[Update: I think we finally have a definitive answer. See this follow-up post.]
Frank Shaw is Executive Vice President and Worldwide Account Director of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. Frank is President of Microsoft Accounts, Worldwide and has been a leader in the successful effort to help Microsoft forge great relationships with bloggers.
On Thursday, I wrote Frank an e-mail asking for confirmation of a report I read on another blog. He got back to me within minutes confirming that the report was true. I posted an entry here noting that bloggers like me are now free to write about the client applications in Office 12.
But hold the phone! It seems that not everyone at Microsoft got the memo. Earlier today, Patrick Schmid posted a comment on that item, throwing some cold water on my report:
An official MS post in the beta 1 newsgroups classified the above statement as rumor. The NDA has not been lifted. It is still in effect.
I can neither confirm nor deny that such a newsgroup post exists. If I did, it would be a violation of the NDA. I’ve sent an e-mail to Frank and to a spokesperson for the beta program, asking if they can please agree on a policy statement that everyone at Microsoft can stand behind.
In the meantime, I’ll hold off posting any of my thoughts on the Office 12 beta.
Frustrating, isn’t it?
Ed Bott 
Yes, very!
Yikes! Thanks for ppsting this Ed. Hopefully there will be some clarification soon. Like you, I’m anxious to start sharing my impressions of the beta.
Frank Shaw is the key player here. He sets the rules. He’s president, by the way, not VP.
I also checked internally and learned this:
Press (which includes bloggers) are allowed to write about client apps – specifically Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, Visio, Project, OneNote and InfoPath. Products still under NDA include Groove and all our server products.
Frank outranks everyone except for maybe Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer when it comes to external PR rules (including NDAs). If he says something is OK it’s OK. No need to check further.
Robert, thanks for weighing in. Btw, Frank’s bio (which I linked) says he is both President (of the Microsoft account) AND Executive Vice President (of the agency).
Any clue if this includes members of the O12 TAP? Different rules here?
Mike, I don’t think the program you belong to matters. If you’re press – and that includes bloggers – you can write about the client apps in Office 12 Beta 1. If you get interim builds, those would presumably be covered by a different NDA.
Thx Ed … makes sense. I’ll double-check with MS and repost. It looks like Robert dropped a good contact for validation.