Windows Office 2013 Shown Off At TechEd

Before the whole Windows Phone 8 and Surface tablet wave sweeps off the fact that Office 2013 is also in the pipeline, here’s a quick review of what Microsoft said about it during its TechEd show last week.

Microsoft Office 2013 RT Revealed During TechEd

Microsoft did a brief showing of a new version of Office during the TechEd keynote. It is called the Office 2013 RT, so named because it is made for running on devices running on Windows RT. Windows RT in turn is Windows on ARM (ARM mobile chips are commonly used in mobile handsets and tablets). The name also suggests that the release will happen next year.

Earlier this month, we saw leaks of what appeared to be a Metro Style Office logo. Now after the official reveal, it seems to have been part of an Office “2013 Preview” setup program. However, other than these little tidbits of information, Microsoft has been generally very unforthcoming about Office 15 (Office 2013). It did expect a public beta this summer though, which is why expectations are so high and the rumors are so rampant.

There have been many new features added to the core application of the Office 15 suite, quite a few of which are already visible in the early builds of. These include a full screen mode in each application, as well as a reading mode and a flatter interface for easier touch-based navigation. And here’s the best part — Office 2013 RT seems to be headed for the Windows RT bundle.

This means users might get this version of Office as a bundled program with ARM-based Windows tablets. Much like how Mac users get iLife as part of the bundled apps with the Mac OS. However, Microsoft still being a software company, it is unclear whether this addition would cost consumers extra in comparison to tablets running basic builds of Windows RT.