J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

No Office 14 In 2009

According to Steve Ballmer: Office 14 not this year.

During his annual "Strategic Update" briefing with Wall Street analysts on February 24, CEO Steve Ballmer said Office 14 won't be shipping in 2009.

"Office 14 will not be this year," Ballmer told analysts.

Microsoft officials have been careful not to provide a ship-date target for the next version of Office. However, last year, more than a few times execs slipped up and indicated Office 14 would ship in 2009. Just a month or two ago, Microsoft reps were telling corporate customers that Office 14 would ship in either late 2009 or early 2010.

Microsoft released an alpha version of Office 14 - which includes a new Office for Sales SKU - in January to selected customers. A first beta is looking like this summer, according to sources with whom I'm spoken recently.