Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, on Monday, unveiled the company’s next generation Office Suite software at a press conference in San Francisco, California.
The new Office 2013, which includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, is available for testing in a public Consumer Preview for users of Windows 7 and Windows 8. The latest Office Suite works with both tablet PCs and traditional computers, and even supports touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard input.
“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.”
Microsoft, in reality, is pushing the social aspect of Office 2013, which will allow documents to be delivered to users through an up-to-date cloud service. While the full lineup of offerings and pricing plans will be announced in the fall, Ballmer also 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 are Office 365 Home Premium (service includes an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month), Office 365 Small Business Premium (service also includes business-grade email, shared calendars, Web site tools and HD Web conferencing) and Office 365 ProPlus (designed for enterprise customers who want advanced business capabilities and the flexibility to deploy and manage in the cloud).
