In a blog entry, PJ Hough, CVP of development for Microsoft Office, made the big announcement that the Office 15 Technical Preview Program has begun — and the full range of Microsoft Office products and cloud services will be getting the next-generation update all in one go. (Sure. And I’m John Connor.)
“With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio. Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before,” boasted Hough in his too-brief blog entry.
Details are purposely being left scarce, and the Technical Preview program is already quite full, he wrote. But there’s a public beta coming this summer, according to Microsoft.
My colleague Dave Courbanou at TalkinCloud sister site The VAR Guy has some bigger picture perspective on where Office 15 is coming from and the potential impact of this simultaneous update blitzkrieg. But here on TalkinCloud, I have to point out that Microsoft’s track record in the cloud when it comes to timeliness is lacking.
Microsoft System Center 2012 was originally supposed to land in late 2011, but it actually made its grand entrance in mid-January of this year. And back in mid-2011, Microsoft Office 365 didn’t technically arrive late, but that’s only because Redmond kept the June 28 release date under its hat until less than a month beforehand.
I’m not saying Microsoft Office 15 will be bad. In fact, I’m very much interested to see what Hough’s team has in store for us. But my first impression on this important news is definitely one of skepticism. And as much as I’d like to be proven wrong — for the sake of Microsoft partners everywhere, if nothing else — I just don’t trust Microsoft to stick to the simultaneous release that it’s promising before the public has seen so much as a screenshot.
In the meanwhile, there’s nothing to do but assume that this update is going to bring all kinds of goodies to Microsoft Office 365 partners and customers. While I work on my own lists, what are some things you’d like to see come to Microsoft’s productivity cloud? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.
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