Microsoft announced today that the first preview version of Office 2019 is now available for testing by Microsoft’s commercial customers.

“Office 2019 delivers new features to help end users create amazing content in less time,” Microsoft’s Jared Spataro explains. “Updates include new and improved inking features across the apps, like the roaming pencil case, pressure sensitivity, tilt effects, and ink replay; more powerful data analysis in Excel, like new formulas, new charts, and Power BI integration; and sophisticated presentation features in PowerPoint, like Morph and Zoom. These features are already included in Office 365 ProPlus but are not available in Office 2016.”

To be clear, Office 2019 is the next major release of Microsoft’s desktop Office applications. The suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Project, and Visio 2019, plus OneNote for Windows 10. This preview release is aimed at Microsoft’s commercial customers, which means businesses of all sizes, governments, and educational institutions, but not consumers.

Future previews of Office 2019 will address other customers, including consumers on Windows, of course, but also the Mac, and server products such as Exchange 2019, SharePoint 2019, Project Server 2019, and Skype for Business 2019.

As for this first Office 2019 Preview, it includes new technologies and features for businesses and other commercial customers. Key among them is the additional of Click-to-Run deployment to the standalone (perpetual) versions of the product, a feature that was previously used only by Office 365.

“Office 365 ProPlus delivers continuous cloud-powered innovation for increased productivity, better security, and the lowest TCO,” Spataro says. “But we recognize that for many customers, moving to the cloud is a journey with many considerations along the way. Office 2019 will be a valuable upgrade for customers who feel that they need to keep some or all of their apps and servers on-premises.”

If you are an Office 365 commercial customer, you can sign up for this first Office 2019 Preview here.

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