Office 2010 Coming Ahead of Schedule?

Despite many challengers, Microsoft Office is still the dominant suite of productivity applications in most enterprises. So any news that the software giant is readying a new version of Office is a big deal.

SmallBusinessComputing reports on what Microsoft’s CEO had to say recently about plans to bring out the next version of Office.

There

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s one perk that Microsoft

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s Steve Ballmer likes to exercise, as much as the CEO

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s handlers might like him to stifle some of his out-of-the-blue statements. The head of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) can announce anything he wants, even unrealistic ship dates for important products.

Last week, in a speech to the Nashville Technology Council at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tenn., Ballmer pulled a classic. The outspoken CEO either got a little ahead of his developers or he pre-announced early availability of Office 2010. It wouldn’t be the first time for either scenario.

“You’ll see the new version of Office [2010], which comes out here in just a couple of months,” Ballmer told the audience. He didn’t elaborate, however.

That may be news to the Office development team. On Dec. 1, the company announced that Office 2010, the successor to Office 2007, will ship right when it was first promised — in June 2010.

Read the full story at SmallBusinessComputing:


Is Microsoft’s Office 2010 ‘a Couple of Months’ Away?