Microsoft Office 2010 -- A Better Battleship?

For most small and midsized businesses, Microsoft Office is the standard for productivity applications. So the arrival of Microsoft 2010, which is now going into beta for release next year, is big news.

Indeed, the new version brings lots of upgrades big and small. After testing beta version for several weeks, it's clear that Office 2010 has plenty of features and enhancements of interest to SMBs -- and this slideshow will highlight more than a dozen of them.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, tha may no longer be the issue. Today's question is whether Microsoft is building the world's best battleship at the dawn of the age of the aircraft carrier.

That is, even as it makes Office 2010 by the far the most robust office suite on the market -- and begins to experiment with online features and sharing -- is that really what SMBs are looking for?

Are these features compelling enough to keep SMBs spending on a high-end office suite? Or do small and midsize companies just want something good enough, cheap enough, and compatible enough to do the jobs they need?

Time will tell, but in the meantime check out our look at some of the most important SMB-related features in the 2 (out of 5) versions of Office 2010 that Microsoft is pitching to small and midsize businesses:

Microsoft Home And Office 2010 includes Excel 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote

Microsoft Office Professional 2010 adds Access and Publisher.

There are important features in other versions -- such as Sharepoint Workspace and Outlook with Business Contact Manager -- but as usual, bMighty concentrates on the SMB products.


Direct download from Microsoft