Microsoft releases Beta 1 of Office 2010 SP1

Microsoft has made available to a select group of testers a first beta of Service Pack (SP) 1 for Office 2010, Microsoft officials confirmed on November 17.

The availability of the beta was noted by Winrumours.com. The beta build number is 14.0.6011.1000 and it is available to pre-selected testers via the Microsoft Connect portal.

"The Service pack is expected to contain a roll-up of the usual bug fixes and security patches but no extra features," according to WinRumours.

I asked Microsoft officials what was part of the first Service Pack. I also asked when the final SP1 would be out. This is the statement I received back from a spokesperson:

"The stability, performance and security enhancements in the Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta are a direct result of customer feedback and designed to extend the value customers experience with the 2010 products. We have nothing more to share about specific updates of SP1 beta at this time."

Right. In other words, no comment on the contents or the ship-date target.

In late October, Microsoft officials said Office 2010 was the fastest-selling consumer version of Office ever, with six million copies sold since June 2010. (Not sure about the "consumer" qualifier here, but that's what they said....)

Microsoft currently is testing its first SP for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. That SP is expected to be made available to customers in early 2011. The first SP for Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 includes almost entirely fixes and updates that already have been released by Microsoft, plus two new virtualization features (on the server side).