The transitions that organizations and people are making to the cloud enable many new opportunities for sharing with others.  We believe that the best way to leverage the cloud is to connect the best-of-breed applications to feature-rich services.  We do not believe that a one-size-fits-all browser based solution is suitable to meet the needs of both work and personal computing because it misses so many opportunities to leverage the power of rich applications. We know that people work online and offline - internet connectivity should never be a barrier to productivity.  These beliefs underlie our work in connecting Office to the cloud and shape our philosophy for the entire release.

In this post, we'd like to talk about how we've taken Office and connected it more naturally to the cloud. Let us know what you think about these new capabilities and please give us feedback about what you'd like to hear more about in the coming posts.

...

I’m excited to talk about updates to the Office Web Apps, which are now available live on SkyDrive and the Office 365 Preview. You can try out the new Office Web Apps on SkyDrive by signing in using this special link or you can participate in the Office 365 Preview. Either way, you will get the same new Office Web Apps when you create or click on a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote document.

...

PJ Hough, Corporate Vice President of Program Management, Microsoft Office Division

Welcome to the Office Next blog.  I'm really excited to kick off this conversation and connect you with the engineers who are building future releases of Office-here, they'll discuss the improvements we make, the designs we choose and the data and feedback that inform our decisions.

...

Earlier this year, Steven Sinofsky announced Windows support for ARM processors (Windows on ARM or WOA). His post on the Building Windows 8 blog included the following news about Office. In the months since that announcement, there has been a great deal of speculation about what we are delivering. David Brodsky, Partner Test Manager and Josh Pollock, Principal Development Manager join Office Next to walk you through what Office for Windows RT.

...

By Bert Van Hoof, Office Engineering Today, we’re proud to introduce the new Office; it comes pre-installed on every Windows Phone 8, which is launching worldwide today. When we started on this journey we set five clear objectives: All your Office documents, where and when you want them The best Office document rendering on any phone All your notes – in one place and with you, anywhere Communicate and collaborate effectively from your mobile device The most world-ready Office experience...

If you’ve downloaded the new Office Customer Preview, then you probably noticed that your installation experience is quite a bit different than in any previous version of Office. These changes aren’t just cosmetic, they’re part of our strategy to bring the rich Office applications that you know and love into the future as an integrated part of our Software + Services offering. In this post I want to talk about why we think it’s important to invest in client delivery, what we did, how we did it, and what it means to you in your everyday interactions with the new Office.

...

On Monday in San Francisco we took the wraps off of the new Office's touch experience designed for Windows 8. We showed the new touch-optimized Windows 8-style app for OneNote, and we showed how we've touch-enabled Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and other apps on the desktop. The new Office is designed for a great experience whether you're sitting on a couch with a tablet, or at a desk with a mouse and keyboard. It makes common tasks fast, fluid, and intuitive, while still enabling the rich capabilities required to create high-quality documents.  In this post I'll walk you through the thinking, engineering process and design framework we used to reimagine these experiences for touch.

...

Hi everyone! By now folks have also been able to see that we’ve changed the default save location in Office to SkyDrive. We're excited to talk about the change, and why it offers the best experience for storing, sharing and collaborating Office documents.

...

Social is rewiring the way we communicate and collaborate. Facebook and Twitter have completely transformed how we connect in our personal lives. And new social tools are making it easier to get things done at work.

We believe that the social enterprise needs to be a natural part of the way people get things done, creating a connected experience that extends and enhances familiar tools. And we recognize that companies often need to secure and manage social interactions, just as they do other forms of communication. Our social investments in this release are designed to accomplish both goals.

...

We have made major new investments in the new Office to support international users who work in languages other than English.  Three new languages have been fully localized for the first time and Language Interface Packs added in 13 more.  The range of languages supported in Office 365 and in Office Mobile has also been greatly extended. For the many international users who need to consume or create content in more than one language we are introducing new ways to access Office proofing tools in additional languages.

...