NEW YORK -- Microsoft will launch Office 2010, the next version of its workhorse business and personal software suite, for corporate customers in New York on Wednesday.

The event, at NBC Studios, will begin at 8 a.m. Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) with a speech by Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business division.

I will livetweet the event in New York and post updates here at Microsoft Pri0. You can follow my Twitter updates in the top right corner of the Pri0 blog or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sharonpianchan/. You can also follow along live at the Microsoft site www.the2010event.com.

The stakes have never been higher for Microsoft and Office. In addition to new features for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint, Office 2010 will include free Web versions called Office Web Apps to compete with the Google Docs. To see why Microsoft is taking the unusual step of offering its software free, check out our Sunday story: "Microsoft makes a free version of Office, its cash cow."

The consumer launch of Office 2010 and the free Office Web Apps is scheduled for June. Microsoft is expected to announce the exact date on Wednesday.

To celebrate Microsoft's visit to 30 Rockefeller Center, I was hoping to link to a video of the "Black Light Attack" episode of "30 Rock." Alas, the video is no longer available. In the Season 3 episode, Jenna was cast in "Gosspi Girl" as a mother dying of old age. As she lies dying on the couch with her daughter standing over her, Jenna says, "I've lived a full life. Oh, the things I've seen. The first Clinton administration. The Nagano Olympics. Microsoft Windows 95."

Update 12:56 p.m.: Google upped the ante today and urged businesses to switch to Google Apps -- the paid version of Google Docs for corporations -- instead of upgrading to Office 2010 on its Google Enterprise blog.