Announcing the move in a blog post, Microsoft says this is the first time the next version of Office will be seen by anyone outside the company, though it didn't identify any of its partners for the technical preview and mentions that they're all bound by non-disclosure agreements. Microsoft says its sales team nominated the participants, and they represent a broad range of industries and customer profiles.
Microsoft says Office 15 will be the "most ambitious undertaking" ever by the company's Office Division. This version will simultaneously update Office software for the PC, mobile, cloud services and servers. It'll provide new versions of:Office, and its core programs of Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Office 365, the web-based tool that's often compared to Google Docs
Exchange, the email-management tool
SharePoint, the enterprise content management system
Lync, an enterprise messaging and conferencing tool
Project, a project-management program
Visio, a diagram editor
The integration on cloud services and mobile apps has clearly been a priority for Microsoft. The company has been pushing its software deeper into mobile, recently releasing apps for SkyDrive, OneNote and Bing on multiple platforms, including iOS. Microsoft is also quick to point out that it offers 25 GB of storage on its SkyDrive cloud-storage system, or about five times what similar services typically offer (e.g. Dropbox).
So when will the rest of us get our hands on Office 15 (or whatever it ends up being called)? Microsoft isn't telling, though it says the software will enter public beta this summer. It's likely it won't see general release until Windows 8 hits stores first. Windows 8 is Microsoft's wholesale revamp of its core operating system -- adding things like a new user interface and touchscreen integration -- and Office 15 is the first version of the software suite designed for the new Windows. However, Microsoft says it will also work with Windows 7.