Microsoft Office 14 (Office System 2009) Alpha Leaked Screenshots

Microsoft Office business productivity suite is another cash cow for Microsoft beside Windows operating system, which just released the upcoming Windows 7 to pubic beta. Microsoft Office System, which has its current version Office 2007 released on January 2007, is always popular with businesses and corporations, has a new version coming up too. Codenamed as Office 14, and will likely take the name of Microsoft Office System 2009, the new version of Office suite is rumored to be schedule for beta release in May and plan for final RTM release by end of 2009 or early 2010.However, Microsoft has released Office 14 (or Office 2009) to a very limited group of beta testers. And, the screenshots of Office 14 Alpha edition has leaked by WZor.Net. Microsoft Office 14 contains Access 14, Excel 14, Groove 14, InfoPath Designer 14, InfoPath Filler 14, InterConnect 14, OneNote 14, Outlook 14, PowerPoint 14, Project 14, Publisher 14, SharePoint Designer 14, Visio 14, and Word 14. It’s possible that Grava, an tool for writing educational content be integrated into Office 14 (O14) too.

Access 2009

Excel 2009

OneNote 2009

Publisher2009

SharePoint Designer 2009

Visio 2009

Word 2009

Word 2009 Menu

Grava

Why Did Microsoft Skip Office 13?

I've received a few emails from people who recall the previous version of Office carrying a code name of "Office 12." Their inquiries ring through a resounding, "what the heck happened to "Office 13?" Though this issue has been addressed within a few of the Microsoft communities ever since we first found out there would be no "Office 13," I'll go ahead and echo the core fact of the matter: Superstition, Watson! Ho ho!

Yes, it seems the folks who coin the code names on the Office team at Microsoft decided that 13 was indeed an unlucky number, but this comes as no surprise seeing it as Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky and many 13+ story buildings either have a 12a designation or they do as Microsoft has done with Office and skip to 14. It's all just cutsy little semantics and doesn't amount to a hill of beans in terms of what the product will actually be, so don't freak out simply because someone at Microsoft has a sense of numerologically impending doom.

Psst! Hey, Microsoft: "...the number 13 isn't any more unlucky than any other number. There exist negative and positive, and balanced, over-balanced, and under-balanced qualities for every number." That's straight from a numerology "expert." Personally, I don't subscribe to any superstitious dogmas but if you want to see just what they're buying into, go here.

And if you happen to wonder if this is all indeed why they skipped "Office 13" for a code name, nothing's better than a document straight from Microsoft's servers showing as such. Here, Eric Vigesaa, the 2006-? Program Manager for Office System client applications, is having a discussion with TechNet and says the following on 12/27/2006:

"Eric: I actually am taking a vacation for two weeks and then, it may sound strange but the next version of Office is already in the planning stages, we want to make sure that our IT perspective and apps are represented in the new product focus and offerings so we’re going to be very involved with that.

Michael: So that’s Office 13 in development huh?

Eric: Well, 13 is unlucky so we’re calling it Office 14."

Source: TechNet Radio 12/27/2006 Transcript

Oddly enough, even folks within Microsoft prior to then were assuming the natural progression from "Office 12" to "Office 13." Again, residing on Microsoft's servers, are a couple of documents containing the same information from 2005 referencing the development of ""Office 13" prototypes":

Source 1: Dik_Bigl.pdf

Source 2: ServiceorientatieEnICT.pdf

Both of those documents are in Dutch, but with a quick Babel Fish translation comes a loose interpretation of what we can easily gather to be the information we're interested in in regards to "Office 13:"

"With which (version of) product Microsoft comes also on the market, there is always a remake in frequently make and is thus still worked to the prototypes of a still remake. To give an example: Office 2003 are in 2005, the current version of Office and have the internal version number 11. For Office 12 for the `Longhorn wave' and is now already researchers there it is at present worked busy with considering and developing prototypes for Office 13. Thus continues invest Microsoft in the future."

Source: Internet