This morning, we reached an important development milestone: the beginning of the "Office 15" Technical Preview Program. Office 15 is the codename for the next generation of the Microsoft Office products and services, and the Technical Preview is the first time we share our work with a select group of customers under non-disclosure agreements. These customers play a key role in our development process by testing early builds and providing feedback, which we incorporate into the final release.

As we envision the future, we spend countless hours analyzing trends and talking with people about what they would like to see in productivity solutions today and in the future. Today, Kurt DelBene, President of the Microsoft Office Division, shared his vision for the future of productivity. Take a moment to read Kurt’s blog and then take a peek into the future!

It's powerful to see Office in action. We work to capture real-life stories that showcase the many different ways that people use Office and how it can dramatically change life at home or work.What's important to me is not so much the features, but how people use our software. Let us know how you and your family are using Office 2010.

The future generation of users is very important to us at Microsoft. For me, engagements like the Office World Championship refresh my enthusiasm for my job and give meaning to the kind of work we have the privilege to do in Office.I just got back from San Diego, where I got to meet some of the finalists in the 2011 Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office, hosted by our certification partner Certiport. What an experience to see their passion and camaraderie at the event.

The time is right for Office to expand its horizons-- to the cloud. Office 365 adds the Web versions of your favorite Office 2010 applications and the server side of the equation: Exchange Online for managing email and calendars, SharePoint Online for websites and collaboration, and Lync Online for real-time communications such as online meetings and video conferencing. The server applications, which may be cost-prohibitive for a small business to manage on their own, bring Office to a whole new level. That’s why more than 200,000 organizations tested the service during the beta period, and many are already seeing cost savings of up to 50 percent.

I'm going to take off my marketing hat for a minute and tell you what I think is especially cool about Office 365. Here are a few examples:

When we released Office 2010 to the world one year ago, our critics weren't easy on us. They said we were heading in the wrong direction by continuing to invest in our desktop applications in addition to the cloud.

But in fact, business customers are deploying Office 2010 five times faster than they deployed Office 2007. Office 2010 is also the fastest-selling version of Office ever. And nearly 50 million people worldwide use Office Web Apps to view, edit, and share their documents from anywhere with a browser and an Internet connection.

Here's my perspective on our success...

When it comes to technology, making human connections (or understanding them) is crucial to maximizing your investment. Give your people the tools they can embrace, with a bit of freedom to experiment, and see what can happen.

How do you make the call on investing in new technology versus maintaining the status quo?

It’s clear that technology investment is becoming a priority again even for customers looking to recover lost ground from the tough few past years in the recession— at the same time it can create an internal minefield for IT leaders. Senior executives regularly ask IT to clamp down on spending and make do with what they already own. This means some companies are using technologies that are multiple generations old. How do you think your way through the decision to upgrade?

According to news reports, teens and the tech-savvy don't care for email so much these days. Recent headlines suggest the death of email is imminent, now that social networking, instant messaging, texting, and other tools are ever-present. We see evidence every day, however, that email is still a key means of communication. But rather than rely on our own experience, we wanted to know how the average information worker uses email and other messaging systems. We asked MarketTools Inc., to help us understand the use of email, social tools, and other means of communication in the office by conducting an independent online survey of 1,268 professionals and students, age 18 and older. Read what we found out in the research.

Today, Microsoft is announcing the public beta of Office 365, a service that we think delivers the best of the cloud, working with the Office applications people already know and trust. Office 365 brings together all of the familiar and powerful Microsoft productivity tools in a single cloud service. The public beta enables people in 37 countries to utilize Office, SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync as a cloud service.

Cloud computing is gaining mindshare fast. Companies of all sizes are using the cloud to deliver the latest applications and services, and they're seeing how cloud services can give them a competitive advantage while minimizing routine maintenance like patching, updating, and upgrading, and the upfront costs of traditional on-premises infrastructure. Cloud services can combine that convenience and affordability with powerful functionality and ease of use.

What does Office 365 offer you?