Office 14: Alpha testing to begin before year-end

While Microsoft has made a few public and well-calculated moves to prepare the way for Windows 7, the company has said almost nothing (at least intentionally) about Office 14.

On August 15, however, there was mention of an Office 14 alpha release on one of the Microsoft blogs that I read skim regularly. That post, about PerformancePoint Server, mentioned the Office 14 (O14) alpha TAP (Technical Adoption Program) release. The monitoring and analytics component of PerformancePoint Server (Microsoft’s business-scorecarding server) will be part of the O14 TAP, the posting said. And the alpha process for that O14 TAP is slated for November/December 2008. From the post (which since I blogged this has disappeared):

“The Alpha process will begin in the November/December timeframe this year. When you submit, please identify as a PPS M&A candidate. The deadline for submissions is August 28th.”

Microsoft opened up its Office 14 TAP nomination program in mid-May 2008. Here are excerpts from the note the Office team sent to Microsoft employees asking for potential tester names:

Read the whole article here.

-Ken