Wednesday, 20 September 2006

Microsoft Releases Visio 2007 Second Beta

Microsoft has unveiled a beta version of Visio 2007, its data organisation and visualisation tool for Microsoft Office 2007. It was released in conjunction with a new refresh of the second beta of Office 2007 itself.

There are some highlights to the new beta Office System tools release. The first is that it expands coverage from Word and Excel to PowerPoint and Visio. Those capabilities, targeted for Office 2007, will also support the Office 2003. The second is that Microsoft is expanding distribution of the tooling.

Until now, you had to buy a special edition of Visual Studio with the similar name of Visual Studio (VS) 2005 Edition for the Microsoft Office System. That edition contained the features of VS 2005 Professional Edition, adding the support for the Office System. With release of the beta tooling for the Office System 2007, Microsoft will also makes these freely available to current users of the Professional Edition.

You can download here.