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Office 2008 for the Mac Moves Into Beta

by , 11:45 AM EDT, March 30th, 2007

Microsoft's Office 2008 for the Mac has progressed out of alpha testing, and has moved into the early beta phase in preparation for release later this year. One feature the Mac version of the office application suite will share with its Windows counterpart is the Escher graphics engine, according to APC Magazine.

Escher is Microsoft's rendering engine that allows the Office suite to better render graphics and charts.

While Microsoft's Mac Business Unit is striving to improve the usability of the Office suite interface, it will not be adding the "Ribbon" interface found in the Windows version.

Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for Microsoft's MacBU commented "Part of our mission with Office 2008 is to expose all the things that are already there and make the product easier to use."

When Office 2008 ships, it will include a publishing-style layout view that

the developers liken to a desktop publishing application, iPhoto integration, Ledger Sheets in Excel, and support for Microsoft's new Office file format. It will also be Universal Binary, allowing Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Entourage to run natively on PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

The MacBU isn't saying if or when a public beta will be available, but representatives did confirm that the suite is on track for a late 2007 release.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:burrito Posts: 177 Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Subject:

screenshots?

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

click on "according" and it will take you to the APC article with 3 images.

Close Name:davebarnes Posts: 130 Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Subject: Interesting

Original article is at http://apcmag.com/5780/office_2008_for_mac_hits_beta_shows_slick_ui_and_draws_on_escher and has very small screen shots.

What I find interesting is that Office will have very different navigation (ribbon in Windows) between the two operating systems.

Close Name:geoduck Posts: 1922 Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Subject:

Quote
davebarnes wrote:
Original article is at http://apcmag.com/5780/office_2008_for_mac_hits_beta_shows_slick_ui_and_draws_on_escher and has very small screen shots.

What I find interesting is that Office will have very different navigation (ribbon in Windows) between the two operating systems.

Especially once you <try to> use Office '07. They seem to have made changes just for the sake of making changes. Things like Print are hidden. The biggest request I've been getting from my users is for a "classic" mode in Office '07 that would look like the older versions. But there isn't one. They will get used to it eventually, but I get to hear a lot of complaints until then.

At least the Mac version hasn't gone wakky with changes for changes sake.

Close Name:MacNano Posts: 8 Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Subject: Ooo! Escher Graphics!?, No Visual Basic?! What a prize!

Why would you develop your own graphics engine when Apple has built stunning graphics support for applications into Mac OS X? Perhaps the guys at Microsoft cannot bear to have to occasionally call Apple for support on how to efficiently use what is already there. Or perhaps Microsoft insisted that the Mac Office Suite cannot be too efficient, which would upstage the Windows version, so they required the Mac Business Unit to use obtuse workarounds to avoid using any Apple technology and therefore assure a bloated and inefficient program.

Also, without visual basic support (despite what the MBU says, I'm sure this was a corporate decision to handicap the Mac as far a business is concerned), this will be a complete dud for me no matter how many other features they supply. I depend on being able to write and use macros in Excel, and I depend on their ability to work cross-platform.

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