diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 2bf7dd9df..837dcf59a 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ under the License.
 
     <description>The Apache POI project Ant build.</description>
 
-    <property name="version.id" value="3.9-beta1"/>
+    <property name="version.id" value="4.0-beta1"/>
 
     <property environment="env"/>
     <!-- the repository to download jars from -->
diff --git a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/download.xml b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/download.xml
index 391520da4..26c8fbd25 100644
--- a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/download.xml
+++ b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/download.xml
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
        <link href="index.html">the project homepage</link>.
       </p>
       <ul>
-          <li><link href="download.html#POI-3.8">The latest stable release is Apache POI 3.8</link></li>
+          <li><link href="download.html#POI-3.9">The latest stable release is Apache POI 3.9</link></li>
           <li><link href="download.html#archive">Archives of all prior releases</link></li>
       </ul>
       <p>
@@ -46,8 +46,8 @@
       </p>
     </section>
 
-    <section id="POI-3.8"><title>26 March 2012 - POI 3.8 available</title>
-      <p>The Apache POI team is pleased to announce the release of 3.8. 
+    <section id="POI-3.9"><title>3 December 2012 - POI 3.9 available</title>
+      <p>The Apache POI team is pleased to announce the release of 3.9. 
          This includes a large number of bug fixes and enhancements. 
       </p>
       <p>A full list of changes is available in the <link href="changes.html">change log</link>. 
@@ -55,41 +55,41 @@
       <p>
         The POI source release as well as the pre-built binary deployment packages are listed below. 
         Pre-built versions of all <link href="index.html#components">POI components</link> are available in the central Maven repository
-        under Group ID "org.apache.poi" and Version "3.8".
+        under Group ID "org.apache.poi" and Version "3.9".
       </p>
       <section><title>Binary Distribution</title>
       <ul>
-        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.8-20120326.tar.gz">poi-bin-3.8-20120326.tar.gz</link> (
-          16MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.8-20120326.tar.gz.asc">signed</link>)
+        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.9-20121203.tar.gz">poi-bin-3.9-20121203.tar.gz</link> (
+          16MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.9-20121203.tar.gz.asc">signed</link>)
           <br/>
-          MD5 checksum: b9278ad8aed53eeb672fec66c764e371 
+          MD5 checksum: 7f094e58310a1dff6963e5d7812acda6 
           <br/>
-          SHA1 checksum: 65569f306c54a215431e8143a7a444314ce11788 
+          SHA1 checksum: 0840b38316eeb247f208117a838a6e400715f0b3 
         </li>
-        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.8-20120326.zip">poi-bin-3.8-20120326.zip</link> (
-          23MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.8-20120326.zip.asc">signed</link>)
+        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.9-20121203.zip">poi-bin-3.9-20121203.zip</link> (
+          23MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/bin/poi-bin-3.9-20121203.zip.asc">signed</link>)
           <br/>
-          MD5 checksum: 4f0e518baff9af70c792d86d4f21804b 
+          MD5 checksum: 8b8c46bb8edf39bb5755b9033aab508d 
           <br/>
-          SHA1 checksum: 1b9685032f7a8766cd75f061735ec4136cda1084 
+          SHA1 checksum: 53ff3ee220824a1f8b9267dee305eaa30429e28b 
         </li>
       </ul>
       </section>
       <section><title>Source Distribution</title>
       <ul>
-        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.8-20120326.tar.gz">poi-src-3.8-20120326.tar.gz</link> (
-          43MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.8-20120326.tar.gz.asc">signed</link>)
+        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.9-20121203.tar.gz">poi-src-3.9-20121203.tar.gz</link> (
+          48MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.9-20121203.tar.gz.asc">signed</link>)
           <br/>
-          MD5 checksum: 95df053d6a9f71292f2689a0170c28f6 
+          MD5 checksum: 23529f68f6055d6f9ee36a4f7fadfee4 
           <br/>
-          SHA1 checksum: 7808a30cf3600310040e451c65fc2752a1223098 
+          SHA1 checksum: 971a6177d19badc5ef87717dc04816d43cf3665b 
         </li>
-        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.8-20120326.zip">poi-src-3.8-20120326.zip</link> (
-          53MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.8-20120326.zip.asc">signed</link>)
+        <li><link href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.9-20121203.zip">poi-src-3.9-20121203.zip</link> (
+          58MB, <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/src/poi-src-3.9-20121203.zip.asc">signed</link>)
           <br/>
-          MD5 checksum: 3ad221b2e90ede592f529e67a1b24cb6 
+          MD5 checksum: 4d1c7d0428fc04f8c3bc53af761d4013 
           <br/>
-          SHA1 checksum: 7ae6b49a5caffef1e963f57f3cf36b4494eae587 
+          SHA1 checksum: 94cc79f45c84274730c30f3a4198d7042d3d47f1 
         </li>
       </ul>
       </section>
diff --git a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/index.xml b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/index.xml
index dde559a81..396414e79 100644
--- a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/index.xml
+++ b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/index.xml
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@
   </header>
 
   <body>
-    <section><title>26 March 2012 - POI 3.8 available</title>
-     <p>The Apache POI team is pleased to announce the release of 3.8. This includes a large number of bug fixes, and some
+    <section><title>3 December 2012 - POI 3.9 available</title>
+     <p>The Apache POI team is pleased to announce the release of 3.9. This includes a large number of bug fixes, and some
         enhancements (especially text extraction). See the
         <link href="http://www.apache.org/dist/poi/release/RELEASE-NOTES.txt">release notes</link> for more details.
       </p>
diff --git a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/status.xml b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/status.xml
index cd23b88fe..e1bb32f8b 100644
--- a/src/documentation/content/xdocs/status.xml
+++ b/src/documentation/content/xdocs/status.xml
@@ -33,7 +33,9 @@
     </developers>
 
     <changes>
-        <release version="3.9-beta1" date="2012-??-??">
+        <release version="4.0-beta1" date="2013-??-??">
+        </release>
+        <release version="3.9" date="2012-12-03">
           <action dev="poi-developers" type="fix">54188 - Avoid NPE in PPT2PNG</action>
           <action dev="poi-developers" type="fix">52628 - Replace System.err info messages with a POILogger</action>
           <action dev="poi-developers" type="fix">54137 - improved performance of DataFormatter with Fractions</action>