Yet another piece of the Office 2010 Technical Preview puzzle has fallen into place. Microsoft announced that the private testing phase of Office Project 2010 debuted on July 27, 2009. The Redmond company started unveiling the first testing development milestone of Office 2010 in the first half of July 2009, with the debut of the Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 in New Orleans. However, back in April 2009, the software giant delivered the first public Beta of Exchange Server 2010, preceding the Technical Preview by months. Now Office Project 2010 Technical Preview has also been given the green light.

Over a week ago, Doug McCutcheon, product manager for Project Management, revealed that Microsoft was not yet ready to offer testers the Technical Preview (Beta 1) invitations for Project 2010. But this is no longer the case. In fact, Microsoft has now started serving the keys that will allow testers to start using not just Project 2010, but also Project Server 2010.

Testers should keep in mind that just as it is the case for Office 2010, the Technical Preview of Project 2010 is also a limited program. At the same time, Microsoft has turned for Project 2010 to a similar strategy as for the whole productivity suite, namely the company is waitlisting testers and promises that additional invitations will be delivered in the future.

“We are pleased to announce the issuing of the Technical Preview keys for the 2010 release of Project and Project Server. The email was issued from proj2010 at microsoft.com. Due to the limited number of invitations available, if you applied and have not yet received an invitation you will be automatically wait listed. There is only one invitation per organization. We will review uptake in Mid-August and reallocate the remaining keys. The keys are issued under the terms of the Non Disclosure Agreement,” McCutcheon noted.