Microsoft Previews Office 2016 And Skype For Business

Microsoft is launching previews of its 2016 software lineup, following a leak of Office 2016 last week showing some of the new features coming to the productivity suite.

Office 2016 will be available in preview, showing most of the features coming to the final product. Microsoft is still working on some of the bugs and new features, but this will be the closest preview to the final product.

Media insertion is the biggest new feature, Microsoft understands that users want to add video, images and other media into Word, Excel and other programs.

Outlook 2016 has been updated with a new search tool, allowing users to search through all emails to find the right one. Microsoft has worked to bring higher performance and storage saving to the new version of the email client.

One notable difference compared to previous updates is Microsoft’s caution to change any macro abilities, clearly catering for the enterprise audience that do not like downloading an entirely new suite that is unfamiliar to workers.

Skype for Business will also launch this week in preview, the replacement for Microsoft’s Lync. It features the same interface as Skype for consumers, but with additional security and integration with Office apps, for ease of use.

All of these will be made available alongside Windows 10, Microsoft’s next step in the desktop OS. Windows 10 will be available for phone, tablet and PC, completing Microsoft’s goal of one system for all devices, but there is currently no release date.