Microsoft confirms Mac Office in January

Posted on 6 Aug 2007 at 10:00

Microsoft has announced that Office 2008 for Mac will be released to manufacturing this December and on the shelves of US retail stores next January.

Users outside the US can expect to receive their upgrades in the first quarter of 2008. Microsoft revealed last week that it would miss its original target to release the new version in the second half of 2007, because of problems with updating the code for Intel Mac compatibility and with the new Office Open XML (OOXML) file format.

Craig Eisler, general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU), said that the decision to delay the release was not taken lightly.

"As tough as it is, I firmly believe that this slip is the right call for MacBU," he said. "Delivering Office at the right quality level is super important to the entire team and to Microsoft's long standing commitment to the Mac platform, and it was clear from our June and July quality checkpoints that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't release our product in time for the Christmas season with the kind of quality we wanted."

From September, the MacBU will begin publishing a series of "sneak peeks" to show off some of the features of the new suite.

Eisler added that with "all hands on deck" to finish Office, other MacBU products will not ship as soon as expected: the final versions of Remote Desktop Connection and the OOXML converters will not be available "until sometime after" Office ships.

On the plus side, Eisler said that once Office 2008 is finished, the MacBU will get straight to work on its successor, with the unit is planning to get releases out on a more frequent basis.

Author: Simon Aughton

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