Office 12 NDA news

Why do I read so many feeds? To catch stuff like this (Ed Bott is hearing conflicting information and isn’t sure what to do). There’s some confusion going around about the Office 12 NDA. So, I checked with the folks who know over on Office 12. Here’s the deal:

Press (which include bloggers) are allowed to write about client apps – specifically Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, Visio, Project, OneNote and InfoPath. Products still under NDA include Groove and all our server products.

MVPs might be getting other rules, but here’s the person in charge: Sandhya Thodla. sthodla@microsoft.com. Anyone else trying to make NDA rules up should be sent to Sandhya. If you aren’t clear on any of this, please ask Sandhya before writing about Office 12.
Is that clear enough?

By the way, Frank Shaw is president of Waggener Edstrom in charge of the Microsoft account. Translation: if he says something is OK, it’s OK.

UPDATE: February 7, 2006: It turns out that this isn’t quite the case. There are different NDAs given to different groups. Sorry for the confusion, but I need to be a little bit clearer about the Office 12 beta program. If you’re an MVP, in the Technical Beta or on the TAP program you’ll need to comply with the EULA of Beta1, which maintains confidentiality except in cases where the information is already public. If you’re a blogger and want to talk about Office 12 and you’re already on the beta, we recommend you learn what’s public and what’s not BEFORE you disclose anything new.

28 thoughts on “Office 12 NDA news

  1. This is probably a stupid question, but I’ve asked worse before. By bloggers you mean people officially associated with Microsoft? Normal people like me that will never see a preview type copy or ever have the chance to be affiliated in any official way with Microsoft can say whatever we want based on rumors and stuff we read, right? Microsoft doesn’t care what about me, right?

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  2. This is probably a stupid question, but I’ve asked worse before. By bloggers you mean people officially associated with Microsoft? Normal people like me that will never see a preview type copy or ever have the chance to be affiliated in any official way with Microsoft can say whatever we want based on rumors and stuff we read, right? Microsoft doesn’t care what about me, right?

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  3. Good we have a handle on the nda… With this product line up. Still does not mean that we can’t break tHe code aNd blog about it.

    When one wear’s. a white hat- when does an nda mean a thing ??? Seriously asking…. Like wtf, we can crack shit and blog it correct ??

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  4. Good we have a handle on the nda… With this product line up. Still does not mean that we can’t break tHe code aNd blog about it.

    When one wear’s. a white hat- when does an nda mean a thing ??? Seriously asking…. Like wtf, we can crack shit and blog it correct ??

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  5. The real question is : why the NDA in the first place? The beta was semi-public but who right in his mind ever thought the bits would not be available to anyone anyway. Microsoft created this odd situation. How productive is this, especially when they are looking for as much feedback as possible?

    If a product is really a “beta”, then I don’t understand the NDA. I understand a NDA for alpha though.

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  6. The real question is : why the NDA in the first place? The beta was semi-public but who right in his mind ever thought the bits would not be available to anyone anyway. Microsoft created this odd situation. How productive is this, especially when they are looking for as much feedback as possible?

    If a product is really a “beta”, then I don’t understand the NDA. I understand a NDA for alpha though.

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  7. anon: NDAs are used to show products to people before the date in which you want to show them to the public.

    Christopher: yeah, and no one visited our booth at CES either. It was SSOOO empty.

    kalbzayn: right. We’re talking about people who signed an NDA with Microsoft to get an early look at our products.

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  8. anon: NDAs are used to show products to people before the date in which you want to show them to the public.

    Christopher: yeah, and no one visited our booth at CES either. It was SSOOO empty.

    kalbzayn: right. We’re talking about people who signed an NDA with Microsoft to get an early look at our products.

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  9. I am producing the magazine of technical in Japan.
    To our regret, NDA seems to be applied here. I talked by telephone with the person in charge of Office 12 of Japan ahead. He said, “Please recognize that NDA continued in Japan”.

    Oh, my goodness.

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  10. I am producing the magazine of technical in Japan.
    To our regret, NDA seems to be applied here. I talked by telephone with the person in charge of Office 12 of Japan ahead. He said, “Please recognize that NDA continued in Japan”.

    Oh, my goodness.

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  11. I’m not sure how affective the NDA will be at keeping people quiet when it seems to be a bit confusing, but it certainly does seem to get people talking which probably doesn’t disappoint the Microsofties all that much.

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  12. I’m not sure how affective the NDA will be at keeping people quiet when it seems to be a bit confusing, but it certainly does seem to get people talking which probably doesn’t disappoint the Microsofties all that much.

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  13. What about the folks that attended the PDC? We got the beta 1 a couple of weeks ago. Office 12 rocks, btw. However there was no NDA info or any contact info. Any ideas?

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  14. What about the folks that attended the PDC? We got the beta 1 a couple of weeks ago. Office 12 rocks, btw. However there was no NDA info or any contact info. Any ideas?

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