Details on Office 2010 versions released

Microsoft has confirmed that it has simplified the lineup of its verious Office 2010 SKUs and that all versions of the software will contain OneNote.

Although there's no news on pricing or an Office 2010 release date yet, there will be far fewer versions of Office 2010 when it does come out.

Office lineup

Office Professional stays in the lineup, with Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, Publisher and OneNote.

The phenomenally successful Office Home and Student Edition (Microsoft sells one every 20 seconds in the US) now includes Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote.

And the new Office Home and Business version (aimed, not surprisingly, at home business users) replaces both the Standard and Business versions and includes Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote.

For big business there are only two versions, Professional Plus (which has everything including SharePoint Workspace, formerly known as Groove) and Standard (which adds OneNote and Publisher).

Both include the right to run the Office Web apps; consumers will get those through the Live services instead.

If you want to sign up for the Office 2010 technical preview, do it soon at http://www.microsoft.com/Office2010; Microsoft is limiting the numbers to 'tens of thousands', but the first cut of the Web apps will be available to try on Live in August and a public beta will follow in the autumn.