The Office 2010 preview site went live yesterday. Yes, that says "Office 2010 The Movie." I'm afraid to click on that link. (Screenshot by HowStuffWorks.com)

OK, so I agree, this isn’t a shocker. In fact, some have suggested that the reason Google introduced its Android operating system last week was to pre-empt this announcement that many have anticipated. Erica Naone at Technology Review wrote a blog post yesterday about the technical preview for Office 2010, which was released yesterday (again, exactly as many expected).

Naone, in turn, cites a post by Ashlee Vance at The New York Times, also published yesterday. Vance explains that the software will go through a thorough vetting process during the beta phase, then will open to the public later this year. The productivity suite will then be finalized and released early in 2010.

The newest Office suite will offer the ability to work over the cloud. However, I think the bigger news is that Microsoft will open access to anyone with a Windows Live account. That’ll let Microsoft go after Google Docs and anyone else offering online productivity software, like Zoho and Adobe. Vance said Microsoft claims to have 400 million people on Windows Live accounts already. Give or take, that is. I have more than one myself.

Naone said that Google is trying to hook people on using the Internet, and thus on Google services that serve ads, while Microsoft is more interested in convincing customers to buy the software outright. I think that’s probably true, but if that’s 100 percent the case, then opening up Office to anyone with an online account doesn’t make as much sense.

She also said that Microsoft might charge for special services, such as security. That seems like a good idea, especially because cloud computing continues to concern some with regard to security. Microsoft’s heavy-handedness with regard to Internet Explorer also worries some, as Naone mentioned, but I agree with her,  Google will make its services available on as many platforms as possible, so I doubt the company will stick it to non-IE users, at least, not too badly.

That could be good news for Mac and Linux users. And it would give Microsoft inroads to the Linux box, which means the free (and quite good, in my opinion) OpenOffice suite from Sun — er, I mean, Oracle? — might be under fire, too.

Not to mention that Android runs on Linux.

Despite my preference for Mac, I don’t hate Microsoft. I like many of their products, and I like the newest Office suite for Mac. I think this could be a good move for Microsoft and give the company inroads against a pretty significant challenge from Google.

Want to learn more? Start with some articles from HowStuffWorks.com:

How Microsoft Works
How Google Works
How Google Docs Works
What’s new with Internet Explorer 8?