Microsoft delays Office 2007 again

Microsoft said on Thursday that it is making another slight delay tothe planned arrival time for Office 2007. The update had been expectedto arrive for volume license customers in October and have a mainstreamlaunch in January.

Now Microsoft said it will be finished by the end of the calendar year and made broadly available sometime early next year.

"Based on internal testing and the beta 2 feedback aroundproduct performance, we are revising our development schedule todeliver the 2007 system release by the end of year 2006, with broadgeneral availability in early 2007," a Microsoft representative said inan e-mail. "Feedback on quality and performance will ultimatelydetermine the exact dates."

Microsoft said earlier Thursday that it had nearly reached itsself-imposed limit for testers of the current Windows Vista beta, withplans to stop allowing new downloads after Friday. In addition to thepublicly available beta 2 version of Office, Microsoft this week made available a Web-based test version of the software.

View: Microsoft Office 2007 Preview