14 DAY TRIAL // Those of you stuck with Windows Office 2007, or Mac Office 2008 XML files waiting to be converted for use in Office 2004 for Mac should find comfort in knowing that Microsoft intends to release their long-delayed Open XML file converters as soon as June 2008 (next month). The company's group product manager for the Mac Business Unit confirmed it himself, saying: "Yes, we will have the converters ready."
Sounds like something coming from a friendly Indian guy's mouth, doesn't it? Concise and full of optimism. However, the statement is as it is probably because Microsoft's group product manager for the Mac Business Unit really has nothing more to add, given the already huge delay.
The first time Microsoft delayed the release of Open XML converters was a year ago, when the company missed its own deadline for betas of the file converters by about a month, Computerworld is reporting, with August also seeing a delay. Converters for Word and PowerPoint were rolled out on time.
Geoff Price, head of development at the Mac team announced in February that the release of Open XML file converters was again pushed back, this time by three-and-a-half to four months. On March 11, he noted that the pushback was the result of having to free up resources to work on a security and stability update to Office 2008 for Mac.
Microsoft released Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (SP1) this week. It patches stability and security issues, but also packs a few enhancements as well. It fixes critical issues in Office 2008, including issues that might cause Office 2008 applications to stop responding or quit unexpectedly. As far as security goes, Version 12.1 adds a number of improvements to enhance security, stability, and performance, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.