Office 15 Technical Preview

Microsoft announced the launch of the Office 15 Technical Preview on January 30. There’s some big news in the short announcement made on the Office Team Blog.    Let’s dissect the announcement and get answers to the questions that I hear from people about the next version of Office and SharePoint.
As announced by PJ Hough, the Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Office Division, Office 15 reached the Technical Preview milestone on Monday. As word spread like wildfire, the most common questions are these: What’s Office 15? When will it be released? How do I get my hands on it? and, of course, What’s new?

WHAT is Office 15?

“Office 15” is the code name for the next versions of Microsoft Office products and services, just as “Office 14” was the code name for what became Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Visio 2010. Of course, the name of the product will likely change and I can’t imagine Microsoft straying from the decade-old trend of branding the product with the year—for example “Office 2012” or “Office 2013.” But, for now, it’s “Office 15” and you’ll hear its components referred to with the 15 moniker for coming weeks and months: SharePoint 15, Outlook 15, Visio 15.
‘Softies regularly refer to this new generation as “Wave 15.” And “wave” might be an understatement: tsunami is more like it. Microsoft’s ambitions are huge, as reported by Hough:
"With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio."
Read this statement again folks: Microsoft is publicly saying it will update cloud services (Office 365), servers (SharePoint, Exchange and Lync), mobile and PC clients simultaneously. Unified communications (Lync/Exchange), Office apps, and collaboration, all at once. Holy upgrade, Batman! That’s huge!
There had been buzz about Microsoft releasing one side or the other (on-premises versus in the cloud) “first.” You might remember that Office 365 launched a full year after the on-prem version of SharePoint.
Not so this time around. Looks like Microsoft is delivering on its promise to be “all in” with the cloud this time around.