Microsoft’s Office Store Is Now Open

The same as Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest version of the Office productivity suite, namely Office 2013, will be accompanied by a software portal when made commercially available.

Microsoft has already pushed to the public a preview flavor of Office 2013, which is available for download from Softpedia as well, via this link, but it did not offer specific info on when the final flavor of the application would become available for purchase.

Even so, the company does offer developers the possibility to download the new version of the suite and get started with the building of applications for it.

Apps included in the Office Store will be targeted at the next version of Office (Excel, Outlook, Word) and SharePoint, and will be available for all those who purchase the suite.

The Office Store is now available online in a beta flavor, and can be accessed through the Office.com website.

“With over a billion people using Microsoft Office the developer opportunity is huge,” Vivek Narasimhan, product manager, SharePoint, notes in a blog post.

“Whether the app is focused on content management, data visualization, financial management, project management, sales & marketing, HR, education, travel, social…(The list really does go on and on!) there are an incredible number of individuals or teams who are looking for solutions to meet those needs.”

Moreover, Microsoft also designed the store to provide IT administrators with the possibility to control access to the Office Store through using customizable purchase workflows.

Additionally, there is an internal distribution mechanism in SharePoint called the App Catalog meant to enable enterprise users to come up with in-house apps (as well as to source them from partners) and easily distribute them to their employees.

For developers, the launch of Office Store means new options when it comes to distributing productivity apps (or other software) that users need.

“While we could have created an online store that was a simple website with a transaction system, we decided to create a store that allows you to deliver your solutions seamlessly to a billion customers right within the product, maintain a public profile, collect customer feedback in the form of review comments and get paid wherever/ however you want,” the aforementioned blog post continues.

Developers interested in the matter can now head over to Office.com to have a look at the new Store, or can have a look at the new dev center that Microsoft brought online for them to get started with the building of apps for Office.