The last time you saw a similar headline was in 2004. After almost four years and a delay, Microsoft is finally on the verge of shipping Office 2008 for Mac, the first major update to their suite of business productivity applications since Apple’s switch to Intel processors. “Here’s the latest official word - Office 2008 for Mac has Released to Manufacturing (RTM)!” That’s right, folks. All the coding and bug fixing is done, “the product team has signed off” and the finished product has been sent to manufacturing.
The launch date for Office 2008 is 15 January 2008 at Macworld Expo 2008. If you intend to be present for the show, make sure you pay a visit to the Microsoft booth to have a look at the various demos and presentations and have a chat with the developers.
Since its initial release in 1989, Microsoft Office has been the de facto standard among office productivity applications on the Mac. After three years of little action in this market, Apple earlier this year introduced a formidable opponent into the arena with the release of iWork ‘08 and introduction of Numbers, Apple’s own spreadsheet application. With Office 2008, Microsoft is back in the game with universal applications re-written from the ground-up to take advantage of the Intel architecture and new developer features in Leopard. The user interface has been revamped to make space for the new ribbon UI and (hopefully) some Core Animation goodness. This version will also introduce a new application, My Day, for keeping a tab on the daily events in Entourage, the Outlook of Mac OS X.
From what we’ve seen so far, this seems to be a very worthy upgrade. Come January 15th, we’ll probably see the beginning of stiff competition between iWork and Office, with both companies vying for your attention, one trying to lure you with a bucketload of features while the other banks on its simplicity and ease of use. Whoever wins, this imminent battle between the two behemoths of Mac software development can only be good for us users. Sit back and relax, fellas, this is going to be an exciting ride!
I wonder if a beta will be available at any time?
I certainly don't think so. It will be released in less than a month from now. :)