Microsoft Releases Preview Versions of Office 2016 and Skype for Business

Microsoft has released preview versions of Office 2016 and Skype for Business, both for the Windows platform. Skype for Business replaces the Lync tool, while Office 2016 adds several new features.

Beta versions of Office 2016 have been tested by a closed group for several months, but Microsoft now considers the time right to have its office suite tested by the public, although the software giant indicates that not all new features have been incorporated in the preview release yet. According to Microsoft, the test version of Office 2016 is currently mainly intended for IT professionals and developers.

In the updated office suite, Outlook 2016 has received support for the mapi-http protocol and the performance for email download and search has been improved. Multifactor authorization has also become possible. Furthermore, the insertion of images in Excel and Word has been improved.

Microsoft emphasizes that nothing has changed in the way macros and add-ons work, so documents from older Office versions should not cause problems. Office 2016 should be available in the second quarter of this year.

In addition to a preview version of Office 2016, Microsoft has also released a test version of Skype for Business. This voip software replaces the Lync tool. Skype for Business is very similar to the consumer version of Skype, but could be better set up by IT administrators. The security level would also be higher, while the VoIP software is closely integrated with Office 2016.