14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is nearing the launch of the next generation of its key products, including Office 15 and Internet Explorer 10, among others, but hasn’t provided specific info on when these will arrive on shelves as of yet.
Today, however, a series of leaked screenshots from documents that Microsoft has sent to its partners unveil some info on the matter, including the fact that Office 15 is set to hit availability sometime in early 2013.
Unfortunately, the document that emerged over at ZDNet does not offer info on when Office 15 will hit RTM, though rumor has it that the suite will be released to manufacturing sometime in November this year.
Starting mid-2012, the product might enter the beta stage, and chances are that Microsoft will unveil some more info on its official release date when that happens.
What’s interesting to note is that Internet Explorer 10 appears set to make an official appearance at any given time.
The browser is under heavy development in Windows 8, yet Microsoft already released early builds on Windows 7 too, and should hit gold status soon.
Microsoft delivered the latest update for Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 in summer last year, and they might bring the final version of the application to this platform in mid-2012, most probably at the same time when the Release Candidate flavor of Windows 8 arrives.
The leaked roadmap also unveils that Visual Studio will hit RTM status sometime in late 2012, just as previously expected, and that SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse will have a similar fate.
Unfortunately, the document does not offer details on the next releases of Windows, Windows Phone or Lync Server 15 (this product is nowhere to be seen on the Office 15 roadmap), as ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley points out.
The document is dated December 2011, and Microsoft might have changed some of the aforementioned dates.
Stay tuned for additional details on the matter.
