As you know by now, I have installed the Office 365 Preview on several of my and my household computers. It looks to be an amazing product, that will probably launch sometime next month (October 2012).

Office 365 is promising to offer an Office 2013 package consisting of the following applications; Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access and OneNote, to you as a  subscriber allowing you to have the suite installed on up to 5 devices. With SkyDrive integration, as well as a streaming version of Office on demand, this is almost too good to be true. But of course, it all comes down to price. I have previously mused that a sweet spot for me would be somewhere between $5 and $10 dollars a month, but never really believed the price would eventually turn out to be that low. It looks like my wishes are granted, and that my beliefs were wrong.

According to an article on the Verge today, written my Tom Warren, Microsoft will announce that the subscription price for Office 365 Home Premium will be $8.33 a month ($99.99 pr year).If that report turns out to be true, which I believe it will, that is a no-brainer and should help male Microsoft’s wet dream of millions of consumer subscribers come true.

Check out Tom Warrens article, and see the comparison chart showing in detail which features will be in the different versions of the suite.

Good times!

 

In my previous post, Preview of Office 2013 Public Preview, I showed off many screenshots of Office 2013 Public Preview. I installed that suite using the old-fashioned MSI installer, getting the file via TechNet. But one of the really revolutionary ways that the next version of Office 2013 is going to distributed as, is as Software as a Service. Office 365 Home Premium has little, if nothing to do with the web-based service that Office 365 is today. Instead it is the full Office suite for consumers delivered as a service over the net. Pricing is as of now not clear, but for a monthly/yearly fee you will have access to the Office suite linked to your Windows ID. This suite is delivered over the net to the device you are working on (the files are installed locally through one-click installs) and 1 license equals 5 installs.

In the latest episode of Windows Weekly, Paul Thurrott speculated that the price for this service will probably be around $10 dollars or less a month, which in case it happens will be a really compelling offer. Not only do you get 5 installs (which you yourself will be able to manage) for this price, but the software suite will always be up to date – courtesy of Microsoft.

Today I installed the Office 365 Home Premium Public Preview on my laptop, and the install process is easy and fast. From the time you hit install and until you are ready to start exploring it takes around 90 seconds. Everything is not installed in that timeframe though, but the rest of the software is being installed in the background as you are looking into the first application that is presented. Total time is still a lot less than a traditional MSI install. If you try this version out, you are also able to have it installed alongside your previous version of Office.

I recommend that you try it out. This really is the new way of Office being delivered to you going forward, and I really, really like it!

Take a look at the screenshots from the install process, try it out yourself (you can get the bits here) and let me know what you think in the comments section below. Bon appetite

 

Yesterday, Microsoft released the Office 2013 Public Preview. Now for the first time, the average consumer (ie us) will be able to test out a pre-release version of the Office suites to come.

I downloaded the Office Professional Plus 2013 Public Preview (x86) version throught Technet, and will provide some screenshots from some of the applications to give you an impression of what’s coming.

Installation process

After executing the installation file, you are given the choice of upgrade or fresh install. I chose to upgrade my existing Office 2010 suite. When the installation was finished I was greeted with this box;

In this box I of course selected to Sign in;

 

Here I was given the choice between a personal or organizational account

 

Up came this not so very pretty dialogue which mixes new Metro style, with the old-fashioned Windows Live ID sign on UI.

 

I was then greeted by Office 2013 Public Preview, and was asked how I would like Office to look. I chose Calligraphy, which aligns with the corresponding theme in Windows 8 Release Preview

 

Then I was given some information on the direct link between the new Office suites and the Microsoft Skydrive cloud-service

 

After that bit of info, you are given the choice of taking a look into what is new in Office 2013 Public Preview

 

The information on what is new is given as a PowerPoint 2013 presentation

 

First some information on the link between your Microsoft account (former Windows Live ID) and Office

 

Then some more of the same information on the link between Skydrive and Office

 

According to this brief intro by Microsoft that is pretty much it. Or is it really? Lets see!

 

 

 

 Outlook 2013

I started up Outlook 2013 as the first application, since it is this one, alongside Word that I use the most.

 

As is easily seen, Outlook has also gotten the Metro style look and feel. Although still fairly easy to recognize from the previous version

 

The Account information view

 

The Office Account view from where you can activate your account, as well as view connected accounts.

 

After entering the product key, my desktop computer was added to my account

 

The Outlook options dialogue revealed an old-fashioned IU-style dialogue box – I presume this will be changed before the final release.

 

The Ribbon; Home tab view in Outlook 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Send/receive tab view in Outlook 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Folder tab view in Outlook 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; The View tab view in Outlook 2013 Public Preview

 

The Calendar, monthly view

The People view (formerly Contacts, now named People, aligning it with Windows 8 and Windows Phone)

The Task view

 

The Notes view

And finally the Folder view

 

 Word 2013

 

When you open Word you will see this screen

 

The Info screen in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The New screen in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

And this is what a blank document looks like in Word 2013 Public Preview.

 

The Ribbon; Home tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Insert tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Design tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Page layout tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; References tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Mailings tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Review tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; View tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Format picture tab view in Word 2013 Public Preview

 

 

 PowerPoint 2013

When you open PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview you are greeted with this dialogue

 

The standard layout with the Home tab Ribbon view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Home tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Insert tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Design tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Transitions tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Animations tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Slide show tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Review tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; View tab view in PowerPoint 2013 Public Preview

 

 

 Excel 2013

When you open Excel 2013 Public Preview you are greeted with this dialogue

The standard layout with the Home tab Ribbon view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

When selecting File – Open you are presented with this view. The Skydrive integration is easily seen

 

The same goes for the File – Save as screen.

 

And this is how the File – Print screen now looks

 

The File – Share screen looks like this

 

And the File – Export screen gives you these options. As promised you are now able to create .pdf documents directly within the Office 2013 suite of applications

 

 

The Ribbon; Home tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Insert tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Page layout tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Formulas tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Data tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; Review tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

The Ribbon; View tab view in Excel 2013 Public Preview

 

 

 OneNote 2013

When you open OneNote 2013 Public Preview you are greeted with this dialogue

 

When selecting File – Info you are presented with this view

 

When selecting File – New you are presented with this view.

 

In the standard layout view the ribbon is by default hidden

 

But once you click on for instance, the Home tab, the Home Ribbon slides down

 

The OneNote 2013 Public Preview Ribbon; Insert tab.

 

The OneNote 2013 Public Preview Ribbon; Draw tab.

 

The OneNote 2013 Public Preview Ribbon; History tab.

 

The OneNote 2013 Public Preview Ribbon; Review tab.

 

The OneNote 2013 Public Preview Ribbon; View tab.

 

 Microsoft Publisher 2013

When you open Microsoft Publisher 2013 Public Preview File – New you are greeted with this dialogue

 

The Standard layout of the Microsoft Publisher 2013 Public Preview.

 

That was a quick look through some of the applications in the Office 2013 Public Preview. In the Professional Plus suite that I downloaded these additional applications can be found;

Access 2013, InfoPath Designer 2013, InfoPath Filler 2013, Lync 2013

 

I will be using the Office 2013 Public Preview going forward, and will keep you posted on my impressions and views on it. Want to give it a try yourself? You can download the Public Preview from here. Good luck, and please tell me what you think in the comments below.