The standard edition of Microsoft Office 2007 suite, that includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook programs, costs about $400. Microsoft also provides a fully-functional trial version of their Office suites that let you experience all the features of the software without spending a penny but these trial versions expire after 60 days and after that, you either need to buy the product or uninstall the software from your machine.

Now let me share something really interesting – you can download Microsoft Office for free and the software won’t expire until October 2010 (that’s nearly a year).

Microsoft has released the first public beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 that anyone can download on their Windows (or Mac, if you are using virtualization software like Boot Camp or Vmware Fusion) for free. This is the Professional Plus edition that includes OneNote, Access, Publisher and InfoPath applications in addition to the regular Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook programs.

Office 2010 includes several new features enhancements (see review of Office 2010). For instance, you can create a movie of PowerPoint presentations and share them on YouTube or an iPod. You can also deliver live presentations to a remove audience from within PowerPoint. The ribbon interface, first introduced in Office 2007, in now available across all Office 2010 programs.

For me however, the most useful component of Office 2010 is Office Live Web Apps. This is a Google Docs like service that lets you write documents, spreadsheets and presentations inside the web browser without requiring a copy of Microsoft Office.

To receive your free copy of Microsoft Office 2010, go to officebeta.microsoft.com. The serial number of Microsoft Office 2010, that will be provided at the time of download. can be used on a single computer only.

Asked By: Amit Agarwal [41 ]