Interested in what the next version of Office has to offer?  Feeling a bit daring? Microsoft is offering a free preview of Office 2016 to all users.

What’s New in Office 2016

Check out this post from CRN highlighting 10 New Features That Will Turn Partners’ Heads:

1. Enhanced document sharing, with prompts that discourage attachments and encourage links to content stored in SharePoint or OneDrive.  [Benefit: protects recipients from attachments that could be infected; ensures that recipients are accessing the latest version of a document.]
2. Google Docs co-editing comes to Word. [Benefit: allows remote teams to collaborate real-time.]
3. Improved help with “Tell Me.”  [Benefit:  any time you need help type your question in natural language into the “Tell Me” box and get answers immediately.]
4. Create Work Groups within Outlook.  [Benefit:  “keep tabs on group activity, access conversation history, and manage files and group notes stored on OneDrive.”]
5. Sway – a new alternative to PowerPoint [Benefit: supports drag and drop of Web content – including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, into a browser/smart device app.]
6. Excel on steroids, now with Power Query [Benefit: allows users to import and aggregate data from multiple public sources like Wikipedia and data.gov and create data visualizations – think infographics.]
7. Improved menus across Office – open, close, save, browse, and add attachments in fewer steps [Benefit: more straightforward navigation, less hassle.]
8. A new way to tame your inbox?  Microsoft’s Office 2016 Clutter tool analyzes inbox workflow and automatically moves messages you are most likely to ignore into a clutter folder [Benefit: ignore email faster than before!]
9. Upgraded security features allowing IT personnel and administrators to set “data loss protection policies.”  [Benefit: adds file-level encryption; permits IT staff to restrict delivery of files, prevent manipulation of content, or store data in a “Customer Lockbox.”]
10. Improved click-to-run.  [Benefit: strictly about making life easier for IT personnel in network environments.]