REDMOND, Wa. – Microsoft has announced Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, as well as Visio 2010 and Project 2010 is now available for business customers worldwide.

At this stage, many users are already familiar with the products. Microsoft’s Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 beta programs were the largest ever, with three times the number of participants compared with the Office 2007 beta program. As a result, 8.6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products. In addition, more than 1,000 partners are already building solutions for the 2010 set of products.

“Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 define the future of productivity,” said Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division. “With the 2010 set of products, organizations will save, innovate and grow as their people benefit from working across the PC, phone and browser.”

Microsoft is emphasizing the findings of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “The Total Economic Impact of Implementing Microsoft’s Integrated Office Productivity Platform,” May 2010, which evaluated the 2010 releases of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The Forrester TEI model employs four fundamental elements including costs, benefits to the entire organization, flexibility and risk. Based on the customer interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for a composite organization and found the ROI to be 301 percent with a payback period of 7.4 months after deployment. The study also found that the composite organization would see more than $13 million in savings over a three-year period and on average, a savings of more than two work weeks per year.

The NHL’s Edmonton Oilers are using SharePoint 2010 to help its scouting staff collaborate in real time. Scouts, who travel across Europe and North America in search of prospective entry draft picks, can now post and browse player files online, read detailed player statistics and respond to comments left by colleagues.

“Our goal is to win a Stanley Cup, and that starts with our scouts. As we get deeper into the entry draft process, we rely on their expertise to identify talented players with the potential to become Oilers. SharePoint 2010 is helping to make their lives easier. By helping them make better, faster decisions and instantly share information, we have an opportunity to build an even stronger hockey team,” says Sean Draper, Director of Research, Analysts and Software Development, Edmonton Oilers.

“A new generation is entering the workforce, and they expect the mobile and social networking capabilities they enjoy at home to be available at work,” said Antoine Leblond, senior vice-president, Office Productivity Applications Group. “The 2010 suite of products provides workers with one of the best productivity experiences across the PC, phone and browser, making it easy for people to connect and share ideas.”

Microsoft is emphasizing the utility of Microsoft Office Web Apps, the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and OneNote. Along with easy access to documents from virtually anywhere, Web Apps help preserve the look and feel of a document regardless of device, so content and format are generally preserved while moving between the PC, phone and browser. Effective Wednesday, May 12, Office Mobile 2010 will be available for free via Windows Phone Marketplace for all Windows Mobile 6.5 phones with a previous version of Office Mobile. People using Office Mobile 2010 can perform lightweight editing of Office documents and take notes on the go. With Office Mobile, people can work with Office documents stored on their phone, attached to an e-mail, and can browse, edit, and update documents stored on a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 site. SharePoint intranet sites and communities also help people collaborate, regardless of location.

Microsoft’s signature productivity technologies are available in the cloud, offering unprecedented choice and flexibility for IT departments when purchasing and deploying solutions. Office Web Apps will now be available to all Office volume licensing customers. In addition, customers will be able to purchase a subscription to Office Web Apps as part of Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft’s cloud-based applications.

Available today in 14 languages, over the course of the next few months, Office 2010 and related products will eventually be available in 94 languages.

This column was written by Mark Cox of ConnectIT, an IntegratedMar.Com

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