Office Reaches RTM!

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.

General availability is planned for the first quarter of 2013. Starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2010 from local retailers or resellers will receive the new Office for free upon availability. Customers will also see a preview version of the new Office on Windows RT devices, beginning with the Windows 8 launch on October 26. 

Additionally, we have a number of programs that provide business customers with early access so they can begin testing, piloting and adopting Office within their organizations:

• We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service update, starting in November through general availability.
• Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1.
• IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.

Please stay tuned for more specifics on general availability dates and other Office launch news. In the meantime, if you'd like to give the pre-release version a try, you can visit office.com/preview.

Thank you to the millions of people who have been testing early releases of the new Office. We are grateful for your support. Your invaluable feedback has helped us make the new Office the best Office ever.

Kirk Koenigsbauer
Corporate Vice President
Microsoft Office Division