Microsoft Office 2010 released to manufacturing (RTM)

Microsoft said on Friday that its new Office suite, due in May for businesses and June for consumers, has reached the released to manufacturing (RTM) milestone.

In a company blog posting, Takeshi Numoto - Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Office, confirmed that Microsoft had hit the RTM milestone. “RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone,” Numoto said. Microsoft also said that 7.5 million people download the beta version of Office 2010, 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads.

Microsoft is currently running an Office 2010 Technology Guarantee. Neowin revealed Microsoft’s plans for the guarantee program. Customers who purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010 will be offered a free upgrade to Office 2010. Copies will be available online, via download, at no additional cost.

Microsoft also confirmed that Volume License customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the RTM bits on April 27. MSDN and TechNet customers will be able to download Office 2010 RTM on April 22.

Microsoft is holding business launch event for Office 2010 in New York on May 12. Consumers will not be able to purchase the product until June. Although Microsoft officials will not confirm the exact date, Neowin firmly believes this will be June 15. In January Microsoft announced Office 2010 pricing. The professional edition will retail for $499 boxed.  Office 2010 will be released in at least five different flavours, including a free version that includes Microsoft Word and Excel, but comes with limited functionality and includes advertisements. The editions of Office 2010 will include Starter, Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional and Professional Academic.

SOURCE: TimWarren, NeoWin.NET