There is little doubt that Office 2010 deserves its position alongside Windows 7 as Microsoft’s key products. Judging in terms of the sheer size of the Beta testing process, Office 2010 is at least on par with Windows 7, if not enjoying even more success, than the latest iteration of the Windows client. According to Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, there have been in excess of 8.6 million downloads of Office 2010 as the product was making its way from Beta, through release Candidate and onward to RTM (release to manufacturing).

Microsoft statistics reveal that pre-release copies of Windows 7 were downloaded over 8 million times, which in this context indicates that Office 2010 managed to attract a bigger number of testers. “Now, I get asked a lot of questions from the press, you know, what are customers saying? What's the adoption look like? And all of that. Well, already, 8.6 million people – 8.6 million people are using the 2010 set of products through participation in our beta program. That is more than three times as many people that engaged in the Office 2007 beta program. So, just a huge pickup today,” Elop revealed during the Business Office 2010 Launch, on May 12, 2010.

Office 2010 RTM is now available for purchase to business users worldwide. The Redmond company revealed that the general public would have to wait a tad longer for the RTM bits. The General Availability deadline for Office 2010 has been set for June 15th, 2010, according to Chris Capossela, senior vice president, Information Worker Product Management Group.

In early December 2009, Office 2010 Beta had been downloaded over 1 million times, with Build 14.0.4536.1000 having been available since mid-November. In January 2010, the number of downloads jumped to over 2 million. And by mid-April 2010, Office 2010 downloads have passed the 7.5 million downloads mark.

“I am personally very excited, deeply proud, and profoundly moved to announce today Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio, and Project 2010 now available for purchase by businesses customers all over the world. Today is the day. So, we're just so thrilled with that news, thank you,” Elop said on May 12. “(…)And today, more than 90 million business customers will gain access to the next generation in productivity applications. So, we're very excited about the momentum we see.”