Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Monitor has posted his first impressions of Office 12 Beta 1.
Unfortunately, because of the terms of the NDA I signed as an Office 12 beta tester, I place myself in serious danger of losing access to future builds of Office 12 if I do anything more than repeat what Joe wrote.
I’m growing increasingly frustrated with Microsoft’s stand on this issue. A dozen Microsoft bloggers are writing extensively about all the products in the Office family, and members of the press and analyst community are writing, apparently with no restrictions, on their experiences.
I’d love to tell you about my experiences with Office 12. But as a member of the beta test community, I can’t.
Scoble said he was going to talk to the Office group about this a month ago. The silence from Redmond is deafening.
Ed Bott 
Well, Ed, here’s hoping you get your wish from MS. It would make an abundant amount of sense to the ‘Softies to let you do it. It would make business sense, too. Building buzz is sometimes a good thing.
Keep on ’em, Ed. It’s a completely idiotic stance for Microsoft to take on this.
I agree…this really sucks for those of us wanting to share our thoughts and insights.
The only thing with the NDA is that if someone else references something (as above), then its in the public arena so i feel that the NDA’s dont really apply then, so you can then comment on what it references.
I realise that sometimes when testing you want to talk about a new feature that isnt in the public arena, however could the MS people lax the laws and somehow put a marketing spin on it?
Jonathan,
Yes, I know I can quote what someone else has already written about, but as soon as I start to add my own observations I run the risk of crossing a line that might cause someone in Redmond to pull the plug on my access to the beta. I have a contract to write a book about Office 12. Losing access would be a disaster for me, so I don’t dare get too close to that line.