According to an article published in InfoWorld in April 2006, Office 2010 will be more "role-based" than previous versions. The article cites Simon Witts, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Enterprise and Partner Group, as claiming that there would be features tailored to employees in "roles such as research and development professionals, sales persons, and human resources." Borrowing from ideas termed "Web 2.0" when implemented on the Internet, it is likely that Microsoft will incorporate features of SharePoint Server in Office 2010.
Microsoft indicated that Microsoft Office 2010 will include updated support for ISO/IEC 29500:2008, the International Standard version of Office Open XML (OOXML) file format. In its pre-release (beta) form, however, Office 2010 does not support the Strict variant of the format, but its Transitional variant. The intent of the ISO/IEC is to allow the removal of the Transitional variant from the ISO/IEC compliant version of the OOXML standard.[30] Microsoft Office 2010 will also support OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.1, which is an OASIS standard.
New features are also said to include a built-in screen capture tool, a background removal tool, a protected document mode, new SmartArt templates and author permissions. The 2007 "Office Button" will be replaced with a menu button that leads to a full-window file menu, known as Backstage View, giving easy access to task-centered functions such as printing and sharing. A notable accessibility regression from 2007 is that the menu button no longer follows Fitt's law. A modified Ribbon interface will be present in all Office applications, including Office Outlook, Visio, OneNote, Project, and Publisher. Office applications will also have functional jumplists in Windows 7, which would allow easy access to recent items and tasks relevant to the application. Confirmed features of Office 2010 include:
Ribbon interface and Backstage View across all applications
Background Removal Tool
Letter Styling
The Word 2007 Equation editor will become common to all applications, replacing MS Equation 3.0
New SmartArt templates
New text and image editing effects
Screen Capturing and Clipping tools
Live collaboration functions
Jumplists in Windows 7
New animations in Powerpoint 2010
A new feature in Microsoft Office 2010 is the Social Connector. This allows users to write emails while keeping track of their family, friends, and colleagues by viewing status updates and past communication history with the individual. When users view their emails a name, picture, and title will be available for the person they are contacting. Upcoming appointments can also be viewed with this new feature and users can request friends. The Social Connector does not work with Office x64 bit versions and Microsoft suggests to use the 32 bit products on their official forums and support. Sync features for Windows Mobile phones like email, contacts and other integration will also not work with x64 versions of Office 2010. There is no information if the final releases coming up in a few days will patch this feature as to date a lot of features and integrations are missing from the x64 version of Office 2010. (source : wikipedia.org)
