Enter to Become a Beta Tester for Office 2010

If you wish to become someone who might be able to help shape the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2010, you can apply with Microsoft, giving a couple of reasons why you should be chosen.

The company is looking for home and business users, along with college students. The complete details are found here. The site’s explanation states that the chosen will have use of a loaner laptop, outfitted with the beta, and, presumably Windows 7. You will also get to join Lauren, Gianpaolo, and the gang in video history, with a possible commercial appearance! ( Your ticket to stardom! )

As someone who is firm but fair with Microsoft’s offerings, I applied, hoping to help shape the release, and also, for my own satisfaction, hope to be able to report the details of interaction with the company, and the effect of my input. I have beta tested software for smaller companies, with mixed results. Sometimes I felt as though I was treated as an opinion that mattered, and was relied upon for feedback. A few times however, I got the impression I was one of a cast of millions, simply because the company wanted to state the extreme breadth of its trial user base, with very little attention paid to my input. ( Certainly, I realize that not every feature I commented about was going to be changed, but I found, through outside interactions,  about  10 other beta testers on the same project. After the testing period, and the cessation of the non-disclosure period, we compared notes – we all felt ignored.)

It is clear that no one will be influencing the behavior change of Outlook 2007, which will continue to not incorporate the proper rendering of CSS-encoded HTML e-mails. Thus Outlook 2010 will stay with the 2007 behavior. Microsoft states plainly that it feels that feature is beneficial, and will stay.

The sign-up period will end June 30, with participants chosen by the second week of July.

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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.Carl Sagan

Amen, brother!

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