Microsoft Announcements at Macworld '07
Lot's of great news coming out of San Francisco today. Check out our announcement of Office 2008. We'll have more information later this week and after the show.
It’s Coming: Mac BU Announces Intent to Deliver Office 2008 for Mac
Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today revealed at Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 the news Mac fans have been waiting to hear: A new version of Office for Mac is on its way. The Mac BU announced its intent to deliver the first Universal version of Office for Mac for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs — Microsoft® Office 2008 for Mac. Scheduled to be available in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 for Mac will allow Mac users to work smarter and more efficiently with new and enhanced tools that are simple, intuitive and easily discovered.
Here's an interview with MacBU GM Roz Ho:
Inside Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh
Q&A: From Macworld Conference & Expo 2007, the head of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit discusses the story behind the next generation of Microsoft's productivity software suite for the Mac.
BTW: I'm posting this from the Blogger Lounge on the Macworld 07 show floor. If you get a chance stop by and say hi to Chris or me here or in the Microsoft booth. If you're a blogger, stop in an make a post. :)
Comments
Anonymous
January 09, 2007
They really should call it Office 2007 for Mac, since that's probably more what it is. Calling it "2008" implies that it is an upgrade relative to 2007. Same problem as 2003/2004 releases for the previous version.Anonymous
January 09, 2007
What about Exchange support in Entourage? Is Entourage going to be a full partner with Exchange now or will it continue to be the red headed step child?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
Not to beat you guys up, but there was no reference to integration with SharePoint in either of these articles. Considering that SP 2007 is a major focus for MS this year, this concerns me. Will there be SharePoint integration or are Mac Office users out of luck? Or is it still too early to talk about that functionality?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
Any images of the New UI coming out this week?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
I am really excited to see Office 2008 coming, I have an Intel mac, but I am currently using my old copy of Office 98 on an old PowerBook G3 running OS 9. I am really interested in seeing what's new in Office since 98, v.X and 2004 (which I'm not using because of rosetta.)Anonymous
January 09, 2007
right then, all good...what's the upgrade going to be like? a general guess at a price will do and what versions will it upgrade?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
What about VBA compatibility with PC Excel files old and new? I write alot of engineering Excel spreadsheets that I share between PC and Mac OS X environments. This is really important!Anonymous
January 09, 2007
Awesome. While Apple gets the spotlight at Macworld for what is (arguably) a non-Mac product, glad to see Microsoft improving and (soon) delivering a product that I use daily on my Mac. By the way, are any screenshots of what we can expect of elements gallery coming yet?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
Will it run on the iPhone?Anonymous
January 09, 2007
Are we going to see some sort of integrated SharePoint support in the next version of Mac Office? SharePoint libraries are integrated so nicely in the Windows version of office :)Anonymous
January 09, 2007
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January 09, 2007
" What about VBA compatibility with PC Excel files old and new? I write alot of engineering Excel spreadsheets that I share between PC and Mac OS X environments. This is really important!" Ditto !! This is very important.Anonymous
January 09, 2007
I was so hoping for some news about Office 2008 and SharePoint 2003/2007 integration/interoperability. The Mac versions of Office, while incredibly nice and valuable, are increasingly feeling like in island in Microsoft's larger Office System strategy with SharePoint and Exchange playing major roles. Given that both expose significant services via SOAP, I would have hoped that the old binary incompatibility arguments would cease to be a gating factor in delivering this functionality on Mac Office.Anonymous
January 09, 2007
I also want to ask about VBA compatibility. I'm not a heavy Excel user, but know that if this feature isn't available, the Mac Office suite is no longer really compatible with the rest of the world.Anonymous
January 09, 2007
What about the toolbars? I've seen in the first screenshots, that - like in Acrobat 8 - the toolbars are integrated into the document window. I personally like the Ribbon UI which I could test live on a computer. But docking the UI to the doc-window is imho a huge backstep. Will there be an option that the toolbars in Office 2008 can be docked directly under the menu-bar like in Office :mac 2004?Anonymous
January 10, 2007
VBA support in Office 2008 is dead dead dead, as Microsoft have stated here in this blog. If you want to continue doing VBA either buy some more Office 2004 while they are still available or look at NeoOffice 2.1 (due out 1st quarter 2007) which will be FREE OF CHARGE and will have Excel VBA support and also be able to read the new Open XML file formats.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
What I would like to here (although I will not use the feature myself) is whether Office 2008 will finally support right to left languages. The [continuing] deafening silence from Microsoft on this subject strongly suggests that once again they will fail to do this. However this time they have absolutely no excuse for doing so. (Previously they have blamed the text engine in [earlier versions of] Mac OS X, however as they are re-writing Office this excuse no longer hold water.)Anonymous
January 10, 2007
I echo John Lockwood's concern about whether MS will put right-to-left language support into Office 2008. This is a feature I definitely need. Right now, Office for Mac is not really compatible with Office for Windows as it lacks this critical feature.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
What's with the word "intent" in the title? Makes it sound like little to no work has been done and that end-users shouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
I can't emphasize how pointless this release is without full VB compatibility with the PC version. The name "Office" makes it crystal clear that this software is a tool for the office. People who use Macs in a business setting need to integrate their word processing, spreadsheet, and email systems with their PC counterparts. DELAY THE LAUNCH, SUPPORT VB COMPATIBILITYAnonymous
January 10, 2007
Please tell me where Microsoft stands on Visio for Mac.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
The screenshot of PowerPoint 2008 I saw in the Macworld article is strange. The interface has integrated tabs, but the drop down menus still exist? Isn't that a case of confusion and clutter? I think you should clear out all the drop down menus on the Apple menu bar, leaving only the Application menu, in this case "PowerPoint". The idea behind the new UI in both Office 2007 and 2008 is to make things easier to find. Keeping back all the drop down menus defeats that purpose.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
How about Out-of-Office in Entourage? The mot common complaint I get from Outlook 2001 converts. VB imoprtant to for many people I know (not me thou). Share Points. How about concentrating your effort on the essential and important things instead of delivering "Mac firsts and onlys" like My Day?!Anonymous
January 10, 2007
I wonder if Messenger will be updated anytime soon.Anonymous
January 10, 2007
I notice all this time after it was discontinued, WMP for Mac is still the second most popular download on apple.com. Perhaps this one should be resurrected. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/Anonymous
January 11, 2007
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January 11, 2007
Don't be mistaken in assuming the only place Microsoft is making waves this week is at the Consumer ElectronicsAnonymous
January 11, 2007
One thing: better exchange integration with Entourage???Anonymous
January 11, 2007
Here are some screenshots: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2382Anonymous
January 11, 2007
Andre - Through our UX design and research, we found that it wasn't appropriate for our users to remove the top menu bar that is a common element in all Macintosh applications.Anonymous
January 11, 2007
>>Through our UX design and research, we found that it wasn't appropriate for our users to remove the top menu bar that is a common element in all Macintosh applications.<< Couldn't the same have been said about Office 2007 and Windows apps? In other words, if you ask any user, "should the app have a menu bar," probably 99% of experienced Windows users would say "yes." The innovation in Office 2007 is that they went against conventional thinking and replaced the menu with a mechanism that is more effective.Anonymous
January 11, 2007
WinOffice has a different user audience than we do, and they're working on an operating system that has fundamental differences in the UI. One of those fundamental differences is the menu bar that is in every Mac application. We're trying to take the best of WinOffice's innovation and meld it with a Mac sensibility. Remember, you've only seen a couple of screenshots, and haven't had the opportunity to interact with it. We'll be sharing more about the Elements Gallery as we get closer to the launch of Office:Mac 2008, so maybe you'll have a different reaction as you learn more about it and see it in action. And if you're at MWSF, swing by our booth to see a demo of it, so you can get a better feeling for what we're doing with it.Anonymous
January 12, 2007
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January 12, 2007
I live in Jamaica, so I won't be able to drop by, I would so love to though. Anyway, are the tabs always displayed or shown only when the user wants to access a feature?Anonymous
January 12, 2007
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January 13, 2007
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January 13, 2007
I am impressed with the screenshots that came out. It certainly mixes "Office 2007 innovation" with "Mac sensibility". Having used Office 2007 (Beta 2 TR) on Windows for a couple of months, I think the innovations there are great, but the interface cannot exactly be called "pretty". The interface I see here is better -- keeping an (improved) formatting palette is smart; and the elements gallery look Mac-like despite being inspired by Office 2007. Of note, there is precedence in having a design gallery - e.g. the design chooser in Karelia's Sandvox. I can't wait. However, what I dislike is the "My Day" interface. To be honest, it is quite ugly. I understand it is an early beta though. Also, "My Day" should really be a Dashboard Widget. I don't want yet another background program running. I am also interested in Microsoft's plan for interacting with Apple's iLife. E.g. the Insert -> Picture option could really be replaced with some kind of Media Browser. I understand you will keep the menu bars. This is great. It would be fantastic if the menu items in the menu bars could be improved though -- it should not look like a relic from Office 2004. Very much looking forward to Office 2008.Anonymous
January 15, 2007
eobet - No, it's not the difference between business and personal use. I spend a lot of time talking to people who user their Macs 100% in a business environment, and our findings hold for them as well.Anonymous
January 18, 2007
I hope that Office 2008 desing spirit will be less "Microsoft". By "Microsoft" spirit, I mean what lead the shutdown command in the start menu. For example, Office 2004 ties autocorrect entries to the keyboard layout. That means Office 2004 keeps miscorrecting the correct French word "dont" into "don't", even though I keep telling it my text is in French. Conversely, I suppose that people with a French AZERTY keyboard are barred from typing a text in English. Ohhhh yeahhh, Jean-Denis PS: here is what the help file says: Check your language and keyboard layout Office 2004 includes AutoCorrect lists for the following languages: English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. If you are using another language and keyboard layout, Office 2004 creates either a blank AutoCorrect list for that language or uses the English AutoCorrect list to correct errors you type. The AutoCorrect language is based on the active keyboard layout, which is designated on the Input Menu tab of the International pane in System Preferences (Apple menu).Anonymous
January 18, 2007
one more thing... ... ... ... internet query option in excel !Anonymous
January 23, 2007
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January 31, 2007
My big request is Entourage, Entourage, and more Entourage. I use it for home and as my main biz program, and stability/sluggishness seems to be an issue when you switch to a folder than has a lot of messages in it, like the Delete items. And I actually think MyDay is a good idea, but agree it'd be a great widget so as not to ad clutter to my work environment. Also, I know in the PC environment, there's a huge setback as Outlook 2007 uses MS Word to render HTML emails, thus setting HTML email design back 5 years (I design a lot of eNewsletters). I certainly hope you don't change the rendering engine in Entourage to this extent!Anonymous
February 04, 2007
Matt, If you turn off "View-->Arrange By-->Show in Groups" for a particular folder, you will no longer have any sluggishness when you switch to that folder if it has a lot of messages in it. ScottAnonymous
February 06, 2007
Interesting that the BU folks here have only responded to UI issues, not issues regarding features and functionality.Anonymous
March 15, 2007
Technet will windows meeting space have clients written for xp machines, or will it not be a useableAnonymous
March 15, 2007
Technet will windows meeting space have clients written for xp machines, or will it not be a useable