Microsoft has announced details about the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac.
Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) has said Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage for Mac as the company introduced Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition.
"Outlook for Mac will bring features our customers have long requested - such as Rights Management - that make working across platforms even easier," said said Eric Wilfrid, general manager for the MacBU at Microsoft.
"I think people will see that this move to Outlook for Mac is more than just a name change."
According to MacBU, Outlook for Mac will be built from the ground up using Cocoa providing users with improved integration with the Mac OS.
"We’re building on the most modern OS X frameworks to make Outlook beautiful, to make it high performance, and to make it well integrated with the OS," Wilfrid said.
A high-speed file-based database with support for backing up files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching will also be included in Outlook for Mac.
New Information Rights Management will help prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content said MacBU.
Outlook for Mac will be included in the next version of Office for Mac, which Wilfrid said is "on track" for the holiday season in late 2010.
Microsoft previously announced that Visual Basic will return in that edition, after being removed from Office 2008, which was released in Janaury 2008.
The company also announced that for current Entourage users Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition, is available now to download, promising performance and reliability improvements and enabling users to sync Tasks, Notes and Categories.
"Today’s release of the Web Services Edition strengthens Exchange connectivity for Entourage customers and sets the stage for the move to the new application - Outlook for Mac," added Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the Office product management group at Microsoft.
Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition will be available from 16 September, 2009 with a estimated retail price of £439.99 and £269.99 for those eligible for an upgrade.
Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition is still available and can be purchased for around £119.99.
The free Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition can be downloaded here.
MacBU also announced a simplified SKU line-up to help make product selection more intuitive for customers.
(Additional reporting Jason Snell at Macworld US)
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Comments received
jbwfoto said on Thu, 13 Aug 2009
I sort of like my Entourage.
Mark Hattersley said on Thu, 13 Aug 2009
Good to see Microsoft finally move Office from Carbon to Cocoa (they took their time though).
Personally I don't use Entourage and am happy with Mail and iCal. But I know today's news will make a lot of people happy. It's also a good sign that Microsoft is bringing the Mac and PC versions of Office closer together.
Just what role Office plays in the business world this time next year remains to be seen though. The whole world is moving to The Cloud and I'm meeting increasing number of people who say "Google Docs" to me.
stuart621 said on Thu, 13 Aug 2009
I doubt that I'll be buying any more versions of Office. I only use it for Word and Excel but iWork has developed into a worthy contender for a fraction of the price and without the annoying foibles of its Microsoft counterparts.
Paul said on Thu, 13 Aug 2009
I just hope for ease of users going from PC to Mac that this version of Office will support PST files.
Khaled said on Thu, 13 Aug 2009
No Arabic/Hebrew support until now? what's taking you so long micorsoft?
cj said on Fri, 14 Aug 2009
I don't see how they can continue to release major upgrades when they have existing features in the current version which are flawed.
E.g. Word boasts Master documents and subdocuments but in Office 2008 as soon as a Master document is saved and reopened it loses all of its functionality.
Word can't even link properly with Excel. You can't place an object... or paste special... to a Microsoft Excel graph or chart so it is impossible to have auto updating graphs in a Word document from data in Excel.
Excel offers a Get External > Get data from Filemaker Pro Database option but for years it has returned bogus data full of japenese and other characters completely alien to what is actually stored in those cells.
If they really expect people to pay for an upgrade, they really need to commit to the Mac version and fix existing features in existing versions.
uk-view said on Fri, 14 Aug 2009
For all they get knocked, I'm very glad to see Microsoft continuing to support the Mac. While iWork is on OK tool for home users, if Apple wants success in Business, then a true version of Office is vital. And to the poster cj, they ARE releasing current product upgrades (indeed this announcement included several (SP2, EWS) to improve today’s version, while working on major updates for the next (restoring VBA, the Outlook details above etc.) That's what you'd want any company to do.. build for the future, while refining what you use today.
Reader said on Fri, 14 Aug 2009
I need VB macro support for the foreseeable future, so when they break (or make obsolete) 2004 I'll be forced to upgrade.
petey said on Fri, 14 Aug 2009
Im still using the 1st version of Office for OS X and have no need to ever upgrade.
I use iWork too and I dont need the buggy 'whistles and bells' from the new office to type a few letters and some draft copy for a project.
Waste of money.
Gabriel said on Fri, 14 Aug 2009
I think it's hilarious that they're coming out with Outlook for Mac only now, when Snow Leopard is going to completely eliminate the need for Outlook on the Mac, thanks to its built-in Exchange support.
It's especially hilarious that the Office folks waited this long when they already knew they'd licensed Exchange to Apple. Typical Microsoft - so big and bloated that its right hand can't even *find* its left hand, much less know what it's doing.
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