Having postponed the equivalent of the Office 2007 System for the Mac platform from the second half of 2007 all the way to 2008, Microsoft is now gearing up to ship Office 2008 for Mac in mid January of the coming year. Earlier this month, on December 12th in fact, the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) at Microsoft announced that it had released Office 2008 for Mac to manufacturing. The RTM date came just one month before the scheduled launch of the productivity suite that would deliver to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard what Office 2007 brought to the table for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Pat Fox, the Director of Marketing and Planning for MacBU, offered a sneak peek into what Microsoft has in stored for the January 15th release of Office 2008 at Macworld. "It's going to be a great show and we're planning a big presence. First, A Day at the Office - a day-long conference at the Moscone on Monday, January 14th, dedicated to extensive user training on the new Office 2008 for Mac. Tickets are close to sold out, but if you're quick you might still be able to grab one. We also have conference sessions and hands-on labs where attendees can get great training on the new Office 2008 for Mac", Fox said.

In this context, the availability of Office 2008 for Mac is an indication of the still strong demand for desktop-based productivity suites. Microsoft is increasingly facing the perspective of traditional applications migrating online. The transition has a strong potential to hurt the Redmond company's business model centered around its flagship products, Windows and Office. And, while Google is making headway with its online based alternative to Office, with Microsoft too making timid steps in the same direction with Office Live, the launch of Office 2008 points to the continual survival of desktop-based applications, at least in the foreseeable future.

"You won't miss our big booth on the show floor where we'll have demo stations set up for you to test drive the new product and theatre presentations every half hour highlighting the most popular new features. Even better, most of MacBU and some of our most knowledgeable MVPs will be on hand to answer your questions. We'll be hanging out again with the community in our new and improved Blogger Lounge (wireless access this year!) Best of all, the product will be available at retail (and online) starting January 15th in North America (including at that swanky Apple Store close to the Moscone)", Fox added.