Office 2013 RTM at Build 15.0.4420.1017

Microsoft has announced that Office 2013, the most popular office productivity suite, has been released to manufacturing (RTM). It means that the development on Office 2013 has generally completed.
Windows RT users will probably get to use Office 2013 earlier than anyone else (unless of course you’re Microsoft insiders or there is a leak), as Windows RT devices will ship with the preview version of Office Home & Student 2013 RT from Windows 8 launch date, October 26th, 2012, but will be upgraded to full RTM version in early November. Office Home & Student 2013 RT includes the new Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications for Windows RT devices.

Some business customers will get their hand on final build of Office 2013 earlier than others, as early as November 2012. According to Office News, Office 365 Enterprise customers will be using Office 2013 from the next service update starting in November through general availability. Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November, while IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.
The general availability of Office 2013 is planned for the first quarter of 2013.
While Microsoft does not announce what’s the final build version for the Office 2013 RTM, some lucky folks have managed to download and install Office 2013 RTM. According to a Chinese blog, the build version for Office 2013 RTM is 15.0.4420.1017. The preview version of Office 2013 released by Microsoft has the build number of 15.0.4128.1014.

Comparing with Office 2010, Office 2013 has integrated Microsoft Lync 2013, which was previously a separate download, and Microsoft SkyDrive Pro, which allows business users to access, save and share files and documents through SharePoint. Essentially SkyDrive Pro is doing what SkyDrive does for home users, may be replacing SharePoint Workspace.
Office 2013 Applications

Related Posts:

Security and the Cloud – Part 1

By Tony | Published October 1, 2012

This will be the first of a number of op-ed pieces on the security landscape of cloud computing. Security is often quoted as one of the main reason people back away from embracing the cloud. This I believe is often due to a combination of an over estimation of how secure their current arrangements are and a lack of knowledge about how secure the cloud CAN be. In this last regard the cloud is nothing special, like every other application, database or service its security is largely dependant on how it is used and configured and not its inherent capabilities.
As a step in gaining an understanding of the subject lets break the security landscape down into a number of arenas and look at how a classical on premise data centre, compares with an IaaS based cloud offering. This analysis can be extended to other scenarios but this is an informative example.
The physical arena, covers a direct attack on the equipment. If someone can actually walk up and touch the server then generally you have already lost. Encryption can help but that is very much a silver lining.
- Home Data Centre :- In a small regional facility with limited physical security as all the cost of security is borne by a single operator.
- Cloud IaaS:- Most likely state of the art security and a dedicated physical security team. Total cost of all security is borne across ALL the global clients of the provider.
‘Pipes’ arena, (apologies for the badly overused phrase), data and applications on a server are useless unless people can connect into them. This arena covers everything between the users device and the login screen.
- Home Data Centre:- Physical links into main offices, extremely secure provision of service to everyone at a desk. Mobile access has potentially been bolted on and is an increasingly overused tactical fix as the strategic solution is yet to be implemented.
- Cloud IaaS:- Mobile and Office users are in the same boat, you can’t have a tactical solution here and must expend the time and resources needed to create a fully secure strategic solution.

This is where the CAN statement comes in, a Cloud based solution could be offer greater security than your home solution but only if it is build correctly.

Applications arena, this is a non score draw scenario as its the same applications in both locations. However this is an important arena as using other types of cloud solution such as SaaS and PaaS mean very different applications between the cloud and non cloud based services.
So I saved the best till last the users arena, again this is a no score draw between the two offerings as its the same users using the applications no matter where they are hosted. However it is worth thinking long and hard about how, where and on what users are working.
User arena security items are probably far bigger weak points then any other aspect of security in the modern environment. Sophisticated technology based attacks using zero day exploits make the news and are currently beating nation state security, but for everyone of these attacks there are hundreds based on social attacks on users. It doesn’t matter how complex and complete the lock is if someone can borrow a key.
A move to the cloud offers many benefits and can generally be made as secure as current on premise solutions. Focus should be spent on ensuring the your VPN, mobile and remote technology solutions are geared up to handle the increased traffic and are fully thought out strategic choices. However conversation on “how secure the cloud is” are great starting points to re-engage the business in the day to day activities and practices that make your data and applications stay secure independent of where they are delivered from.

About IT

Tuesday, October 23, 2012