Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) on Thursday announced Office Business Edition for Mac and confirmed the next version of Office is coming next year during a conference call held for members of the press.
MacBU General Manager Eric Wilfrid said the next major version of Office will offer the core apps Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Entourage will be replaced with Outlook for Mac.
Outlook for Mac will be a Cocoa app and will be fully compatible with Outlook for the PC. Wilfrid said Outlook builds on the work they are currently doing with Entourage.
The next major version of Office for Mac will be released in the holiday season 2010.
Microsoft also announced on Thursday an upgraded version of Office for Mac that will go on sale on September 15, 2009. Office for Mac Business Edition will include Entourage Web Services and Document Connection. Entourage is available for download today from the company’s Web site.
The new business edition also includes new clipart and templates. Office for Mac Business Edition will cost $399 or $239 for an upgrade.
As of September 15, Microsoft will offer two versions of Office for Mac: Office Business Edition and Office Home and Student.
No Entourage? Oh man, that’s not good!
Maybe we’ll be surprised. Outlook compatibility and having it Cocoa could be a good thing for a lot of people.
I’ve got Entourage, but don’t use it. I’d like to, but it just doesn’t integrate into iCal. MS says Entourage can handle multiple calendars, but just not when sycing with sync services. To me, this means it does not fully “support” multiple calendars. When it does, I’ll gladly switch to Entourage from my Mail/iCal/Address Book. I’ve grown too accustomed to my different calendars/color schemes and syncing them all with my iPhone.
Come to think of it, we’ve gone full circle now. Remember back when we had Outlook Express for Mac for regular email, and Outlook for Mac for exchange services.
Then Entourage replaced both eventually, and now Outlook will replace Entourage.
Like Ghandi said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Agreed Jim. I’d love to see Outlook for Mac, if it really is what the name implies… I use Outlook now (thanks Parallels!) along with a couple of Windows only programs mandatory for my business, and this would be one more program I can keep Mac only!
Good point, Walt. Completely full circle, although I do expect more from from this version.
It would be interesting to know if Outlook for Mac is going to be compatible with pre-2007 Exchange servers (i.e. MAPI servers) or if it’s going to be Web Services exclusive. There are a lot of SMB’s out there still using Exchange 2003 or older as part of MS Small Business Server.
My guess is that it will be Exchange 2007 only, just like Snow Leopard.
This is a HUGE opportunity for Apple in the SMB space. The transition to SBS2008/Exchange 2007 is not an easy one and pretty much necessitates purchasing new x64 hardware. AFAIK, there isn’t even an in-place upgrade option for SBS2003. In this economy, a lot of small businesses are holding off on major purchases like that.
Apple should really start pushing Snow Leopard Server as a SMB solution replacement for Windows Small Business Server. If they’re going to have to buy new hardware anyway, why not make it a Mac. Where, oh where, is the XServe Lite?
Something else that may not be too publicized, is the inclusion of Outlook Web Access (OWA) in an updated version of Entourage that is not supported in the current version. See http://www.microsoft.com/mac/itpros/entourage-ews.mspx for more info.
When will we get Microsoft Access for Mac OS X?
Joe, that will never happen. I talked to MS about that in the past and their are various technical reasons it can’t be done.
One piece of good news is that the new Outlook will be 100% coded by the MacBU and NOT the Outlook Team.
[…] also said that work on the next version of Office for Mac is going well. Microsoft announced that Outlook for Mac would replace Entourage as the email client during a press conference in August.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Microsoft delays Messenger A/V […]