Microsoft has started rolling out the beta version of its upcoming office suite, Microsoft Office 2010 to members of its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and Technet developer groups.

Microsoft has also launched its Office 2010 beta homepage for anyone looking to get in on the public beta testing of Office 2010. For the moment, the page just says that the public beta will be opening soon and, while it doesn’t offer any more detail than that, we’re told to expect it to open properly over the course of the next week or so.

The idea of having a public beta has always been a nice way for any students out there to get their hands on some software to take notes with, without having to actually shell out any cash for it… without having to go the OpenOffice.org route, which many users still shy away from, despite it being free.

We’ll be curious to see just how Office 2010 shapes up, especially considering the integration of the upcoming Office 2010 web apps program, which should put Microsoft and Google firmly into competition in the web-based office stakes, with Google’s web apps (Google Docs, Google Calendar and company) already quite well established in the free office space. Of course, for us the big question will be how Office’s web apps perform, since web based office suites at the moment haven’t really stacked up all that well with their standalone cousins

For now though, anyone looking to take part in the beta testing of Microsoft’s upcoming Office 2010 public beta would do well to keep an eye on this page.