On the roadmap, the Office beta was marked as smack-dab between the third and fourth quarters. While Microsoft has not yet revealed a detailed timetable for Office, two months ago the executive who runs the Office group, P.J. Hough, said "Everyone will have the opportunity to try the ."

To meet Hough's "summer" promise, the beta would have to appear in the stretch between late in the second quarter and near the end of the third.

Microsoft has not assigned the next Office an official name, but has used "Office 15" as a placeholder. The roadmap used the same label.

Another section of the roadmap showed timelines for Windows -- both client and server editions -- as well as Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) and Windows Phone.

Windows 8's schedule was bare, with only last September's Developer Preview marked, and others, including Windows Server 8 -- which is expected to launch at the same time as the client editions -- simply showing a label of "Historical Release Cadence" that stretched from mid-2012 through early 2013.