It’s been announced – Office 2010 is finally at the Release to Manufacturer stage. It looks like it will be on the store shelves by late May/early June.
That does sadly mean that Microsoft will probably cut life support to the beta within the coming weeks. It’s a shame really as I love Office 2010 – but having said that I’ll probably go out and buy it. Maybe even pre-order it. I don’t know.
Chrome is sailing on merrily, but other browsers are slowly starting to sink.
The normal trend is just about carrying on this month, with a few minor differences. Percentages with thanks to HitsLink.
Internet Explorer and Firefox continue to loose market share this month – IE is now down to 61.58% and Firefox is down to 24.23%.
Chrome continues to grow with it’s market share percentage up to 5.61%. Whereas Safari managed to loose a bit of market share this month (which does happen now and then) – it now stands at 4.45%.
Opera’s users are slowly trickling away, with it’s market share now at 2.35%. However, Opera Mini (the mobile edition) continues to gain market share with it’s market share now up to 0.64%.
That’s your outlook for this month.
New Visual Basic version nearly ready for release!
For those who like building applications in Visual Basic, you’ll be glad to know that Microsoft will release the release candidate of Visual Basic 2010 to the general public tomorrow.
The new version has already been released for MSDN customers and they can download it now.
The new update will include various fixes from the beta, and will hopefully bring a few new features from the last major release.
I’ll be reviewing it shortly after it’s released to the public, so stay tuned to GEEK!.
Microsoft is already handing out the release candidate to a select group of testers.
Microsoft has given a select group of testers access to the latest build of the Microsoft Office 2010 suite – the release candidate.
Sadly, at present, the release candidate isn’t available for public download. However, I would think that Microsoft will probably give it to TechNet customers in a few days (or weeks), and then once that’s done everyone else will probably get it shortly after.
This new release candidate would show that Microsoft is really trying hard to reach it’s target of RTM (release to manufacturer) by June 2010. It’s only February and they would appear to be reaching their final stages.
I have to say that I think the beta was very successful – I am yet to find any bugs or hold-backs. I’ve been using the beta since launch day and haven’t had a problem with it yet.
Update: Thanks to Sebastian (see comments) who has informed me that the RC will not go out on public release. It’s a shame, but many thanks for that information.
Microsoft today confirmed to Ars Technica that Office 2010 is expected to be in general availability by June 2010, after a beta tester apparently reported similar information.
The good news to that is that we should hopefully have 6 months of beta testing! Awesome.
However, don’t get too excited. OK, Windows 7 did actually launch on time, but Vista and Office 2007 were severely delayed. Microsoft aren’t brilliant at meeting deadlines, lets face it!
Oh well. GEEK! will keep you posted if any other news crops up, but for now lets hope that Office 2010 is worth it. Personally, I am yet to see anything that makes Office 2010 worth upgrading from 2007 (or 2003 for that matter). It still uses the annoying DOCX format unless you specifically tell it not to use it – but that removes some features from Word.
If you haven’t got your hands on the Office 2010 beta, you can grab a copy here.