Yesterday in New Orleans, the Microsoft World Partner Conference 2009 kicked off with some of the big highlights at the event where the Office 2010, and Office web-apps announcements, with SharePoint appearing high on the list. The event has also kicked off a few sneak-peaks into the new platform, scheduled for an exclusive-beta program in the coming weeks.

While I digest the amount of data being released, here is a quick glance at some of the new SharePoint 2010 screens...

New User Interface, which now includes the Office Ribbon Menu:

 

Web edit interface, with similar structure to Microsoft Word (also note that this is being demoed in Firefox too!);

 

Use of rich media such as Silverlight in web parts:

 

Richer theming controls for out-of-the-box layouts and templates: