Microsoft will ship a technical preview of Office 2010 to invite-only users in July, the company has confirmed.

The Office 2010 beta is expected to land at some point in the second half of 2009 and will come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavours. It can run on Windows XP SP3, Vista and Windows 7. Additionally it will also work on any computer that can run Office 2007, said Microsoft.

The preview will include Word 2010, Excel 2010, Outlook 2010 and PowerPoint 2010.

Microsoft faces an increasing level of pressure from rivals including Google Docs and OpenOffice.org, when it does bring Office 2010 to market next year.

For now it is remaining characteristically quiet about the finer details, such as pricing and how many editions of the software MS plans to release.

Users can expect changes in the Office 2010 family of apps that include a new lightweight version of the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation intended for use online.

Microsoft has the full details about the technical preview here. ®

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