Office 2010, the next version of Microsoft’s successful office programs suite, has been in closed testing for a while now. With a public beta expected later in the year, development is stepping up before the program, previously dubbed Office 14, is finally let out into the wild.

Earlier this year we posted some screenshots of alpha builds of Word and Excel, and just over a week ago Zack Whittaker posted some new screenshots on his iGeneration blog.

Here are some images of the new about screen of Office and screenshots of the new version of Outlook, including the ribbon toolbar. Click the images to enlarge where they are scaled down.

Screen clipping in Word 2010

Screen clipping in PowerPoint 2010

Images sources: iGeneration and PressPass

This shows the splash screen of an earlier technical preview version of Word 2010.