I wonder by refresh do they mean one more beta (i.e. beta 3), or do they intend to do a big download with a whole load of patches and bug fixes?
Dear Valued Microsoft Customer and Partner,
Thank you for participating in our beta tests of the next generation of Information Worker software, the Microsoft Office System.
As you know, we offer betas in order to get feedback from our customers and partners, and create a better product. The Office System betas have been incredibly successful due to the volume and quality of your responses. With 600,000 copies of the Beta2 being sent out -- more than double the number of beta testers we had with Office XP -- as you would expect, we"re also getting more feedback. Additionally, many testers use the Watson automatic reporting tools, which have expedited our communication with customers. Watson is a software utility included with Microsoft Windows that is used to help detect, decode and log errors that are encountered while programs are running.
We are committed to our customers, and using this valuable data to make the product even better before it ships. We appreciate the great anticipation and excitement for these products. As a result, we have decided that we will extend the beta process, and refresh the Beta 2 code released last March. By doing this, we are able to incorporate your feedback, and give you a chance to test the changes that your comments indicate will help us provide the best product possible. The refreshed code will be made available later this spring to beta users. Details will be forthcoming.
We wanted to give valued customers like you advanced notice. Also, we wanted to clarify that the Beta 2 Refresh later this spring will not be a requirement to continue participating in the beta tests. Your current version will continue to run as it has. However, this refresh is an effort to provide an updated product with feedback to-date, which we believe will help improve the product. Further, we will continue to solicit feedback on the Beta 2 Refresh changes that we have incorporated due to your input and comments.