Two months after the Microsoft Office 2010 technical preview was leaked onto the web , Microsoft are scheduled to announce their Office Web Applications and the Office 2010 beta. Even though the beta is due for official release later this month, I’m sure that a great portion of the public are already trialling the beta courtesy of the numerous torrent sites providing downloads to it. Still, it will be interesting to hear any extra details that Microsoft can provide about their web offerings.

The web applications are online versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote – but lighter on functionality than their desktop counterparts. Although Google (and others like Zoho) have beaten them to the whole concept of enabling the sharing of documents via the ‘cloud’, the functionality found in Google Docs is quite primitive. Microsoft’s products, on the other hand, are more sophisticated. Users will be able to use an internet browser to create, update and share Office documents in a way that is consistent across all platforms, whether they are using their PC, broswer or even moble phone.

Office web applications will be offered to customers via Office Live either via an advert funded or subscription based service.

The announcement will be made at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference on Monday 13th July 2009. The WPC is a forum that gives Microsoft partners an opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments. Like Office 2010 and its associated web applications.

Presenting will be the likes of Steve Ballmer, Kevin Turner, Allison Watson, Bill Veghte, Bob Muglia, Stephen Elop, Bob Kelly, Chris Capossela, Steven Guggenheimer, and other Microsoft execs.

There will be demos of a smorgasbord of upcoming goodies, including:

• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008
• Microsoft Office 2010
• Microsoft Silverlight 3
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• Azure Services Platform

Another Microsoft Office 2010 Movie

As if the first Office 2010 movie wasn’t enough to convince us that Microsoft are movie marketing chumps, further evidence is provided by the new one.

Tags | announcement, beta