Office 2010 Beta - out (and for free too!)

I'll make this a quick one: in case you haven't followed the blogosphere, the Office 2010 beta is out. And as with Windows 7's release candidate versions, this is free! Microsoft will ask you to sign in, and long story short, it'll give you the license key to use with the software, and a link for downloading.

Office itself is around 700MB in size, additional files will increase the download obviously.

What's new? It's an iteration of Office 2007 (similar to what Windows 7 is to Vista). Got new graphics, layouts, animations (page transitions, that is) and a few other things. Haven't been able to check everything as of yet, but I liked the Technical Preview (I got access to the Technical Preview from Microsoft out of the blue).

The direct download link (not sure if they'll allow direct links, or need a Microsoft page referral, but here it is anyway): https://profile.microsoft.com/RegSysProfileCenter/wizard.aspx?wizid=402f9246-461c-4a79-bb8d-2f794a83fa4d&lcid=1033&ci=393

One rival to Google: "Bing-hoo"

Ever since the announcement of Microsoft's and Yahoo's partnership, it's around the blogosphere that there's now only one major rival to Google: and that's Bing.

In the deal (the details can be found everywhere on the internet - use Google ;), Yahoo will replace it's search with Bing (and other changes will take place). This means no more Yahoo! (sob).

Is it for the better or worse? Google thinks it's not good (and they have every reason to be threatened, considering how quickly Bing's gaining momentum in it's market share) and MS/Yahoo think it's good (since this is a market controlled by one major player, and the smaller ones don't really stand a chance without consolidation).

What can I say! Good luck to both companies!