Summer is just around the corner, and as promised, we are on track for delivering Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1 in mid-summer 2011. During the coming weeks, you will see various teams updating their blogs with specific information about changes to appear in Service Pack 1. These posts should provide customers and administrators with great information about the upcoming release.

Keep an eye on this blog and the two blog families below for updates on Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1:

http://blogs.office.com (and related product team blogs) 
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/

TechEd North America as a key venue where we will discuss SP1 at length, including the tentative release schedule. If you’re planning to attend, please be sure to stop into the session for details. We’ll also have more to share on this blog around that time as well.

Below are links to stories and videos about some of the Microsoft employees who helped create Office 2010. Find out why they focused on the features they did, what they learned along the way, and what it’s like to work on a product that will be used by millions of people.

Professor’s Laser Focus Gets Mathematics into Office 2010

Murray Sargent helped save Windows in 1988, authored theories that helped bring us laser printers,

Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010. Consumers can now purchase Office 2010 at more than 35,000 retail stores across the globe, such as Best Buy, Fnac, Harvey Norman and PC World; through online retailers, including Amazon.com; and direct from Microsoft at Office.com.

There was a time when the phrase “works well with others” belonged primarily in school report cards. But in today’s complex and interrelated IT landscape, working together is at the heart of productivity, with businesses demanding solutions that build bridges between disconnected business systems and enhance collaboration.