Widening the user-range of its office suite's expanded collaboration features and cloud computing integration, Microsoft launched the public beta of its Office 2010, at its Professional Developers Conference on Wednesday.

In addition, the software maker also announced the launch of the public betas of Sharepoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010. Also released was the public beta of the Office Mobile 2010, which is a smartphone-specific version of the productivity suite, and it reflects Microsoft's resolve to deliver software via the "three screens" of PCs, televisions, and mobile devices, all tied to cloud-based data.

The public beta of Office 2010, which has been made available for download from the Microsoft Web site, expands the integration of the productivity suite with Sharepoint, and provides users the ability to interact in real time though Outlook.

In case of a business set up, the expanded integration of Office 2010 enables employees to share as well as simultaneously edit Word, Excel and other Office documents.

About the expanded integration of Office and Sharepoint, Dave Sobel, CEO of Microsoft Gold partner Evolve Technologies, said: "There are a ton of word processors out there -- but how many of them let you also do workflow management? What's really powerful about Office is to view it as a platform. The links to Sharepoint and workflows, these are the kinds of things that set it apart."