>The update will be from Office not .NET. The update is due this year and last known to be in the spring.

I'm not sure what the official name will end up being for the next version of Office, but for now it is called Office 11. Below are a couple of interesting articles on Office 11...

http://www.microsoft.com/office/developer/preview/

http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/11/11/021114opwebserv_1.html