News
Office 2008 for Mac Arriving Today
At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Microsoft today is releasing Office
2008 for Mac, the latest version of the company's ubiquitous office productivity
suite.
Office 2008 was originally supposed to have shipped last summer but instead
arrives today in three versions, including a new education edition. The company
is providing guided tours of the latest edition at the Macworld convention through
Thursday.
The new version of Office for Mac is a Universal Binary, able to run on both
older PowerPC Macs and newer Intel-based Macs natively. The new version incorporates
a number of new features and applications, including. among others, Microsoft
Messenger for Mac.
Office 2008 for Mac is available in three editions:
- Office 2008 for Mac (standard version), which sells for $399.95 (full version)
or $239.95 (upgrade version);
- Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition, which includes
three user licenses and basic Office functionality but no connectivity to
Exchange servers or support for automated workflows; and
- Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, which sells for $499.95 (full
version) or $299.95 (upgrade version), which also includes the Microsoft Expression
Media for Mac digital asset management tool.
Some of the other new features in Office 2008 for Mac include support for Open
XML, a redesigned user interface, Ledger Sheets for Excel, My Day for Entourage,
Publishing Layout View for Word, and SmartArt graphics for PowerPoint. Office
is available in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish,
Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Norwegian.
Sessions at the Macworld expo covering Office 2008 include a hands-on look
at the Office 2008 Special Media Edition Jan. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and
a conference called "Introducing Office 2008 for Mac: Form, Meet Functionality"
to be held Jan. 17 from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
About the Author
Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters.