Microsoft teases possible Jan. 29 launch for Office 2013
Mystery event scheduled in New York City
What you need to know about cloud backup
An old adage holds that nobody on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office." But more time is exactly what Microsoft is offering in a new ad campaign that appears to tease a January 29 launch date for Office 2013 and its accompanying refresh of Office 365.
Few details have been revealed so far other than the date, the hashtag #Timeto365, and text reading, "More time to do the things you want."
Even more baffling, when El Reg contacted Microsoft for clarification, we got absolutely nothing. A spokesperson wouldn't even repeat the January 29 date, let alone what we could expect to happen on it.
"All we can reiterate is what Microsoft has previously said: 'The new Office will become generally available in the first quarter of 2013,'" is what we were told.
Despite this evasive response, however, Redmond has been beavering away on the buzz with a few cryptic Twitter posts that suggest some kind of event will take place in New York City's Bryant Park on Tuesday.
Photographs posted to the official Office Twitter feed show large, orange stand-up letters on display in the park, reading, "Create" and "Imagine." As to what these are supposed to signify, well, we can only (ahem) imagine.
More time to create the things you want. Coming to @bryantparknyc on 1/29#Timeto365 twitter.com/Office/status/…
— Office (@Office) January 26, 2013
Imagine, more time to do the things you want. Coming to @bryantparknyc on 1/29 #Timeto365 twitter.com/Office/status/…
— Office (@Office) January 25, 2013
The retail version of Office 2013 has been available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers since October. Microsoft made a time-limited trial version available for download in November, and Volume Licensing customers have been able to buy it since December. Redmond, however, has yet to announce a date when the full product will be generally available at retail.
The formal Office 2013 launch is widely expected to coincide with a refresh of Office 365, the subscription-based version of the suite that bundles online extras with the desktop Office applications.
Microsoft has been leaning hard on customers to go the subscription route, by offering more-flexible terms for Office 365 licenses and promising future extras that it says won't be made available to customers who buy the retail, perpetual-license version.
It makes sense, then, that Redmond would build most of its launch hype around Office 365 rather than the retail Office 2013, as it seems to be doing with the Bryant Park event on Tuesday.
As for whether this event truly will signal general availability of the suite, however, we'll just have to wait and see. ®
COMMENTS
No one cares
If it doesn't run on Linux and makes it incompatible for Linux users to open its not being installed in our office.
The people in charge of IT dept's nowadays are fed up of incompatibility issues with Microsoft software.
Oh! My! God!
Another of version of a word processor that got all the functionality a word processor could ever need about 6 years ago.
s/word processor/spreadsheet/g
s/spreadsheet/presentation maker/g
Marketing without foundation
I read a study once that even reasonably knowledgeable users, use only about 7% of Excels capabilites. I presume that with word it is not much different.
Now unless MS are going to pull out a version of "Tifkam" just for office then I truly have a hard time imagining what miracle they are going to produce. ( I sincerely hope that it is not Tifkam.).
Marketing speak and even the most clever publicity company will never manage to resolve the major problem with Office suites today : that of the "End User".
Regardless of Word, Excel, or the Libre Office equivalants the thing that takes me most time with any documents is the "thinking" part. Will an endless strew of magical icons, widgets, drop down boxes or wizards ever be able to replace or improve my main problem, I doubt it.......
I don't pay for office, my company does that, and as long as I work there I will always have access to the latest versions BUT what advantage does that truly offer me over and above that which I had 10 years ago : almost nothing. I still struggle to create original content, to please my clients and to find the happy medium between too much and not enough and I doubt that any office suite in the world will ever be able to aleviate these problems, which is probably a good thing.....
I wish MS would bring out a "light" version rather than more complete or cloudy versions. I would like something quick and rapid that I can put on a USB key rather than 1.5Gb of DLLS that I will never use. I don't need endless directories or clipart of database connectivity on a daily basis.
MS Office is probably worth more to MS that Windows is and I understand that they need to keep pumping out "new" versions but honestly nothing new has came out for many years. As much as I appreciate the MS Office suite, it is after all an excellent tool, it has become a blind whale lost at sea.
<--- It's OK Microsoft, we are fine with the versions that we have, try bringing something new to the market. Repacking of the old does not make your campers any happier.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
What you need to know about cloud backup
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
