Microsoft has said that Office 2010 has reached the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) milestone and given specific dates for when partners can download the software.

The company's volume license customers with active software assurance will be able to download the products in English via the Volume Licensing Service Centre from April 27.

Customers without software assurance will be able to purchase the product through Volume Licensing from Microsoft partners starting May 1. Office 2010 will be available in retail stores from June.

“RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone,” said Takeshi Numoto, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Office. “Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version – that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads! The feedback that we’ve received from all these programs has shaped the set of products we’re excited about, and that I’m sure will delight our customers.”

Microsoft Senior Product Manager and New Zealand expat, Geoff Anderson, recently spoke to IT Brief about the upcoming launch of Office 2010 in depth.