Delivers Office as a cloud service while harnessing innovations enabled by Windows 8
SAN FRANCISCO, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.
The customer preview is available at office.com/preview.
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