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Microsoft Mac Business Unit announces details of next version of Office for Mac
With Microsoft Office for Mac still owning a hefty portion of the Mac software market, it's always news when the Mac Business Unit decides to spill the beans on their product plans for the future.TUAW's Michael Rose was on the press call this morning and noted the headlines, with details in the press release in the 2nd half of the post: Next month, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will be trimmed down to 2 editions: Home/Student and Business Edition. The new SKUs for Business Edition 2008 will be available next month. This makes more sense than the 3 editions currently available. The Office 2008 Business Edition includes Entourage Web Services Edition & Microsoft Document Connection Entourage Web Services Edition ships today (August 13, 2009) Office 2008 Business Edition has extra templates, clip art and bundled Lynda.com training lessons Upgrade costs for 2008 Business Edition $240, full licenses $340; Entourage Web Services update will be free for existing Office 2008 users One More Thing: The next Mac Office version will be ready by holiday season 2010, and includes a 'brand new application' -- Microsoft Outlook for Mac (!) Outlook for Mac will be a Cocoa app, will sync tasks and notes, and has a new database supporting Spotlight searches; IRM for confidential data controls. There was no announcement from Microsoft on any Office for iPhone development to date Visual Basic returns in Office 2010 See the continuation of this post for the full press release from the Mac BU.
Microsoft MacBU Global MVP Summit 2007
Microsoft Mac developer David Weiss points to the Macintosh Business Unit's upcoming Global MVP Summit 2007, which will be bringing MVPs to Redmond for some Wii gaming and Mac Office feedback. Apparently, MVPs ("Most Valuable Professionals") are non-Microsoft employees that participate in Microsoft's "technical communities" who, in virtue of being super helpful to other users, have been selected to receive this honor(?). These MVPs (who must sign NDAs) then gain access to betas of upcoming Microsoft products and are able to offer suggestions and feedback to the MacBU as well as moderate forums and even man the Microsoft booth at Macworld. MVPs also maintain a variety of helpful information sites like this one for Mac Word and this one for Entourage. There is even information on becoming a MVP, so if you've ever had a burning desire to become a MacBU lackey here's your chance! (I kid, I kid!)[Via David Weiss]
Microsoft: "Still discussing" Virtual PC for Intel Macs
Windows is a necessary evil for many people in the corporate world, but those of us lucky enough to be able to use Macs at work have been able to get away with running Virtual PC (VPC), which runs the Windows OS in emulation. But will Microsoft continue to develop VPC for the new Intel Macs? According to MacMinute, the jury is still out. In a statement issued earlier today, Microsoft said,"The Mac BU recognizes the need for the product and believes it is the best virtualization solution for PowerPC users, so it is committed to providing Virtual PC to new and existing PowerPC customers. However, Microsoft is still discussing with Apple the feasibility of bringing Virtual PC for Mac to Intel-based Macs in the future and has not made any announcements about if/how the product might work on the new machines."Keep your fingers crossed (I think, right?). You wouldn't want to give up your Mac at work.
