We have some great news from Microsoft, as Microsoft Office 2013 is now Released to Manufacturing (RTM). This comes as quite a pleasant surprise as previous reports suggested that Microsoft will not be able to complete their latest Office Suite in time for the Windows 8 launch.
The engineering team for Office are reported to have completed the coding and testing and have it ready for the release of Microsoft’s new operating system.
Office 2013 will be available around the first quarter of 2013 and users who purchase a copy of Office 2010 starting October 19th will be eligible for a free upgrade to the newest version of Office when it is available.
The Microsoft Surface RT along with other Windows RT tablets will ship with a free copy of Microsoft Office 2013 RT. We aren't certain if this early release of Office will impact Microsoft’s previous decision to ship Windows RT tablets with a the pre-release of Office 2013, but we can be assured we will receive the final version sooner rather than later now.
Microsoft has also outlined some points for IT Administrators and Managers to begin testing Office 2013 on their enterprises before potential deployment:
- We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service update, starting in November through general availability.
- Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1.
- IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.
source – Microsoft