Office 2013 Professional Plus 2013 trial version hits TechNet

Perhaps the new Office 2013 has been a bit overshadowed by the hype around the launch of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, but a new version of the Office suite is a big deal for both consumers and businesses. A public preview version was released several months ago and last month the software officially reached RTM.

Now Microsoft has pushed out the first trial version of Office 2013 to their TechNet web site. This trial is only for the Professional Plus version of the suite. The download includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, and Lync. Customers will find some interesting new features like a new Start page for each app and also an Office Store. This latest Office suite also features integration with the SkyDrive cloud storage service and Office 365 as well.

According to the TechNet download page the new Office 2013 trial is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and in multiple languages like "Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish."

Ironically, if you have purchased the new Surface RT tablet that launched with Windows 8 back on October 26th then you already have the final release version of Office 2013. If you didn't try out the preview version, or even if you did, you may want to grab this 60 day trial and check out what is new. Pricing will be announced on December 1st and the consumer launch will likely follow soon.