Microsoft Office 2007 Online Test Available

June 28th, 2006: Microsoft pushing the latest version of Office to users via a online test requiring no download but requiring Citrix plug-ins.

Prospective users can "test drive" the software using their Web browser - as long as that browser is Internet Explorer (IE) 6 or a later version of IE. FireFox is not supported. You will also require a Microsoft username and password - a standard Hotmail account will suffice.

Whether this heralds the fact that Office 2007 will be released as an online application set is yet to be confirmed. The online test demo comes as Google is trialling both its online spreadsheet and word processor applications.

Applications included in the Web-based test version of Office 2007 are: Microsoft Office Access 2007, Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, OneNote 2007, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, Outlook Web Access, PowerPoint 2007, Project Professional 2007, Publisher 2007, SharePoint Designer 2007, Visio 2007, Word 2007, SharePoint Services, Project Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007.

Being charitable, the system appears to have been overloaded with requests, as IDM could not access the demo having gone through a successful initialisation process. You can try for yourself by logging on to: The test site. Please bear in mind that IDM takes no responsibility for the content of external sites.

Microsoft plans to release Office 2007 to business customers before the end of the year, and to consumers in January 2007.

Comment on this story.