Mike Ponomarenko, Ekaterinburg.com: Tell about each product of 2010 and forthcoming release of Microsoft Office-2010.

Anne Weiler, Microsoft: Office 2010 Professional Edition which is now available for public beta testing includes 10 applications. I can describe the advantages of each, but it seems to be too long storyJ. We recommend to visit our web-site dedicated especially to Office 2010 Beta, where everyone can read about new Office (and download Beta for free) in one of 7 languages, including Russian.

In general Office 2010 opens up a world of design options to help you give life to your ideas. The new and improved picture formatting tools such as color saturation and artistic effects let you transform your document visuals into a work of art. In another words, Office 2010 gives you more ways to make your ideas stick.

With Office 2010 you can get things done more easily from more locations and more devices. Using a smartphone or virtually any computer with an Internet connection, you can work when and where you want to work.

Mike Ponomarenko, Ekaterinburg.com: What's your personal opinion of Office 2010?

Anne Weiler, Microsoft: Each day I send and receive a lot of email, so the Conversation view in Outlook is probably the most helpful feature for me, especially when there are topics with many people responding. It helps me keep track of the latest information without searching.

I  am also really excited about how easy it is to use the broadcast presentation feature in PowerPoint - just a few clicks and I can show a presentation to anyone who has an Internet connection. This is really great for impromptu meetings or briefly reviewing a topic with one of our customers or partners. I havent used the graphics features in Word and PowerPoint as much as I know I will, but again, Im impressed with how easy it is to change graphics or video without having to use a specialized program.

Mike Ponomarenko, Ekaterinburg.com: Tell us about your personal achievements with 2010 version. Your hard work you have completed by now to bring the product to the market in Russia. What recently happened was a most important for launch? What launch personally means to you as an end-user, as a person who does such work?


Anne Weiler, Microsoft: I have been working on Office 2010 since before we launched Office 2007. At that time I was working in product planning at Microsoft in Redmond and working with the product development teams to define what we would build based on customer feedback and market requirements. In particular I helped to define some new capabilities and integration with SharePoint for Microsoft One Note and SharePoint workspace. Its really fun to see those early ideas now in the products, especially the OneNote Web Application.

In Russia, we started preparing for Office 2010 over 6 months ago. We have been testing Office 2010 internally since July, and we have provided feedback on how the features work as well as how to properly translate new terminology. We have also been working with customers and partners to help them use the early versions of the product so that they could provide feedback to us. We still have a lot of work to do before we are ready to launch the final product, but we are looking forward to the journey!

Mike Ponomarenko, Ekaterinburg.com: Unlicensed software is widespread in Russia. In your opinion will hackers crack and illegally copy new software products? And will these copies be on demand?

Anne Weiler, Microsoft: According to the latest research on piracy level in Russia, it is not so popular anymore. The reasons for it lie in the rise of users' legal consciousness and in the awareness of various risks that can follow the use of pirate software - the risk of loosing data, an increased liability to virus onslaught, lack of technical support, etc. Apart from this antipirate technologies are also developing. Nevertheless we can't exclude the possibilities of cracking and illegal copying. Microsoft in its turn is doing its best to show users the advantages of licensed software.

On photo: press presentation of the beta-version of Office 2010 in Microsoft Technological Center in Moscow, October, 2009