Microsoft has further banned Mac users from accessing the new file formats integrated into the 2007 Office System. In the context of building Office 2008 for Mac, Microsoft has traded-off the file converters for Office 2004. According to the Redmond Company, delaying the Open XML support for Office 2004 for Mac was a necessary step designed to ensure that the upcoming version of the Microsoft productivity suite for the Mac platform will ship according to plans. In the meantime, Office 2004 users will have to exercise their patience when it comes to managing Open XML on a Mac.

Microsoft has failed to provide the actual date when it plans to make available the final release of the Open XML converters for Mac. The company only pointed to a six to eight weeks period following the initial availability of Office 2008 for Mac. And as for Office 2008, the productivity suite is also planned for release in an ambiguous second half of 2007.

Microsoft's perspective in this case is simple. Office 2008 is a bigger fish to fry, and as such, it will receive all the focus, while the converters have been thrown into the background. Microsoft did reveal that a beta standalone converter will be delivered with limited functionality. The converter program is designed to enable Office Mac users to convert Word 2007's .docx files in the Rich Text Format, or RTF. As RTF is a format supported by both Mac OS X and Windows versions of Office, users will be able to access their documents across platforms.

The intermediary solution provided by the Redmond Company comes to replace the actual converters that Microsoft promised for the spring of 2007. And since the intermediary converter works only with Word, Microsoft plans to make available similar solutions for Excel and PowerPoint by summer. "We had to make some choices," explained Amanda Lefebvre, Marketing Manager in Microsoft's Mac business unit. "We are continuing to focus our development on the completion of Office 2008."