Office 12 Beta 1 released

Microsoft has released office 12 Beta 1 to more than 10,000 Testers in a private beta. Supported ded In the beta is office 12 Professional, FrontPage 12,Groove, OneNote, project professional, Visio Professional,SharePoint 3, AndNew office server product.

This beta is being held privately, with only approved testers inserting ing bits. Beta 2, which is tentatively scheduled for March of 2006 will be available to msdn subscribers as well.

In addition to the usual staples of the office system such as Word, Excel, and outlook this beta covers several products not previusly part of office. groove was recently acquired by Microsoft and is a peer-to-peer collaboration system that includes des instant messaging, file sharing, and schedule synchronization. interconnect is a new contact Manager with automatic synchronization (similar to plaxo) and the ability to digitally sign your contact info. and lastly, this beta has des the office server product which will allow standards of the features of products like Excel, Word, and infopath to be centrally accessible and managed.

Also authorized ded in Beta 1 isOpenxml file format Compatibility PackWhich may include the "Save as PDF" functionality.