[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Microsoft  CEO Steve Ballmer has unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office. The next release features a design that works with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard across new Windows devices, including tablets. It also takes into account social and sharing considerations, and offers a cloud service. You can download a preview of the new Office here.

While the full lineup of offerings and pricing plans will be announced in the fall, Mr. Ballmer revealed that Office 365 will be available as a subscription service. When available, each new subscription offer will include the new 2013 editions of the Office applications — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access. In addition, subscribers will receive future rights to version upgrades as well as per-use rights across up to five PCs or Macs and mobile devices.

Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft): We are taking bold steps at Microsoft.

The new Office responds to touch as naturally as it does to keyboard and mouse. Users can swipe their fingers across the screen or pinch and zoom to read  documents. Users can also create new content and access features with the touch of a finger. The new Office also lets you use a stylus to create content, take notes or access features. You can do things like handwrite email responses and convert them automatically to text, or use your stylus as a laser pointer when presenting.

OneNote and Lync represent the first new Windows 8 style applications for Office. These applications are designed to deliver touch-first experiences on a tablet. Office Home and Student 2013 RT, which contains new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, will be included on ARM-based Windows 8 devices, including Microsoft Surface.

Office saves documents to SkyDrive by default, so your content is always available across your tablet, PC and phone. Your documents are also available offline and sync when you reconnect.

Once signed in to Office, your personalized settings, including your most recently used files, templates and even your custom dictionary, roam with you across virtually all of your devices.

Yammer delivers a secure, private social network for businesses. You can sign up for free and begin using social networking instantly. Yammer offers integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics.