Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will be made available in the second half of 2007. Microsoft broke the news at the Macworld Conference & Expo 2007, in San Francisco. Office 2008 for Mac will contain Entourage 2004, Word 2004, Excel 2004 and PowerPoint 2004; and Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0. According to Microsoft, Office 2008 for Mac is designed to integrate seamlessly with Intel-based Macs or PowerPCs.

"Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is packed with new, Mac-first, Mac-only features that are designed to provide a unique, engaging and definitively Mac experience, along with new collaboration elements to provide increased compatibility with the 2007 Microsoft Office system for Windows.We share a new graphics engine with our Microsoft Windows counterparts, called Office Art 2.0, and we have a new UI that introduces the Elements Gallery. Both of these features leverage Apple OS capabilities to retain a Mac-like look and feel while taking advantage of new technologies," revealed Roz Ho, general manager for the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit.

Office 2008 for Mac will also support the Office Open XML format that has been approved by the standards body ECMA International as an international standard in December 2006.

Until the first Universal version of Office for Mac will be available, Office Mac users will be able to use Interim solutions including Apple's Rosetta to enable the Microsoft software to run on Intel based systems.

"As I've mentioned, we're continuing to develop our core products that Mac users depend on. We'll keep supporting them and delivering new features and improvements. Beyond Office and Messenger, we're also working on a free, Universal version of Remote Desktop Client. Compatibility is a top customer concern, and the work that we are doing with the new XML file formats, layout engines and graphics handling will drive improved file compatibility," concluded Roz Ho.