studio Tools plug-in for Microsoft Office '12' InfoPath
Microsoft Office '12' Open XML File Format Compatibility Pack

More information about the release of Office 12 Beta 1 can be found here.

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