New Office: First look while using Windows 8 on a tablet

— -- Every few years, Microsoft tries to persuade consumers and businesses to trade up not only for the freshest version of Windows but also the newest Office productivity suite. Windows and Office combined, of course, have long greased Microsoft's treasure chest. But moving to a new Office doesn't make sense for everybody—even in its present incarnation, the typical user only taps into a fraction of the available features.

As Microsoft ushers in the Windows 8 era while simultaneously making the case for the new Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet), PowerPoint (presentations), Outlook (mail and calendar) and the other programs that collectively make up Office, the world in which the company competes is undergoing seismic shifts. Rivals such as Google are pushing cloud-computing alternatives to Office. Fueled by the popularity of tablets and smartphones, often at the expense of regular PCs, touch computing is fast gaining equal billing with the mouse and keyboard.

The "customer preview" of Office that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveils at a San Francisco event on Monday — and that I've had a chance to check out on a Samsung slate running Windows 8 — reflects the changes. The new Office is touch-friendly and meant to make nice on Windows Phones, tablets, traditional PCs and, yes, Macs. (Microsoft hasn't said anything about Office for the iPad.) Inking — the ability to draw with a pen or finger — is built into the various programs.

More than ever you're encouraged to exploit Office online. So while you can buy desktop Office software as before, Microsoft is pushing a subscription-based business model tied to the company's Office 365 cloud service. There's an Office 365 Home Premium preview version that will let you install Office on up to five PCs and get an additional 20 gigabytes of online storage via Microsoft's SkyDrive service. In addition to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, you get OneNote (note-taking), Access (database) and Publisher. Other Office 365 versions are targeted at small businesses or larger enterprises, adding user accounts and, in some instances, Microsoft-hosted high-definition videoconferencing. It's worth noting that the final version of Office 365 will give subscribers access to Office for Mac.

Microsoft also says its recently announced Windows RT tablets will come with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Microsoft isn't saying when the new Office will ship for real or what it will cost. It's a good bet that it will be in the fall, probably soon after the official Windows 8 launch. While the latest Office is designed to take advantage of Windows 8, it will work with Windows 7 computers, too. But here's a big change for a company that has traditionally stuck with, and at times been burdened by, its "legacy" past: The new Office will not work on Windows XP, much less more-ancient versions of Windows.

You can download the Office preview at www.office.com/preview. Keep in mind that the preview doesn't last forever: You'll receive a 60-day expiration notice once Office becomes generally available. If you don't convert at that point to the final service, you'll be able to view your documents but not edit or create new ones.

Up to now, the new Office has been identified by the code name Office 15. But the individual programs in the suite go by Word 2013, Excel 2013 and so on.