Microsoft Office 2010 on MSDN/TechNet

Earlier today, Office 2010 is made available to certain subscribers of MSDN/TechNet.

SharePoint was made free last year, hence the 2010 version will inherit it. Everybody can download it at Microsoft Download for 32-bit version and 64-bit version. Microsoft also provided a thorough product guide for download.

Breaking the habit, Microsoft had provided the final RTM Office as an “exe” file, which never happened before.

This is a much smaller package as only one version of Office 2010 is inside, Professional Plus.

Installation was smooth, and now I can finally confirm the leaked version from WZT is absolutely the original final bits.

I don’t know why Microsoft had been promoting the 32-bit version as the officially recommended. I’ve been using 64-bit Office 2010 since Beta, and it works so well.

Perfect as Office 2010 could be, it has a big issue in licensing, which I never thought would exist.

We all know, back in the old days in Office 2000, XP, 2003, Microsoft Office had clear policy that they provided distinctive product images for different channels and requires for different types of product keys to unlock. That means, we cannot use keys purchased from software stores to unlock the enterprise image. Windows licensing policy was exactly the same back then.

It all changed with the introduction of Windows Vista. Microsoft started to promote an integrated licensing, which takes all types of product keys to ease the installation complexity. That was great! It basically solved the big headache that every IT Pro would have when maintaining many computers.

Office 2007 took the style so as to make it the easiest Office for deployment. Applause everywhere.

Windows 7 inherited this scheme, and all believed Office 2010 would too. Well, we were wrong. Microsoft took a heavy hit here with no clear reason.

For Office 2010, the licensing is very strict, or even harsh. Licenses for retail cannot be taken by enterprise images, and licenses for one application is limited strictly to that app, which wasn’t back in Office 2007 days.

Still I couldn’t understand why they took such a step to complicate things.

Office 2010 had been good in development and now it’ll probably become a nightmare for deployment.

Did I tell you that in Office 2010, there isn’t a simple way to activate by telephone. You must look for explanations on how to use the command line to bring on the telephone activation numbers or stay online. That’s just unreasonable. What if there is no Internet? In Microsoft’s thinking, if there is no Internet, you might don’t need to use Office 2010.

The Bottom Line:

What’s inside will make Office 2010 a very success, but the package disappoints.

Distribution in exe files will require huge hard disk space for file extraction. Considering the limited space on SSDs, I don’t really think this as a wise move.

Too strict licensing scheme will also increase complexity for deployment.

The only relief here is KMS, which is very simple and works well.

If you need to use MAK license keys, you’ll have good chance to find yourself in much annoyance.

Well, people inside Microsoft always say Office team is actually leading the product design within the corporation. With their original team leader shifted to Windows department and made huge success there, Office 2010 kind of skipped a step and stumbled a little.

The good news is Office is among the last refreshments for 2010 Microsoft platform, so this example will not be inherited widely.

Whatever, Office 2010 is still a great product, although it could be better simply.