Office 10 Beta 2 Ships Early

Big news for Office testers as Mary Jo Foley is reporting Beta 2 of Microsoft Office 10 has been released to a small group, with a full launch expected shortly. In addition, News.com is stating the second beta will be shipped early, arriving this week instead of its later mid-November schedule. BetaNews has learned the hosted sites, where testers can store documents online, have been upgraded to Beta 2. Office 10 beta coordinators announced today that "No, we haven't shipped the Beta 2 kits yet, but we're close. When the kits are shipped, you'll receive an e-mail letting you know that 'Beta 2 has left the building'."

This release will feature several more of the Web storage functions incorporated into Office as part of the .NET platform. These include the Tahoe document manager, pieces of Exchange 2000, and added security features for Outlook. The final version of Office is expected to ship in mid-2001.