Microsoft has released free for download the Office 2010 suite of beta applications. The Office 2010 Free Beta download consits of all the applications you would expect to find:
- Microsoft Word 2010.
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.
- Microsoft Access 2010.
- Microsoft Publisher 2010.
- Microsoft Excel 2010.
- Microsoft Outlook 2010.
You can also download additional beta applications:
- Microsoft InfoPath 2010.
- Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010.
- Microsoft OneNote 2010.
- Communicator 2010.
- Microsoft Visio 2010.
- Microsoft Project 2010.
You can download Microsoft 2010 Free from this link.
Just a word of warning this is a beta release and should not be used on any production systems. I use and test all applications in a separate environment from my trading systems. Also my advice would be not to use the upgrade option if you already have Office 2007 installed (I did and it has caused my a world of pain:-) ). If would also recommend making a restore point prior to installing Microsoft Office 2010.
Microsoft Excel 2010 For Traders
As traders and finance professionals there really is only one program we are interested in that is off course Microsoft Excel 2010. Really there is not a whole lot new in Excel 2010. The one really cool feature that I will be making use of in my finance dashboard is sparklines.
Sparkline
Sparklines provide a quick easy to understand graphical snapshot of an underlying data set. A sparkline is differentiated by it’s small size and density. They are described by Tufte as “data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics”. An example of Sparklines in a financial context shown below:
An example of Sparklines use in Excel 2010 is shown below:
As you can see from the above example it makes for a simple and quick representation of relationships in data.
PowerPivot for Excel 2010
PowerPivot plug-in promises to make make manipulation of large datasets a speedy and pain free process. It is also meant to streamline data acquisition and storage process. I have not had a chance to put PowerPivot to the test as yet but it looks like it may be a promising technology.
Backstage view
One of the most obvious features common to Office 2010 Applications is Backstage. If you click on the File menu your screen will be taken over with Backstage as shown below:
The backstage screen is context sensitive and once you are done creating your document you will find all the features you need in one place. Overall I am just getting started with Excel 2010 and so far it is not that different from the previous version.
You can download Microsoft 2010 Free from this link.
