Steve Ballmer has finally put the kibosh on any hopes of seeing the next version of Office this year, essentially telling Wall Street analysts any rumors or leaks indicating such are not true, according to Mary Jo Foley.

Executives have let slip apparently that there was some possiblity of a late 2009 release, and enterprise sales representatives were echoing that to their customers. However, for whatever reason it now appears that date has slipped.

Could it be a casualty of the poor economy? Possibly. Pushing it into 2010 could mean a better adoption rate as many economists expect some type of recovery to begin at that time. A lot of companies right now are slowing down their product releases as a result of the poor retail environment, which does make good business sense.

Office 14’s delay doesn’t seem to be affecting Windows 7, however. MJ’s sources still place the release of that operating system later this year. I think it isn’t a problem: an operating system release is more important that a productivity suite in my eyes.

After all, I know a few folks who have still yet to upgrade from Office XP yet.

 
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