Office 2010 ^[1] or Office 14 will be shipping in June 2010, however, it looks like Microsoft has already began planning on the next version of Microsoft Office called Office 15.

A post on the Microsoft Access blog, has the title Office 15 and SQL Server ^[2]. The blog post focuses on the new changes that will be included in the next version of Office.

Hello everyone! As Office 2010 ^[3] nears shipping, we are starting to plan Office 15.  One area that we are considering improving is our SQL Server support.

However, this is not a new thing @Microsoft. Microsoft has been known to plan future products ahead of its time, rather than wait and watch the current reactions.

Most of the times, Microsoft tries to incorporate feedback received from beta testing into completely new products, rather than adding new features to current one.

Though the official name for Office 15 is not yet available, we guess that it could be named Office 2012, as most Microsoft products are usually released within 2-3 years of the previous ones.

Currently Office 2010 ^[3] is available for downloads, you can try out the public beta of Office 2010 ^[4] till October 2010. So give it a try.

[via Ars Technica ^[5]]