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Office 2010 Hits RC Stage

Microsoft Office 2010 reached the release candidate (RC) milestone this week, bringing the development process one step closer to the product's planned June release.

"Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the technology adoption program (TAP). This is one of Microsoft's planned milestones in the engineering process; however they do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail.

The general public currently has access to Office 2010 only as a beta release.

Release candidates follow the beta testing stages, and Microsoft typically does not introduce new features during the RC phase. Microsoft sometimes creates several RC versions before release to manufacturing (RTM), which marks the shipment of final code to the channel. The spokesperson declined to provide an estimated date for the RTM.

A month ago, Microsoft detailed pricing for Office 2010. The product will come in four main SKUs: Office Home and Student for $149, Office Home and Business for $279, Office Professional for $499 and Office Professional Academic for $99.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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