I get a regular tech mailbag of people asking for advice and support and you too can email me at mike[at]MVPs.org, I try to answer every question put to me.  I had an unusual one this weekend though from someone who said they’d bought a new laptop with an upgrade card for the full version of Office, but that while some apps in Office were running smoothly, others were saying they weren’t legitimate and wouldn’t run at all.

The Office purchase card is something that PC sales people in retail outlets will try and sell you with the PC.  They’ll tell you that Office Starter is “limited”, no better than Microsoft’s online apps or Google Docs.  They’ll probably add that that the programs in it, which just include Word and Excel will “hardly do anything” and that you must upgrade if the experience of using Office on your PC is to be enjoyable in any way.

Well I’ve used Office Starter and I can assure you that unless you want to use more advanced features such as adding referencing and notes to documents in Word, or adding Pivot tables in Excel, it’s perfectly good and for most people will do everything you need.  There’s simply nothing wrong with Office 2010 Starter and the best part is, it’s completely free.

When you run it for the first time you’ll be presented with the screen here, where it will give you three options.  That you’ve already purchased a full copy of Office and want to enter your product key, that you want to go online to purchase office, or that you just want to use the basic Office 2010 Starter.

The problem can occur when you choose the second option and go and buy a full copy of Office.  Here the Office.com website will tell you that you can download and try a free 60 day trial.  This user had done just that and obtained a trial product key for Office Professional.  After trying Office for a couple of months he went back to the computer store to purchase his activation card.  Looking at the different versions however he plumped for Office 2010 Home and Student as it was far cheaper than the Professional edition and, getting home, entered his new product key into his PC.

The problems then began as Word, Excel and PowerPoint worked fine on his computer, but Outlook, which had been installed with his Professional trial, couldn’t.  It would tell him that it wasn’t a legitimate copy, had expired and kept prompting him to enter a valid product key.  This as you can imagine caused him considerable confusion.

The problem arises because Office 2010 Starter is intended to install easily and simply without the need for downloads.  When you download a trial version of Office 2010 and install it on your computer it will put an Office folder in your start menu but it won’t remove the link for the Starter edition.  This will still enable you to convert the installed copy of Starter, which is different to, but shares the same files as your trial edition into a full copy of Office.

You then end up, essentially, with two copies of Office 2010 installed simultaneously.  One of which is activated and called one thing in the Windows registry and another that’s got a different name and that isn’t activated.

So if you find yourself in this position how can you fix it?  The simple option is to remove the parts of Office that are installed but that won’t run.  To do this, go into the Control Panel and open the Programs and Features option.  Find Office 2010 in the list and on the blue toolbar at the top of the windows click the Change button.

This will open a windows giving you the option to Add or Remove Features from Office and you can untick, and uninstall, all of the programs that won’t run.  In this instance Office 2010 Home and Student only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, so programs such as Outlook, Access and Publisher can be removed.

It’s a frustrating and confusing position for people to be in as not only does it make them think either that the product key they bought was faulty; the software is installed after all so why won’t some of it run.  It is also difficult for a Microsoft support representative over the phone to diagnose.

Hopefully Microsoft will rectify this problem for the next version of Office, due in early 2013.  Until then we’ll have to continue using workarounds.

While built-into the company’s own Windows Phone operating system, iOS is the next smartphone operating system to get this great piece of software and for a limited time it’s completely free.

The app isn’t just about storing notes on your mobile, just as with OneNote on Windows Phone it will upload your notes to Microsoft’s cloud storage service SkyDrive (you’ll need a Windows Live ID) so that you can share your notes with your PC and open notes created on the desktop when on the move.  Microsoft say of the new product.  OneNote users will also be able to view and edit their notes in the OneNote cloud app, that can be accessed through Microsoft’s Office Live service, or SkyDrive.

Microsoft OneNote Mobile is an easy-to-use note-taking application for capturing all of your ideas and to-dos on the go, brought to you by Microsoft Office.  With OneNote Mobile, create searchable notes with text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes. Then keep your notes in sync using free Windows Live SkyDrive cloud storage to access, edit and manage them from virtually anywhere, from your PC or almost any web browser.

OneNote was first introduced in Office 2003 but wasn’t really popularly used until touch screen computers became commonplace.  Now with Office 2010 running on many tablet PCs, it’s considered a stable of the Office system.  The extension of the software into the iPhone will only help professionals who need access to notes, and the ability to create notes on the move that they can then use and work with on their PC.

What is curious about this however is the release of OneNote for the iPhone at a time when the program itself still isn’t part of the Office 2011 suite for the Mac.  Microsoft have not commented on this but it would most likely be down to the current lack of touchscreen support in Mac OS.  Now that Apple are addressing this we can expect to see the next generation iMacs and MacBooks coming with touch screens.  Thus the next version of Office Mac, due sometime around 2013, should include OneNote.

With this omission it remains to be seen how useful people will consider OneNote on the iPhone.  Many iPhone users, probably most in fact, still use a PC and this will help uptake.  The lack of OneNote support on the Mac could damage the apps chances of picking up serious traction on Apple’s smartphone platform though.

There is also no word currently on a version of OneNote for the iPad or for Google’s Android operating system.  We can be reasonably certain that the former is already in development.  The future of OneNote, and indeed other Microsoft Office services, on Android is less certain however.  Microsoft haven’t made any announcement as regards this and could decide to avoid Android development altogether.

On the flipside, Microsoft have a long history of developing Office products for the Mac, and so this was only to be expected.  Microsoft have also announced that they will be bringing their new Lync communications platform to the iPhone later this year.

The app needs iOS 4.2 or higher to run and can be downloaded from the iTunes store.  There is no word yet on how long Microsoft will be making OneNote for the iPhone free to download, though it will probably be for 30 days or less.  If you are interested in trying OneNote on your iPhone or iPod Touch I wouldn’t leave it too long before you add it to your download basket.

This is a major move for the company and is intended to bring Windows Server services to a much broader client-base, these being small to medium-sized companies that cannot afford to run their own IT department and who, as a result, may not even have features such as an intranet and exchange support.

It’s a powerful suite too, and you need to look no further than Lync to see just how powerful.  This one product brings telephony, instant messaging and online video and audio conferencing into the mainstream.  When you compare this suite to Google’s offering with its web apps it’s already far in the lead.

About those web apps too, they’re good generally but limited and just as frustrating to use in general usage as the Google equivalent.  Microsoft’s subscription model does bring full versions of Office 2010 into the mix though, which their web apps sync with seamlessly.  In all it’s extremely polished and comprehensive.

But what is this going to mean and will it, indeed even can it change the world of business?  To be honest I believe it can and that, by not even attempting to play catch up, Google and other competitors will fall so far behind, and quickly, that they may never regain lost ground.  Let me explain why.

I’ve been watching Office 365′s development and as an MVP I’ve been privy to online meetings and demonstrations from the team behind it.  The very fact that Microsoft have a product that’s able to reach out to every single company that isn’t already running Windows Server or an equivalent product is astonishing.  The chances then that something critical would be missed were high, but right out of the starting blocks Office 365 seems to include everything the small business needs.

The trick will be if people find it as easy to use as Office 2010, indeed this will be the clincher.  I’ve played with Office 365 and I’m confident that this won’t be a problem.

Now we need to look at companies that do already have their own IT infrastructure and ask whether they can and will switch to this hosted service.  Businesses that run their own servers are well known to be cautious about any new product.  General uptake of Office 365, should it even happen, will take three to five years.  Companies being what they are though will look at this on a purely cost basis.  IT staff are expensive and the hardware required to support organisations is even more expensive.  The per-seat pricing for Office 365 may tempt a few chief financial officers to call Microsoft in for a pitch.

But what about Office 365′s biggest flaw, the simple fact that you need a live Internet connection to be able to use it?  I don’t believe this is a problem either to be honest as most offices will effectively stall when the Internet or their internal network goes down.  At least with Office 365 there’s the option to keep working with the desktop versions of Office 2010.

Office 365 then is polished, pretty much complete and ready for the mainstream.  Business has always been Microsoft’s biggest market but the company has been in the doldrums for many years now.  Office 365 will put Microsoft firmly back in the top spot and probably keep them there for at least another decade.  Here is a company that’s got its mojo back and that’s now producing some genuinely cutting edge products.

That day has come and users from all over the world can now join the beta of Microsoft Office 365. Users who sign up are informed that it may take between two to four weeks before they receive their official invitation.

Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses is a subscription service that combines the familiar Microsoft Office Web Apps with a set of web-enabled tools that are easy to learn and use, that work with your existing hardware, and that come backed by the robust security, reliability, and control you need to run your business.

Office 365 combines access to Office Web Apps with services like email, online meetings or websites. Two different beta programs are offered, one for small businesses with up to 25 employees and professionals, and one for enterprises.

Pricing and service availability differs between both programs. The small business subscriptions start at $6 per user, the enterprise plans at $10 per user per month.

Microsoft Office 365 for Professionals and Small Businesses

• Rich client access via Office applications on PCs and Macs.
• View and edit documents with Office Web Apps across a broad range of browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari).
• Access your email from most browsers with Outlook Web App.
• Access mail, contacts, calendar, and SharePoint® sites from mobile devices including Windows® Phones, Nokia, Android, iPhone and BlackBerry.
• Manage and share important documents to keep teams in synch, with SharePoint Online.
• Find and connect with colleagues and customers from virtually anywhere with Microsoft Lync™ Online.
• Synch email, calendar, and contacts across PC, phone, and browser with Exchange Online.

Microsoft Office 365 for midsize businesses and enterprises

A total of four Enterprise plans are offered starting at $10 per month and ending at $27 per month.

Depending on the plan this includes all of the features of the small business plan plus additional features like Enterprise voice capabilities, advanced archive capabilities, unlimited email storage, hosted voicemail, ability to publish Access databases or all features of Office Professional Plus.

Interested users can sign up on the official Microsoft Office 365 website for either beta program. You need to fill out your country, name and a valid email address for this.

The move has caused confusion for Open Office users. Popular questions that came up on various forums and websites were for instance:

• What’s the difference between Libre Office and Open Office?
• Which version should I download and install?

It is a bit of a hassle to compare the differences between Libre Office 3.3 and Open Office 3.3. There are not many on first glance. If you look at the new features and fixes page over at LibreOffice you see some features that are specific to the Office suite. Among them are:

• Load and Save ODF documents in flat XML to make external XSLT processing easier
• Import SVG pictures* into Draw and edit them interactively
• Lotus Word Pro import filte
• MS Works import filter
• SVG import into Writer
• PPTX chart import feature
• “Experimental” mode, to allow users to test out as-yet-unfinished features
• Show all appropriate formats by default on “Save As”
• New easy-to-use dialog box for creating and managing title pages
• AutoCorrections match case of the words that AutoCorrect replaces
• Vastly improved RTF export fixing many critical data-loss bugs
• Many Wordperfect import improvements
• Embedding of standard PDF fonts

The development team has made many changes that are not visible to the average user. The source code has been cleaned for instance.

Today, new versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice has been released to the public. LibreOffice 3.3 is already available for download at the official project website.

OpenOffice 3.3 on the other hand has not yet been announced on the official web page. It is likely that this will be done later today.

“Office 365 is the best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service,” said Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft. “With Office 365, your local bakery can get enterprise-caliber software and services for the first time, while a multinational pharmaceutical company can reduce costs and more easily stay current with the latest innovations. People can focus on their business, while we and our partners take care of the technology.”

The suite of Office 365 services at this point include copies of the Office Professional Plus desktop software, that has integration with the new Office Web Apps.  Exchange and Sharepoint online are also part of the package.  Finally a new service called Lync Online offers messaging and even video-conferencing services, again hosted form the cloud.

Microsoft say the key benefits of the new service are…

• Anywhere-access to email, documents, contacts, and calendars on nearly any device*
• Work seamlessly with Microsoft Office and the other programs your users already count on everyday
• Business-class features including IT-level phone support, guaranteed 99.9% uptime, geo-redundancy, and disaster recovery
• Pay-as-you-go pricing options which give you predictability and flexibility for all or part of your organization
• Latest version of Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which has millions of business users today

The most important factor though will be the price.  It could turn out that for small businesses with only a few seats this service could be quite expensive.  There is a pricing document available here as a Word DOCX file, though it doesn’t really seem to include any firm information about the overall cost to each type and size of business.

Regardless, there can be little doubt that any hosted business and productivity service can only be a great thing for businesses of many sizes and also for the environment.  Imagine the effect this move will have on global warming where Microsoft will have a few, admittedly huge, server farms but that their capacity will only be increased to meet the overall demand for the product.  At the same time, the number of small server rooms, all pumping out more CO2 than would be proportionate for the volume of work those servers are actually asked to do can shrink.

This can only be a good thing.

So what could this be?  Frankly there are already a large number of things that even though they might not all be expected, would all be welcome.  These include a version of Office for the iPad, Office Live (SkyDrive) integration for Windows Phone 7 or a version of Office for Google’s Android tablets.

Microsoft are remaining tight-lipped for the moment but at least we won’t have too long to wait.  This commentator’s own opinion is that, if one of the people making the announcement is the Vice-President for the “Information Worked Product Management Group” it’s far more likely that a new or updated product for businesses will be unveiled, perhaps a new cloud service for companies.  I say this because Microsoft has madde a big push in the last year towards providing a broad range of cloud services for small to medium sized businesses.

Either way, we’ll keep you all informed at ghacks.

The software, which you can read about in full here, will be available in the following variations.

The microsoft publicity machine describes the different versions thus…

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Student 2011

• Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 includes Mac versions of Word 2011, Excel 2011, and PowerPoint 2011; the most familiar and trusted productivity applications used around the world at home, school, and business.
• Reliable compatibility with the over 1 billion Macs and PCs running Office worldwide ensures you have the right tools to create, share, and collaborate with virtually anyone, anywhere, with no worries.
• Office for Mac 2011 offers top-of-the-line software with the most complete feature set, so you can deliver impressive, professional-looking documents and presentations.
• Office Web App support: New Office Web Apps let you post, access, edit, and share Office documents from where you want with nearly any computer with a browser; and coauthor a document with multiple people in multiple locations.
• Also includes Messenger for Mac 8 enabling you to communicate in real time with audio and video support, and Remote Desktop for Mac 2 so you can drive your Windows-based PC from your Mac.

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business 2011

• Office for Mac 2011 includes Mac versions of Word 2011, Excel 2011, PowerPoint 2011, and Outlook 2011; the most familiar and trusted productivity applications used around the world at home, school, and business.
• Reliable compatibility with the over 1 billion Macs and PCs running Office worldwide ensures you have the right tools to create, share, and collaborate with virtually anyone, anywhere, with no worries.
• Outlook for Mac 2011: Outlook 2011 lets you see your calendar from within your e-mail, read related e-mails in a single thread, import PST files, and preview attachments from within your email inbox.
• Office Web App support: New Office Web Apps let you post, access, edit, and share Office documents from where you want with nearly any computer with a browser; and coauthor a document with multiple people in multiple locations.
• Also includes Messenger for Mac 8 enabling you to communicate in real time with audio and video support, and Remote Desktop for Mac 2 so you can drive your Windows-based PC from your Mac.

There can be no doubt that Office:mac will be a significant and worthwhile update, and many people will welcome it warmly.  Apple’s own attempts at an integrated office suite have never been very successful.

Many people say that subscription software is the way we’re all going but I’ve been making significant savings for years now by subscribing to Microsoft software, and there’s an ever better way to save money, as Paul Thurrott has written this week.

The Microsoft TechNet subscription costs from £134 (£100 renewal) a year and you get a whole lot for your money.  Copies of every version of Windows and Office, and for the more expensive subscription, Server versions too.

These are for evaluation purposes only, which would preclude installing them across a business, but there’s nothing stopping you using them at home.

As with the Action Pack the software never expires either.  Paul says…

Each product key can be used to install up to 10 versions of the OS or application, for the most part. But that’s actually 100 (yes, 100) installs for each Windows 7 product edition, because you can activate each key 10 times. So you get 100 installs of Windows 7 Ultimate, 100 installs of Windows 7 Professional, 100 installs of Windows 7 Home Premium, and so on. That’s an incredible value, though it should be noted that this program is designed for a single person. You can’t share the product keys with others. What you’re getting, essentially, as an individual is multiple, unlimited installs of the products that are included with the subscription … for yourself.

You also get added perks not in the Action Pack such as access to beta software, e-learning courses and managed forums.

This is simply stunning value for money and works out significantly cheaper than the £30 you’ll pay for new a copy of OS X each year.

It is possible to log into Office Web Apps from other locations in the world and use all of the features offered. The only downside currently is that it may not be presented in the local language but in English as those updates will be rolling out later this year.

A Windows Live account is required to use the service. Office Web Apps allow a logged in user to upload documents, edit documents and create new documents. Supported are Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote documents including the 2007 Office formats docx, xlsx and pptx.

The official homepage of the Office Web Apps service can be accessed by loading Office.live.com in the web browser of choice. Documents can be simply uploaded by using the available file uploader or by uploading them with third party software like the Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer.

office web apps

The main Office Web Apps window displays recent documents, document editing activities of friends that have been added by the Windows Live user and options to create new Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote.

Hovering the mouse over a document displays links to edit it right in the web browser, share it or check the version history, properties and download it to the local computer system.

A click on edit in browser opens a new screen that looks similar to the Office 2010 interface. New documents are converted automatically by Office Web Apps so that they can be edited in the browser. Most text editing and manipulation controls from Office are also available online. Documents are saved automatically, it is however possible to download a copy, share the document with other users or save it under a different name online.

excel document online

Office Web Apps on SkyDrive supports other features including work collaboration, mobile access by browsing to the same website and instant messaging.

messenger web

Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft’s document management software, offers Office Web Apps integration. It is for instance possible to send local documents to SkyDrive so that they can be edited from Office Web Apps.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 is the top of the line edition of Office 2010. It is the only edition that contains all Office modules and therefor best suited for testing and evaluation purposes.

The Office 2010 evaluation version comes with restrictions that everyone should be aware of before downloading it.

• Office 2010 installs only on clean systems meaning no other version of Office can be present on the PC.
• The evaluation version will deactivate itself in 60 days with no way of making it a full version. This means that it has to be uninstalled before another version of Office 2010 can be installed on the computer.
• A Windows Live ID is needed to register for the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 evaluation

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 empowers your people to do their best work from more places – whether they are using a PC, phone or web browser. It can maximize existing investments and help people accomplish more by bringing server capabilities to everyone through familiar and intuitive applications. Office Professional Plus 2010 provides smart, simple, time-saving tools to help everyone do more with less.

Contents

Microsoft Access 2010
Microsoft Excel 2010
Microsoft InfoPath 2010 (not included in any Retail edition)
Microsoft OneNote 2010
Microsoft Outlook 2010
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
Microsoft Publisher 2010
Microsoft Office Communicator 2010
Microsoft Word 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 Download

• Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 [link]
• Download Microsoft Project Professional 2010 [link]
• Download Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 [link]

Direct Download Links for Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 32-bit English [link]
Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit English [link]

Office 2010 System Requirements

• Computer and processor -500-megahertz (MHz) processor or higher; 1 gigahertz (GHz) required for Outlook with Business Contact Manager
• Memory – 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher; 512 MB recommended for graphics features, Outlook Instant Search, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Communicator, and certain advanced functionality
• Hard disk – 3.5 gigabyte (GB) available disk space
• Display – 1024 × 768 or higher-resolution monitor; 1024 × 576 or higher for Excel 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, and Word 2010
• Operating system – Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3 (32-bit), Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit), Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit) with MSXML 6.0 installed, Windows Server 2008 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit). Terminal Server and Windows on Windows (WOW) (which allows installing 32-bit versions of Office 2010 on 64-bit operating systems) are supported

Here is how you check if the MSOCache folder is hidden on your computer system.

Start by opening Windows Explorer. Select Tools from the top menu and then Folder Options. This opens a new window. Switch to the View tab and locate the Hidden files and folders section.

Switch from Don’t show hidden files folders or drives to Show hidden files, folders and drives. This is enough to see if the MSOCache folder exists on the computer system.

Open the c: drive in Windows Explorer and see if the MSOCache folder is there.

A right-click on the folder and the selection of properties reveals the size of the folder on the disk. This can be anywhere from 430 Megabytes if Office 2007 is installed to more than 750 Megabytes for Office 2010.

Select the folder and hit the delete key if you want to delete it. Deleting the MSOCache will require the Office CD for the following operations:

* Detect and Repair
* Demand Install
* Maintenance Mode Setup
* Installation of service packs and patches

Microsoft will release four different versions of Microsoft Office 2010 with the core difference being the programs (like Word, Excel or PowerPoint) that ship with each Office 2010 edition. Here is a list of the editions and the programs they come with:

• Office Home and Student (Not for use in any commercial, nonprofit or revenue-generating activities, or by any government organization.): Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010
• Office Home and Business: Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010
• Office Home and Business: Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, Publisher 2010, Access 2010
• Office Professional Academic (2 Office Professional Academic 2010 is available through authorized academic resellers only): Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, Publisher 2010, Access 2010

The prices to buy Office 2010 editions:

Microsoft lists boxed products and product key cards in the table above. Product key cards are a new way of distributing Microsoft Office 2010. This product key card is only available if the consumer is buying a new PC from selected major PC manufacturers.

For consumers who purchase a new PC, Microsoft is working with major PC manufacturers and our retail partners to make it simpler than ever to try and buy Office 2010.

Through our retail partners, Microsoft is introducing an all-new Product Key Card to help consumers more easily access and experience Office 2010 on new PCs that have been pre-loaded with Office 2010. The Product Key Card is a single license card (with no DVD media) that will be sold at major electronic retail outlets.

An added bonus: The card’s packaging is smaller than the full package (DVD) product, and is eco/retail-friendly. The key number contained on the card will unlock Office 2010 software that has been pre-loaded by the PC manufacturers on their PCs, and enables a simpler and faster path for consumers to begin using any one of three full versions of Microsoft Office – Office Home & Student 2010, Office Home & Business 2010, or Office Professional 2010.

Other useful information about the Office 2010 purchase:

• Microsoft will offer an Office 2010 Family Pack that allows usage on three PCs in one house
• Purchase rights for Office Home and Business, Office Professional, and Office Professional Academic boxed product allow for usage on two of your PCs.
• The Product Key Card is valid for a single installation of the product.

Microsoft has reduced the number of editions of Office significantly. Office 2007 Small Business and Office 2007 Standard seem to have been removed from the portfolio to make it easier for customers to select the right Office edition. Prices on the other hand seem to have remained the same for comparable editions.

Users need to log into a Microsoft Live account and fill out a short form before they are able to download the beta of Microsoft Office 2010. Downloads are available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions and various languages. The product key for the beta will also be displayed on those pages. The key is required to activate the beta.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word 2010 Beta and click on the “File” tab. This will take you to the Backstage view. Next click “Help” in the set of tabs on the left.

Step 2: Click “Change Product Key” on the right side of the screen.

Step 3: Enter the Multiple Activation Key (MAK) displayed above. Please check the box to activate automatically or restart the app to activate using the activation dialog box.

Step 4: That’s all you need to do. Entering the MAK key in Microsoft Word 2010 Beta automatically activates all the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta applications. Click on the “File” tab to return to the Document view.

New features in the beta include:

New features in the beta include:

• Outlook Social Connector (blog)
• Deeper integration between Office client and Web Apps allowing users to save directly to Windows Live Sky Drive or SharePoint 2010
• Improved navigation, visual design and icon update
• New Office logo
• Increased performance and stability

The 32-bit English beta has a size of 700 Megabytes which can take some time to download depending on the Internet connection. Users who want to follow the development of the beta can subscribe to the #officebeta Twitter channel to do so.

One indicator that this is the case is the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Download page which is already listing download buttons for the three Microsoft Office editions Office Home and Business 2010 beta, Office Professional 2010 beta and Office Professional Plus 2010 beta. The links are unfortunately not live yet leading to a “The Office 2010 beta will come soon” page instead.

The differences between the three editions are the following:

• Office Home and Business 2010 beta – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Office Web Apps
• Office Professional 2010 beta – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Office Web Apps
• Office Professional Plus 2010 beta – Volume licensing only – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Access, Publisher, Infopath, Communicator, SharePoint Workspace, and Office Web Apps

In other news: The first group of users who were able to get their hands on the new Office 2010 Beta were Bittorrent users who downloaded a leaked version of Office 2010. It is of course illegal to download the beta this way.

But is GNOME office and alternative that you should overlook? More than likely most readers didn’t even know there was a GNOME office. And of those that have heard rumors of this suite, many probably didn’t even know it was ready for installation. It is. But the big question…is it worth try? In this article I will highlight the tools that make up GNOME Office and help you to decide if this suite is worth your time.

Installation

The first thing I should bring up is the installation. Previous incarnations of GNOME Office required the user to install the pieces separately. That has changed and now you can open up the GNOME Software Center and follow these steps:

1. Search for ‘gnome office”.
2. Select GNOME Office.
3. Click the right-pointing arrow.
4. Click the Install button.
5. Enter your password.
6. Sit back and watch the installation happen.

What GNOME office installs is the following (some may already be installed):

• Abiword: Word processor
• Gnumeric: Spreadsheet
• Evolution: Email, contacts, calendar
• Planner: Project manager
• Inkscape: Vector graphics
• XSane: Scanning

There are other tools that are supposed to be included with GNOME Office, but are not installed:

• Gnucash: Finances.
• gLables: Label designer
• Glom: Database designer.

Why the above tools are listed on the GNOME Office official site and not installed I have no clue.  Of course those are simple enough to install, just by going to the Software Center and going through the same steps above.

Value of the applications

Instead of taking each piece apart and showing you how they work, I want to spend a little time on whether or not each application is a worthy usurper of your current tool. And since I do not know the tool you are using, the usurper is going to have to be pretty good.

Abiword: I have always wanted to like Abiword. And, in some instances I do. But the problem is that Abiword really stinks at document exchange. Abiword’s idea of formatting doesn’t always gel with another Office Suite’s idea. But I will say that Abiword has come a long, long way. And if you are just needing a simple word processor that is lightweight and fast, Abiword is a great alternative. Does it match the skills of OpenOffice? Not so much.

Gnumeric: Another tool that I have always wanted to like, but have been prevented from doing so because of its poor ability to work with other tools. Any spreadsheet that uses complex formulas or formatting will most likely wind up a bit of a mess in Gnumeric. But for basic spreadsheet use, Gnumeric will get the job done.

Evolution: If you are looking for a groupware suite to take the place of MS Outlook, this is where you need to go. Evolution is, without question, the best groupware suite available for Linux. It’s power, easy to use, reliable, and includes everything you need for a groupware suite. This is, by far, the best tool of the GNOME Office suite.

Planner: Because most office suites do not generally include a project management tool, planner is a surprising addition to the suite. Not only does planner bring a much needed tool to the office suite, it does so with aplomb.

Inkscape: There is only one office suite that includes a vector graphics application – OpenOffice. Inkscape brings to GNOME Office one tool that the competition can not touch. Inkscape is the best vector graphics tool for the Linux operating system. There is, however, a rather steep learning curve that comes with using Inkscape. So don’t expect to just jump into this tool without any idea of what you are doing.

XSane: You can read my article on Xscane (“Scanning in Linux with iScan and XSane.”) I think most readers will agree that XSane is an overly complex tool for a simple task. However, XSane can be made simple by simply closing all of the unnecessary windows.

The verdict

Although GNOME Office makes a valiant attempt at replacing your current office suite, it fails in too many categories to actually usurp the big dogs in this space. Now, if are in a situation where you are not having to trade documents with others and you do not need the power features of tools like Excel or Calc, and you don’t need a tool for presentations then GNOME Office might be your go-to suite of tools. Otherwise, stick with OpenOffice or MS Office.

What do you think? Is GNOME Office a worthy entry in the office suite category?

• The Bubble Chart is available as new chart type now
• Keyboard shortcut configuration dialog now supports “ALT” modifier
• Removed the password length limitation in ODF document password creation dialog
• Menu items display changed
• Support for PS-OpenType fonts
• Impress and Draw now support comments (formerly known as sticky notes) to support collaboration
• More filter criteria in “Standard Filter” dialog
• Use System Credentials for Web Site Authentication
• “Notes” feature renamed to “Comments”
• Encryption support for “Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP” filter.

Users who are interested in testing Open Office 3.2 Beta can head over to the official Open Office website to download the beta version. The beta is available for all supported operating systems and languages. The list of changes and additions implemented in Open Office 3.2 are available at the release notes page.

A limited technical preview of Office Web Apps was announced yesterday. Interested users could apply to become part of the technical preview but there was no instant way to get access to Office Web Apps at that time.

Instead of having to wait days, week or even months before they get accepted users can do the following to get instant access to Microsoft’s Office Web Apps preview.

It starts by logging into Windows Live Skydrive. Users who do not use English as their main language might need to change the language to English first before they can continue with the process.

Upload at least one Office document. The following screen should appear after uploading that document:

A sentence with a link to join the preview program should be visible above the uploaded document. A click on that link will open a license agreement page. Accepting the license will automatically enable the Office Web Apps Technical Preview for that account.

A new menu entry will be displayed in the header afterwards called new. A click on that opens a submenu with options to create a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel workbook or Microsoft OneNote notebook.

Only Excel workbooks and PowerPoint presentations are available at this moment in time. It is also possible to edit Excel and PowerPoint files that have been uploaded. Files that can be edited will have an Edit option in the top menu indicating that. via Liveside

Probably the two most interesting aspects of the announcement of Office Web Apps is that it will be completely free and compatible with browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft has not been very specific about the requirements but Brian Hall mentioned Firefox and Safari in the announcement. It is likely that additional web browsers will be supported as well. There have also been no information regarding access from other operating systems like Linux or Mac at this point.

Office Web Apps can be interesting for many users who sometimes work on computer systems where Microsoft Office is not installed. It would allow them to work with their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents online. This would get rid of formatting problems and other difficulties when editing these documents in Office alternatives.

Interested users can apply to become a part of the Office Web Apps beta test.

Another popular Office add-ins manager is the portable software program OfficeIns by Nirsoft. OfficeIns will automatically display all add-ins in its interface upon startup. Various information such as the name, description, software it is loaded in and startup type are displayed in the table. It is possible to sort the add-ins by every column which is especially great for sorting them by startup type or product.

One of the most important features of OfficeIns is the function to change the startup type of one or multiple add-ins. Additional options include the usual Nirsoft features like exporting data into html, txt or csv files, generating HTML reports or displaying advanced properties of add-ins.

OfficeIns is a portable software program that is compatible with most Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office versions.