Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer on Monday unveiled the company’s
next generation Office Suite software
during a press conference in San Fransisco, California. Office 2013,
which includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, is
available for testing today in
a public Consumer Preview
for users of Windows 7 and Windows 8. The software giant’s latest
Office Suite works with both tablet PCs and traditional computers, and
supports touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard input. Microsoft is pushing
the social aspect of Office 2013, which will allow for documents to be
delivered to users through an up-to-date cloud service. “We are taking
bold steps at Microsoft,” Ballmer said at the press conference. “The
new, modern Office will deliver unparalleled productivity and
flexibility for both consumers and business customers. It is a cloud
service and will fully light-up when paired with Windows 8.” Microsoft’s
press release follows below.
Microsoft unveils the new Office
Delivers Office as a cloud service while harnessing innovations enabled by Windows 8
SAN FRANCISCO — July 16, 2012 — Today, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve
Ballmer unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office,
available at office.com/preview. The next release features an intuitive
design that works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard
across new Windows devices, including tablets. The new Office is social
and unlocks modern scenarios in reading, note-taking, meetings and
communications and will be delivered to subscribers through a cloud
service that is always up to date.
“We are taking bold steps at Microsoft,” Ballmer said at the press
conference in San Francisco. “The new, modern Office will deliver
unparalleled productivity and flexibility for both consumers and
business customers. It is a cloud service and will fully light-up when
paired with Windows 8.”
Office at Its Best on Windows 8
- Touch everywhere. Office responds to touch as naturally as it does
to keyboard and mouse. Swipe your finger across the screen or pinch and
zoom to read your documents and presentations. Author new content and
access features with the touch of a finger.
- Inking. Use a stylus to create content, take notes and access
features. Handwrite email responses and convert them automatically to
text. Use your stylus as a laser pointer when presenting. Color your
content and erase your mistakes with ease.
- New Windows 8 applications. OneNote and Lync represent the first new
Windows 8 style applications for Office. These applications are
designed to deliver touch-first experiences on a tablet. A new radial
menu in OneNote makes it easy to access features with your finger.
- Included in Windows RT. Office Home and Student 2013 RT, which
contains new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote
applications, will be included on ARM-based Windows 8 devices, including
Microsoft Surface.
Office Is in the Cloud
- SkyDrive. Office saves documents to SkyDrive by default, so your
content is always available across your tablet, PC and phone. Your
documents are also available offline and sync when you reconnect.
- Roaming. Once signed in to Office, your personalized settings,
including your most recently used files, templates and even your custom
dictionary, roam with you across virtually all of your devices. Office
even remembers where you last left off and brings you right back to that
spot in a single click.
- Office on Demand. With a subscription, you can access Office even
when you are away from your PC by streaming full-featured applications
to an Internet-connected Windows-based PC.
- New subscription services. The new Office is available as a
cloud-based subscription service. As subscribers, consumers
automatically get future upgrades in addition to exciting cloud services
including Skype world minutes and extra SkyDrive storage. Subscribers
receive multiple installs for everyone in the family and across their
devices.
Office Is Social
- Yammer. Yammer delivers a secure, private social network for
businesses. You can sign up for free and begin using social networking
instantly. Yammer offers integration with SharePoint and Microsoft
Dynamics.
- Stay connected. Follow people, teams, documents and sites in
SharePoint. View and embed pictures, videos and Office content in your
activity feeds to stay current and update your colleagues.
- People Card. Have an integrated view of your contacts everywhere in
Office. The People Card includes presence information complete with
pictures, status updates, contact information and activity feeds from
Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
- Skype. The new Office comes with Skype. When you subscribe, you get
60 minutes of Skype world minutes every month. Integrate Skype contacts
into Lync and call or instant message anyone on Skype.
Office Unlocks New Scenarios
- Digital note-taking. Keep your notes handy in the cloud and across
multiple devices with OneNote. Use what feels most natural to you — take
notes with touch, pen or keyboard, or use them together and switch
easily back and forth.
- Reading and markup. The Read Mode in Word provides a modern and
easy-to-navigate reading experience that automatically adjusts for large
and small screens. Zoom in and out of content, stream videos within
documents, view revision marks and use touch to turn pages.
- Meetings. PowerPoint features a new Presenter View that privately
shows your current and upcoming slides, presentation time, and speaker
notes in a single glance. While presenting, you can zoom, mark up and
navigate your slides with touch and stylus. Lync includes multiparty HD
video with presentations, shared OneNote notebooks and a virtual
whiteboard for collaborative brainstorming.
- Eighty-two-inch touch-enabled displays. Conduct more engaging
meetings, presentations and lessons, whether in person or virtually,
with these multitouch and stylus-enabled displays from Perceptive Pixel.
While the full lineup of offerings and pricing plans will be
announced in the fall, Ballmer discussed three new Office 365
subscription services. When available, each new subscription offer will
include the new 2013 editions of the Office applications — Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access. In addition,
subscribers will receive future rights to version upgrades as well as
per-use rights across up to five PCs or Macs and mobile devices. The
three new editions will be the following:
- Office 365 Home Premium — designed for families and
consumers. This service also includes an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive
storage and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month.
- Office 365 Small Business Premium — designed for
small businesses. This service also includes business-grade email,
shared calendars, website tools and HD webconferencing.
- Office 365 ProPlus — designed for enterprise
customers who want advanced business capabilities and the flexibility to
deploy and manage in the cloud.
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