14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is right on track with the development of Office 2008 for Mac, the alternative to the Office 2007 System, but for Apple's Mac OS X operating system, and not for Windows. Although initially Microsoft planned to deliver the product in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 was postponed to early 2008. However, judging by the latest progress report delivered by Geoff Price, Product Unit Manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit in Redmond, Office 2008 will be released to manufacturing in December and will hit the shelves on January 15, 2008. At this point in time, all teams have confirmed that Office 2008 is on schedule and that it will meet its upcoming deadlines without issues.
"Last Wednesday was our general "ZBB" target for the Office 2008 project, a major milestone on the road to release and something we've been pushing hard for over the past several months. This stands for Zero Bug Bounce, or as alternately phrased, Zero Bug Backlog. At this point we have been logging, tracking and verifying all changes to the product in great detail for some time. The ZBB milestone is defined as the date across which we will no longer carry logged product issues that are more than one week old. Hence, the "backlog" of issues has been cleared out, and all older pending decisions on what we are or are not going to change before we ship have been made. It also means that the developers have "caught up" or "outpaced" the incoming find rate of our test efforts", Price revealed.
This means that Microsoft is now in the final stages of testing Office 2008, in order to get ready for the December RTM. The Redmond company has moved into the phase where it is now stabilizing the product for the release. Price promised that the code will continue to be scrutinized; however, additional bugs could be ignored voluntarily due to the issues associated with regression. "From here on out, the focus is increasingly on lock down. We are testing for defects literally around the clock, using a variety of methods ranging from automated efforts such as "massive file testing" to targeted manual test passes and "ad hoc" free testing. We also continue to log and fix significant issues found in private beta testing", Price added.