Both Macworld and CNET are reporting that the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac will be due by the end of 2010.The next version of Office for Mac will include Outlook and will replace Entourage, the current e-mail and calendar program in the Mac Office suite. This new version of Outlook will add support for more Exchange features such as public folders.
"We'll bring forward all the functionality from the Entourage Web Services Edition, including public folders, managed folders, and category syncing, but with Outlook we're going even further and building a whole new application," said Microsoft Mac Business Unit general manager Eric Wilfrid. He also adds that Microsoft will create Outlook for Mac using Apple's modern Cocoa development frameworks. Microsoft will also bring back Visual Basic in the next version of Office for Mac, which was removed in the 2008 version.
When asked about rumors that Office may be coming to the iPhone, Wilfrid said, "No, there is no news today about any iPhone work." We've reported that Microsoft announced a partnership with Nokia, and that the company would be creating mobile versions of the Office applications for Symbian phones.
In a separate announcement Microsoft said it would launch a new Business edition of its Office for Mac software. This will replace the $399 Standard Edition and $499 Special Media Edition and join the existing Home and Student edition. This will reduce the number of Office for Mac product editions from three to two.
MSN Messenger 8 beta is out now (google it), so I'm pretty sure that Office 2010 for Mac will include the final version, IMO they're gonna release MSN 8 for Mac before the release of Office 2010 for Mac
MS is so much of a letdown on the Mac side of things at least. I mean, when Apple releases a new iTunes or Safari or QuickTime for the Mac, it also gets released on the same day on the Windows platform. But we have to wait for a whooooole year before getting the half-assed product that Office 2010 Mac will be compared to Office 2010 on Windows.
I tried the beta of MSN 8 for Mac and it's not even worth trying. It's more than an Alpha than a Beta. In fact, it's like the previous version, but with a crashy Audio / Video. I mean, I'm really happy that we'll finally get it, but they're taking sooooooo much time I cannot even believe it.
I would use iChat if it had a proper support for a few MSN features like Audio / Video, Custom Smileys and Handwriting. It doesn't look like it, but these are actually useful features (unlike Winks, ... Nudges are helpful but damn annoying, Apple should just send a growl notification in iChat if Growl's installed)
Please get a better UI
I couldn't agree more with you concerning the Ribbon they tried to do on the Mac. I mean, look at this, you have features :
- In the usual menus at the top
- In the inspector on the right
- In the toolbar at the top of the application
- In the ribbon interface
This is becoming too complex. And each of those areas have different features that you don't get elsewhere.
Personally, I always disliked these little inspectors on the right, because they're too small, the icons are too small, and they're cluttered. They should just remove all the menus like on Windows and work a finely-tuned Ribbon interface like on Windows! I mean, the design of the current interface fits the Mac perfectly IMO, but it's more harmful than helpful at the moment. As mindscape said, the purpose of the Ribbon is defeated because it contains just styles instead of the whole interface. And guess what? It still has a lot of tabs and looks quite full, but in fact it doesn't contain anything...
Plus, the Ribbon's sluggish. Put everything in Cocoa and it's gonna help (I know they'll do this for 2010 though - no worries).
Microsoft Office on Symbian? That sounds horrible!
I'm not really a fan of Office on Mac, I much prefer it on the Windows platform.
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