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OFFICE FOR IT PROS

Office 2010 SP1 Released and Office 365 Public Launch
By Andy O'Donald, Product Manager, Microsoft Office

June was a busy month for Office! Office 2010 SP1 was just released and Office 365 has moved out of Beta and into full production.

First, let us take a look at Office 2010 SP1. There have been several useful blog posts from the Office Sustained Engineering team that outline the changes and fixes in this service pack, and we have released documentation of the full scope of changes as well as guidance on how to apply these update:

• Announcing Service Pack 1 for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 – Blog post listing all of the cumulative updates included in SP1 plus related KB articles
• Issues Fixed by SP1 in the Office 2010 Desktop Applications – Downloadable spreadsheet useful for those testing or evaluating the service pack
• Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 Availability – Blog post with links to all of the Office 2010 SP1 downloads
• Apply Office 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) – Technical guidance on how to apply the service pack

Here is quick list of some of the noticeable updates:

• Outlook fixes an issue where "Snooze Time" would not reset between appointments.
• The default behavior for PowerPoint "Use Presenter View" option changed to display the slide show on the secondary monitor.
• Integrated community content in the Access Application Part Gallery.
• Better alignment between Project Server and SharePoint Server browser support.
• Improved backup / restore functionality for SharePoint Server
• The Word Web Application extends printing support to "Edit Mode"
• Project Professional now synchronizes scheduled tasks with SharePoint task lists.
• Internet Explorer 9 "Native" support for Office Web Applications and SharePoint
• Office Web Applications Support for Chrome
• Inserting Charts into Excel Workbooks using Excel Web Application
• Support for searching PPSX files in Search Server
• Visio Fixes scaling issues and arrowhead rendering errors with SVG export
• Proofing Tools improve spelling suggestions in Canadian English, French, Swedish and European Portuguese.
• Outlook Web Application Attachment Preview (with Exchange Online only)
• Office client suites using "Add Remove Programs" Control Panel, building on our work from Office 2007 Service Pack 2

Now on to the Office 365 launch:

Office 365 launched to great fanfare with 24 hours of continuous events and coverage by major press outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, InformationWeek, and IDG News.

Office 365 is Microsoft's Software as a Service productivity offering, which means that, with one subscription, Microsoft will host and maintain your SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync servers in our datacenters and provide users with Office Professional Plus via a subscription. This means that organizations of all sizes now have access to advanced client and server functionality that, in the past, only large enterprises could afford to deploy and maintain.

Office 365 is currently available in 40 countries and regions around the world: United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom.

Test the free 30-day trial for yourself and see if Office 365 is the right solution for your users.

Andy O'Donald is a product manager in the Microsoft Office team currently focused on Office deployment, and the Office 365 Beta. Check out his TechNet Radio interview for answers to common IT pro questions on topics such as Office 2010 planning, deployment tools such as the Office Migration Planning Manager, end user resources, and the Office Web Apps.