Windows 7 Office Starter 2010 private beta, with '

[shishang82]

Microsoft released a bunch of public betas of various Workplace 2010 goods this week. But it also released a different one underneath non-disclosure to a choose group of testers: Office Starter 2010.
Microsoft made the code for Office Starter 2010 on the market to pick testers through its Connect Internet web page late this week. Office Starter 2010, as Microsoft officials have disclosed earlier,Office Home And Business 2010, Office Starter 2010 is the replacement for Microsoft Functions. It will be free and ad-supported,Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate, includes Phrase and Excel only and enables only fundamental document viewing and editing.
There’s one new feature in Office Starter 2010 that I had not heard about formerly. It’s called “Office to GO,” according to testers with whom I spoke, who asked not to be named. Office to GO is installed using the Click-to-Run setup that is part of Workplace 2010. (Click to Run is 1 of the new ways Microsoft is planning to distribute the Workplace 2010 bits. It streams the bits onto a user’s PC using virtualization technology so that users can be up and running with Office significantly more quickly than if they had to wait for the entire product to download.)
The Office to GO application permits users to download Phrase Starter,Office Professional 2010 Product Key, Excel Starter and any related documents to a USB drive that users can then run onany Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or Windows 7 PC,Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Key, according to the aforementioned tester.
Office Starter 2010 also consists of a permanent sidebar that includes links to a Gettting Started guide, help and support, templates and clip art, and an “upgrade to a paid version now” (with PowerPoint and/or Outlook) setting. Here’s what that sidebar looks like (click about the image to enlarge):
I’ve asked Microsoft for additional details about Workplace to GO and will add anything I get back to this post.
Update (November 23): Here’s the statement I received from a Microsoft spokesperson regarding my questions on Workplace to GO:
“Office Starter To-Go is a product where Workplace Starter users can create a USB device that temporarily permits them to use Phrase Starter and Excel Starter on yet another PC on as long as the USB device is plugged in. The technology used by Office Starter To-Go, is similar to how “Click-to-Run” operates in that the USB device is being used as the server for a version of Starter about the device. When the device is removed from a PC, Office Starter To-Go is also removed. Starter To-Go is only part of Workplace Starter edition that is pre-installed on new PC’s. It cannot be installed on a separate PC, but it gives our customers the ability to take their Workplace with them and use it on any PC to open and work with their Phrase and Excel documents.”
Meanwhile, in other Office 2010 news from this week, I have a bit of additional information about the Office Web Apps public beta that Microsoft launched to testers this week.
As Microsoft officials have said before, Workplace Internet Apps — the Webified versions of Word,Office Home And Business 2010 Sale, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote — is going to be available in three versions. 1 will likely be free of charge and ad-supported and aimed at consumers. The consumer version, which is tied to Microsoft’s SkyDrive, is what Microsoft launched as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build to selected testers this past summer. Microsoft officials told me this week that the final version of the no cost Workplace Web Apps product will likely be released in conjunction with Windows Live Wave 4 (which sounds as if it is a “spring 2010″ kind of thing).
There also are going to be two business-focused versions of Office Web Apps that are going to be accessible as paid subscription offerings: 1 that will be offered to enterprise customers to run on-premises and one that will likely be hosted by Microsoft. The beta that went out this week will be the on-premises business version of the Workplace Web Apps release. To be clear: It’s not the updated beta version of the consumer test build that Microsoft launched earlier this fall. (It sounds like the consumer version of Office Web Apps will probably not get a new public build refresh before it is launched in final form this spring.)
The business versions require SharePoint Server about the back end. Microsoft’s Workplace Web Apps team did a blog post earlier this week explaining a lot more about the Workplace Web Apps-SharePoint tie-in. That post includes this diagram:
I’m interested in hearing alot more from anyone who’s test-driving the new Workplace Web Apps beta and/or Workplace Starter 2010. How are the goods shaping up? What’s working or not for you?