There was no formal announcement, but Microsoft has added Office 2007 to the November Select and Open price lists. Although the software has not been released to manufacturing (RTM) yet, adding the product to price lists has a couple of implications. 1) Organizations with Software Assurance on Office (including most Enterprise Agreements) will have rights to the product, as long as their contract is in effect in November. Organizations whose contracts expire at the end of November can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they will have rights to the software whether they renew their SA or not. 2) Anyone that buys Office after 1 November should be ordering 2007. There is a 5% price increase they’ll have to absorb, but most would rather have the new version than save the 5%.

However, the software is not actually available yet. Microsoft has not announced the RTM date, but, realistically, most organizations won’t do more than kick its tires during the remainder of 2006 anyway. To many, the date it shows up on price lists is actually more important than having the actual code.

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Microsoft has announced a new download experience to be implemented with the download of Office 2007 from November 13th. Would be a good guess for RTM date?