The retail version of Microsoft’s Newest Suite is now available in Australia and as a student at an Australian University or TAFE you can grab the Professional Academic version of the Office 2010 for AUD 99.00 via Microsoft’s Its Not Cheating Program.

Following the great response to the Office 2010 beta with more than nine million beta users world-wide, Microsoft has continued to refine the dramatic overhaul that it began with the 2007 editions of the Office Suite to help users:

• Create great looking documents and presentations. With new video and photo editing features in PowerPoint 2010. Add extensive text effects and table formatting options in Word 2010. Reveal important trends in data with Sparklines in Excel 2010. OneNote 2010 makes everything you need simple to find, organise and share.
• Connect and work together more simply. Advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities in Outlook 2010. Work with others more efficiently using new co-authoring in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and OneNote 2010.
• Get things done from anywhere. With Office 2010 and the Office Web Apps – the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, you have the freedom to view, edit, and share Office 2010 documents in the cloud with Windows Live SkyDrive.

One of my favorite improvements to Office 2010 is what Microsoft calls the Backstage view. You might remember Albert giving a demo on this if you attended our Cool Stuff & Cool Internships – Microsoft & AIESEC 2010 event. Offered as a replacement for the File menu, Backstage gives you a launching point to share documents, print out your work, set permissions, and other program specific options to get your project ready for distribution. You’ll find all of the usual document management features, like open and save, here as well, but you’ll also get a nice layout of templates for new documents, several different ways to share your work, and print settings and page layouts all in one place.

For a full overview on all of the new features and review by PCWorld, head here.

In addition to Office 2010, Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade is back again with the same low price of AUD 49.95 on Its Not Cheating Program. All eligible university and TAFE students, staff & faculty, with a valid email address are entitled to make a purchase from the offer website

More info and FAQs on the program and the offers can be found here.

There are some pretty cool things here, not only do you get online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for free, but you can also collaborate on the documents. I can see a bunch of friends collaborating on a OneNote notebook during  a lecture, or working on a report using multiple machines, all at the same time – and no need for anyone to collate at the end.

These apps are available for free, and to access them, you just need to visit http://skydrive.live.com and login with your Windows Live ID. (You already have one if you use Hotmail and/or Messenger)

Or alternatively you can visit http://office.live.com and get the same experience. Skydrive binds all of these services together, and still keeps the 25GB of space that you can use to store not only documents, but any other file you want.

From there you can create a new document and share it, or upload an existing document you have already started working on.

There is no need for any special plugin, and it should work in all of the major browsers.

Microsoft has kicked off its “Technology Guarantee” program for Microsoft Office 2010 meaning that anyone who buys and activates Office 2007 between now and September 30, 2010 will get to upgrade to Office 2010 for free when it becomes available, so you don’t have to wait.

The deal is yet another great offer for Australian students who can purchase a copy of Office Ultimate 2007 for only AUD 75.00 via the “It’s not Cheating” program.

This offer is also open to all University/TAFE students & faculty, who possess a valid email address at an educational institution geographically located in Australia.

All you have to do is:

1. Head to It’s not Cheating program website and buy Office 2007 between March 5 and September 30, 2010 for AUD 75.00 by getting yourself qualified as a student.
2. Save your Office 2007 dated sales receipt plus install and activate your copy of Office 2007 by September 30, 2010.
3. When Office 2010 is available, request your upgrade at the Technology Guarantee program website.

More info and FAQs at Technology Guarantee and It’s not Cheating.

Note – If your University/TAFE does not provide you with an email address, here is how you can help verify your eligibility to the program.

Also the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade offer priced at AUD 49.95 is still up but this offer will only last until the end of this month.

Source: [It’s not Cheating]

CES has reminded us that some great things are coming out this year from many companies, but of course the focus here is on Microsoft.

This year we can expect to see Natal hit shelves, one of the most interesting input devices to appear in a while, and by the end of the year you will be able to try it as well.

We will also see a great way to play classic arcade games, on both the XBOX 360 and Windows PC, called GameRoom, with 1000 games to be added over 3 years. (30 games on launch)

Not only that, but many cool games are coming, including Halo Reach, which is sure to be a huge launch. (Lets see if it can beat XBOX sales for Modern Warfare 2)

Gaming aside, there should be more details on IE9, Windows Live Wave 4, Windows 7 SP1, and Office 2010. Although I do not know what deals will be available for students yet, I think that there will be some cool stuff (going off last year) and you can expect some cool events this year as well, so keep an eye on this blog.

I will be attending the MSP boot camp some time in January/February, and hope to get some great information and opportunities that I can pass on to everyone.

For those interested in XNA after the Game Camp last year, I have been posting resources and information on my own blog about XNA, you can check it out at http://mquandt.com/blog hopefully you find some of the stuff on there interesting, and I will be keeping it updated with more information, samples and resources as I make/find them.

So enjoy the rest of the summer break, and have a great 2010!

Microsoft expects Office 2010 and related products to be generally available in June 2010.

In the meanwhile, remember that you can get free access to the beta, which you can use for free and unrestricted until October 2010.

http://officebeta.microsoft.com/en-us/

[via Ars Technica]

http://officebeta.microsoft.com/en-us/

Head to that website to download either the 32bit or 64bit version of the next version of Office, and experience the nice changes they have made for yourself.

Personally I have found Outlook to be much more responsive compared to 2007, and the conversation view allows you to easily keep track of what previously happened in an email. Both Excel and Word open up much faster than before, and I have found are much faster in general.

OneNote has also seen some major improvements, with much better Math input support, amongst other things. The integration with the upcoming Office Web Apps should also really improve the suite, with reportedly a way to collaborate on a OneNote notebook in realtime. Great for lectures!

All of the office programs take advantage of new Windows 7 features such as Jumplists. (and more)

If you are considering whether you may want to upgrade from 2007 to 2010 when this is released, there is no better chance to have an unrestricted look at the applications, and maybe even contribute to ensuring the final product you pay for, is bug free.

The download is around 700MB, and you can get your key from the same site,

For those interested, the Visio 2010 beta is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/visio/download.aspx

and the Project 2010 beta here: http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx

There is a nice list at the MSDN USA ISV blog that goes through the new features, and you can find some nice articles on the new Office Interop features, the Dynamic keyword, and ASP.Net 4.

Let us know what you like/dislike about the new IDE, and be sure to send feedback to Microsoft if you encounter any issues.

Happy coding!

The beta for Office 14 (aka 2010) is expected to be released to the public later this year. Keep watching this blog for more information.

Outlook 2010:

More Outlook 2010 Technical Preview Screenshots

Word 2010:

More Office 14 (2010) Alpha Screenshots