Microsoft is starting to roll out to testers the real-time coauthoring functionality it has promised will be part of the next version of Office for Windows desktops.
Microsoft officials said in early May that real-time coauthoring would be coming to Office 2016. T
he
first public preview of Office 2016, which Microsoft made available in May, did not include this functionality.
In a
blog post that Microsoft inadvertently published on June 3 and later unpublished, company officials said that real-time presence -- a key piece of real-time coauthoring -- is rolling out to Word 2016 testers. The real-time typing component of coauthoring is still not there and will be included in subsequent test builds, officials said.
From the blog post:
"Real Time Presence in Word: While Real Time Typing will ship in subsequent builds, we are rolling out a key part of that collaborative experience with Real Time Presence. Real Time Presence allows you to see where in a document your teammates are editing. We are turning this on first for OneDrive for Business subscribers but it will be available more broadly soon."
Update: Microsoft republished the blog post on June 4.
