Microsoft released Monday a preview of Office 2016 for Windows, making the sneak peak available only to subscribers of its business-grade Office 365 plans, aimed at IT professionals and developers, not run-of-the-mill end users. The company also announced the technical preview of Skype for Business.
Microsoft lets business owners preview and test its upcoming Office client. According to Microsoft's Office blog, the software maker is launching an Office 2016 preview aimed at IT professionals and developers.
"This early build doesn't yet contain all the features we're planning to ship in the final product," explains Microsoft's Kirk Koenigsbauer.
Microsoft's Office blog has a full feature rundown, but here's a quick overview of what Office 2016 Preview users can expect: Loss protection Relevant Products/Services for Word, Excel and PowerPoint; technical improvements like stronger search, e-mail delivery performance and multi-factor authentication for Outlook; click-to-run deployment for better IT management; extended information rights management; and improved keyboard accessibility.
According to PCworld, "Office 2016 has been the subject of rumors and speculation for months, but this marks the first time that Microsoft has talked openly about the next version of its productivity suite. While these new features probably won't be of much interest if you're just using Office at home, you can expect a steady drip of new information now that the preview is out in the open."
Alongside with the Office 2016 preview, Microsoft has also announced the technical preview of its Skype for Business client. This new Skype replaces Microsoft Lync, a company's communication tool for business. The Skype for business has a similar functionality with its consumer version. It also has the ability to integrate closely into different Office apps, as well as features like IM, voice and video calls, and online meetings.
Skype for Business is said to become available in April for Lync customers, and will ship with a new client, new server and an updated service within Office 365.
In other Microsoft news, the Windows 10 technical preview has apparently leaked, showing that it has uses a peer-to-peer or BitTorrent style downloading of apps and operating system updates.
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