Microsoft offers new peek at Office 2008 updates
After months of remaining low-key about its next major update to Office 2008, Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit has returned to the public eye with details of important new updates to the production suite.
MacBU chief Craig Eisler has broken the months-long silence about the new Mac version of Office with new posts to the company's official blog.
The gesture was intended to help enterprise customers prepare for rolling out the new suite when it launches in mid-January, Eisler said. To that end, most of the emphasis in the new updates was said to focus on improvements for using Office 2008 in a business environment, where compatibility with Windows and Microsoft-based servers would be a crucial factor.
Topping the list of changes for these users was Entourage, the Mac's equivalent to the Outlook e-mail client for Windows. The executive noted that most of the news that would flow from the MacBU in the run-up to its mid-December completion date for Office would center around Entourage features and their integration with Windows-based tools. Later test versions of the program are now said to be tied well enough to Microsoft's Exchange servers and to the normal company workflow that Eisler could stay in the Mac software without turning either to Windows or the older Office 2004.
"I have been living in daily builds of Entourage for over two months now," he claimed. "And I am delighted with the stability and reliability of our Exchange support and how well the calendar interoperates with my assistant, who uses Outlook."
Fellow team member Andy Ruff illustrated his point with one of the most basic features of the Outlook client: the Out of Office message. While regularly used in the workplace by Windows users, their Mac parallels have often had to load their web browsers and manually enable the feature through Outlook Web Access and promptly switch it off after they return. This has been a regular problem for Ruff and many other users, who either ignore the feature or forget to disable it when they return to work.
In contrast, Office 2008 now has a simple options pane that gives the choice of setting the exact time and date for when an Out of Office reply is sent, as well as customized messages depending on whether or not the recipient is included in the user's address book -- similar to Office 2007 for Windows and its interaction with later Exchange servers.
Eisler likewise alluded to a stronger link between the Entourage calendar and Exchange, methods that Mac clients could use in collaborating through a Microsoft SharePoint server, and upgrades to the Entourage mail database. At least a few non-Entourage subjects, such as deploying Office across a network, are set to be discussed over the next several weeks. The team as a whole was reportedly also confident that the final release would speak for itself.
"The whole BU is using Office 2008, with builds that get better every day," Eisler said. "It?s been a monumental project for the team - I?m proud of the work they?ve done in Office 2008 and we can?t wait to get it into your hands in January."
MacBU chief Craig Eisler has broken the months-long silence about the new Mac version of Office with new posts to the company's official blog.
The gesture was intended to help enterprise customers prepare for rolling out the new suite when it launches in mid-January, Eisler said. To that end, most of the emphasis in the new updates was said to focus on improvements for using Office 2008 in a business environment, where compatibility with Windows and Microsoft-based servers would be a crucial factor.
Topping the list of changes for these users was Entourage, the Mac's equivalent to the Outlook e-mail client for Windows. The executive noted that most of the news that would flow from the MacBU in the run-up to its mid-December completion date for Office would center around Entourage features and their integration with Windows-based tools. Later test versions of the program are now said to be tied well enough to Microsoft's Exchange servers and to the normal company workflow that Eisler could stay in the Mac software without turning either to Windows or the older Office 2004.
"I have been living in daily builds of Entourage for over two months now," he claimed. "And I am delighted with the stability and reliability of our Exchange support and how well the calendar interoperates with my assistant, who uses Outlook."
Fellow team member Andy Ruff illustrated his point with one of the most basic features of the Outlook client: the Out of Office message. While regularly used in the workplace by Windows users, their Mac parallels have often had to load their web browsers and manually enable the feature through Outlook Web Access and promptly switch it off after they return. This has been a regular problem for Ruff and many other users, who either ignore the feature or forget to disable it when they return to work.
In contrast, Office 2008 now has a simple options pane that gives the choice of setting the exact time and date for when an Out of Office reply is sent, as well as customized messages depending on whether or not the recipient is included in the user's address book -- similar to Office 2007 for Windows and its interaction with later Exchange servers.
Eisler likewise alluded to a stronger link between the Entourage calendar and Exchange, methods that Mac clients could use in collaborating through a Microsoft SharePoint server, and upgrades to the Entourage mail database. At least a few non-Entourage subjects, such as deploying Office across a network, are set to be discussed over the next several weeks. The team as a whole was reportedly also confident that the final release would speak for itself.
"The whole BU is using Office 2008, with builds that get better every day," Eisler said. "It?s been a monumental project for the team - I?m proud of the work they?ve done in Office 2008 and we can?t wait to get it into your hands in January."
Comments
I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't give a darn about the new Office. iWork is serving as an excellent replacement for my needs. The Mac BU at Microsoft is really gonna have to step it up a notch. And knock a couple hundred bucks off the price too.
I think this would be the case for a lot of people, but I think the two products serve different markets. People that use the current iWork really weren't the target market for Office anyway.
Wow.
I'm under-whelmed.
I have been living in daily builds of Entourage for over two months now, and I am delighted with the stability and reliability of our Exchange support and how well the calendar interoperates with my assistant, who uses Outlook.
Yeah - it's so f*cking stable - that's why they had to push the release to 2008 do to "quality control issues" No way am I shelling out $500 for the fisher price edition of Office.
That's great that Macs with Entourage can talk to PCs with Outlook, but what about Entourage's compatibility with the majority of Mac users who use the built-in Mac Mail & iCal clients? The current generation of Entourage doesn't play nice in the workplace with other Macs... an issue which Microsoft hasn't mentioned as part of Office 2008's improvements.
Agreed. If they can allow a simple transfer of Entourage calendar items to iCal my work appointments will be useable by .Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, etc etc... This is a long needed feature. Work emails sent to my iPhone would be a nice option too.
Entourage is positively embracing of open standards in comparison to Notes. Stellar UI design in comparison too.
Wah.
Yeah - it's so f*cking stable - that's why they had to push the release to 2008 do to "quality control issues" No way am I shelling out $500 for the fisher price edition of Office.
No....Didn't you see the announcement....Office 2008 was pushed back because Microsoft had to divert resources to a version of Office for the iPhone.....
I think MS is finally seeing the light that they better make something that Mac users will hang on too for a few more years because here comes the iPhone selling a a new Mac with it every so often.
The mac version has ALWAY had MAJOR compatibility issues with the windows version. Can't they just make a port of the windows version using wine and make it intel only?
and why no mention of other updates? it's because there are only so many updates you can make to a word processor. they released the software, they added spell check. why do you need a new version every few years? excel calculates. brilliant. what more do you need it to do? i'm sure they'll update the graph-graphics. i wonder why...
now if only people would either learn that powerpoint is a design destroying black hole of a program and ditch it, or microsoft will try to make it useful. wishful thinking.
.PPT = pathetic presentation tool
On the other hand, I purchased iWork 08 a few weeks ago with a new iMac, and I've also downloaded OpenOffice. They're both way easier to figure out than office and a lot cheaper.
I think that there will be lots of profit for Microsoft if they cut the price substantially. Lets hope that between iWork and Open Office that they will decide to cut the price to remain competitive, but not eliminate Office for Mac.
Agreed. If they can allow a simple transfer of Entourage calendar items to iCal my work appointments will be useable by .Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, etc etc... This is a long needed feature. Work emails sent to my iPhone would be a nice option too.
This is semi-possible, by means of .mac -- I have my Entourage calendar at the office sync with my .mac calendar. It in turn sync with my iCal on my MBP. It's a kludge, but I seriously doubt MSFT is going to spend any resources to make their app compatible with someone else's software. They're usually doing everything they can to make their stuff incompatible, just to further lock everyone into their environment.
That said, I'm really glad to see Entourage improvements, as I've already found it to be one of the bright spots of the suite. Does nobody else see the usefulness of the project center? It's one of those features that hasn't made it into the Windows version, yet is incredibly powerful.
Frankly, I do prefer Pages to Word, but I still am forced to use Word in the corporate environment. I don't use it at home. I've only just started playing with Numbers, but expect it'll replace Excel in my home environment, just as Pages has replaced Word.
I'm more than happy with iWork 08 myself, not having to use an Exchange server. It's better than Office for me. The only thing I turn to Office for now is editing csv files as Numbers is too slow for large files.
I was envying CSVEd on Windows a while back - http://csved.sjfrancke.nl/
There's no OSX version. I may even be tempted into some Cocoa development to create an OSX version of it. Excel is ok but CSVEd is a lot more useful for the task.
This has all changed a lot with the move to intel and with VMWare and Parallels, but what you really want is not to have to go to your Windows window for e-mail and calendaring.
It's not for the guys at home who can do whatever they want. It's for guys at the office who need to seamlessly talk to Exchange and knock out one more reason given to them not to request a Mac.
I'd expect the iPhone will also evolve in that direction, or split into a "consumer" line and a "corporate" line, probably differentiated only, or mainly, by software rather than form factor and that kind of thing.