14 DAY TRIAL // The first public development milestone of Office 2010, coinciding with the first Beta Build, is just around the corner, and could be made available as early as the coming week. Microsoft has started sending notifications to participants in the Office 2010 Click-to-Run Technical Preview, informing them that the testing program is on track to being discontinued. Essentially, the Redmond company is shutting down the Office 2010 technical preview in order to make room for the upcoming development testing build of its next generation productivity suite.
“We are starting to prepare the Microsoft Connect site for the next Office 2010 release that we will also be asking for you to provide feedback on to us. You will receive an email next week with more information about the new release,” the software giant noted in an email message, via Neowin. “Starting November 10, 2009, the Office 2010 Click-to-Run Technical Preview release will no longer have available for downloading. You can continue to use the product on any computer it is installed.”
According to the email, Microsoft plans to share additional details about Office 2010 Beta come next week. This is not to say that the company will also make available for download the first public Beta of the successor of Office 2007 as early as next week. However, Microsoft did confirm that it was aiming to release Office 2010 Beta to the general public by the end of this month. The SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas was the stage where Microsoft revealed that Office 2010 public Beta was going to find its way to the general public in November 2009.
“It is important that you plan for the next product release. This release will NOT be upgradeable. You will be required to completely uninstall the current version of your product on the machine. We strongly advise that you backup all of your data files, before you uninstall the Office 2010 Click-to-Run Technical Preview release,” it is added in the email from the Office 2010 Click-to-Run Product Team.
It was during the last week of October that Microsoft started informing participants in the initial testing program for the next iteration of the Office System that the Office 2010 Technical Preview was beginning to shut down.