Every now and again a company releases beta software… and then lets it expire without offering an updated beta or a full version of the software. And that’s exactly what Microsoft has done with the latest version of Office for Windows Mobile phones.
In November, Microsoft released a public beta of Office Mobile 2010 for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. If you installed the updated office suite, you could use it for free — up until this week. The beta expired on April 5th, and Microsoft doesn’t plan to offer a full version of Office Mobile 2010 until this summer.
If your phone came with Office Mobile 6.1 preinstalled, then all you need to do is uninstall Office Mobile 2010 beta and you should automatically be able to use the earlier version of Office — without any of the new features such as the finger-friendly UI or SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010. You shouldn’t lose any of your documents though.
If your phone didn’t ship with Office Mobile 6.1, you’re pretty much out of luck. As Microsoft points out, you can purchase it for $29.99. But the software will be outdated in a few months.
via ZDNet
