The second week of December 2007 brought with it not only the public availability of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, and that of Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate build 3244, but also the RTM date for Office 2008. Geoff Price, the Product Unit Manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, revealed that Office 2008 was released to manufacturing as of December 12, 2007. Office 2008 is the equivalent of the Office 2007 System, but aimed at Apple's Mac OS X.

"We're very pleased to announce that the product team has signed off, and our final build has left the building and is en route to manufacturing sites abroad. Needless to say there's some joy in MacBUville, with festivities as I post. While we love building Mac software, actually getting that software into the hands of the people we've been building it for is something we've been looking forward to for a long time. For my teams, the RTM milestone is the last step in the process", Price revealed.

Designed to be for Mac OS X what Office 2007 is for Windows Vista and Windows XP, Office 2008 was initially planned for availability by the end of 2007. However, the suite was postponed, to early 2008. On the other hand, when it drops in January of next year, Office 2008 will support Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the latest cat from Apple, from the get go. On the Windows front, Microsoft has made available the first Service Pack for the Office 207 System.

"Though our work is finished, our operations, localization and marketing teams remain busy getting Office 2008 on shelves for our product launch on January 15th at Macworld 2008. A large portion of the MacBU team will be on hand at Macworld, and I know people are excited to show their work and talk to real users about the release. We hope to see you there on the show floor, in presentations, and at various events around town", Price added.