Today we reached an important milestone in the development of the new Office.  Moments ago, the Office engineering team signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. This milestone means the coding and testing phase of the project is complete and we are now focused on releasing the new Office via multiple distribution channels to our consumer and business customers.

This is the most ambitious release of Office we've ever done. It spans the full family of Office applications, servers and cloud services. The new Office has a fresh, touch friendly design that works beautifully on Windows 8 and unlocks modern scenarios in social, reading, note-taking, meetings and communications. We are proud to achieve this milestone and are eager to deliver this exciting release to our customers.

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On July 16^th, we unveiled the new Office, a cloud service that works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard on new Windows devices - from PCs to tablets. With this release, we're modernizing Office, and an important part of that is the introduction of new subscriptions. Subscriptions open a host of possibilities, and subscribing to Office 365 will be the best choice for many - especially families, people with multiple devices and small businesses.

With a single subscription, you can use Office across a wide variety of devices - everything from PCs and tablets to Macs. You can easily save to and access your documents from the cloud and personalize your experience with Office. We will update Office more frequently to support new scenarios, and subscribers will always be current with the latest innovations. Subscriptions also open new possibilities like integrating web services into Office in ways never before possible; in this release, we've added Skype calling minutes and SkyDrive storage, and in the future, we'll do more.

In this post, you'll find details on how to get the new Office 365 subscriptions for consumers and small businesses when available.

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Effective immediately, we have changed the Office 2013 retail license agreement to allow customers to transfer the software from one computer to another. We made this decision based on feedback from our customers who asked for additional flexibility in this area.

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Today, we're introducing a new offering for university and college students called Office 365 University. Available in the first quarter of 2013, Office 365 University will be offered online, at retail locations and at Microsoft Stores in 52 markets worldwide.

Starting today, eligible students can buy Office University 2010 or Office University for Mac 2011 and receive a free subscription to Office 365 University when it becomes available.

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A few weeks ago, we announced the new Office for consumers, including the all new Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 University for college and university students, and traditional Office suites: Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013 and Office Professional 2013. Since then we've received questions about the number of installations people get with the traditional Office suites, transferability, and how they compare to Office 2010. With that in mind, we want to offer some clarity on the matter, to help customers make the best purchasing decision.

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Business customers around the world can now purchase the on-premises versions of the new Office products--including Office 2013, Exchange Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Project 2013 and Visio 2013--through Microsoft Volume Licensing. Broad availability of the new Office through retail and online channels is planned for the first quarter of 2013. The new Office gives customers a comprehensive set of productivity tools to help them do their best work in a world of devices and services.

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Traditionally, tablets have been great for reading, listening to music, watching movies, or keeping the kids entertained, but they haven't met everyone's needs for staying organized and getting things done. All that changed with last week's announcement of Microsoft Surface with Windows RT, which, like all Windows RT devices, comes with Office Home & Student 2013 RT preinstalled at no additional charge.

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Since downloading the new Office Customer Preview, you've likely updated your vocabulary to match the new things you're doing--moving documents from USB drives into the cloud or using a stylus that never runs out of ink. In honor of saying goodbye to, "I wish I could use content from this PDF," and hello to opening PDF files as familiar Word documents, we've put together a PowerPoint slideshow to celebrate just 10 of the things you'll never have to say with the new Office. There are dozens more solutions to discover, so dive into the Preview and tell @Office what features have changed your tune (hashtag #OfficePreview). If you haven't downloaded your modern Office yet, get it for free at office.com/preview.

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With the launch of Windows today, we are introducing new versions of existing Office applications. The new OneNote and Lync apps are available today for free through the Windows Store. Both have been redesigned to take advantage of the Windows experience with immersive touch capabilities throughout. They also work well with mouse and keyboard, so you can have a great experience whether you're on-the-go, on the couch or at your desk. In OneNote, for instance, we've added the "Radial Menu," a new touch...

Guest blogger Janna Robinson is the host of DIY Network's Hollywood Hi-Tech and a lifestyle technology expert with a mission to educate and empower people by making technology approachable, fashionable, and fun. As a bicoastal entrepreneur who is also planning a wedding, she uses Office 365 to simplify her life--staying connected and organized with a seamless blend of services, devices, and style. Read on to see how Janna does it and how you can too.

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