Office for Mac 2011 Get a Taste

The first Beta development milestone for Office for Mac 2011 is now available for download, with Microsoft having shipped invitations to a select pool of testers earlier this week. But while the Beta bits are live only on Microsoft Connect, and accessible through invitation only, the Redmond company is now offering additional content designed to allow customers to get a taste of Office for Mac 2011. It is the case of the video embedded at the bottom of the screen.

The promise from the software giant’s Mac unit is that additional content focused on Office for Mac 2011 will be delivered throughout the summer. Still, even with the first of what is to be a series of behind-the-scenes looks at the successor of Office for Mac 2008, users can get a preview of what the Redmond company has in stored for them.
In the video, users will be able to see Eric Schuchman, Program Manager, PowerPoint; Ryan Panchadasaram, Program Manager, Outlook for Mac; Amy Wang, Developer, Outlook for Mac; and Mac Mojo - Han-Yi Shaw, User Experience Manager discussing various aspects of Office for Mac 2011. A member of the Office for Mac 2011 team offered a few highlights of the discussion in the video:

“• Starting off with the new Template Gallery in Office 2011, this feature allows you to quickly and easily pick a template from the built-in designs to the thousands of templates online – giving you a head start to create great looking, professional documents.

• Core features in Outlook for Mac like the Conversation View help you sort emails easily to keep track of what you need to do. Additionally, the new file-based database is faster and provides more stability with Time Machine support.

• Tying all of the new features together is the Office for Mac ribbon, designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery while also utilizing the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar giving you the best of both worlds. We have put the most commonly used controls at your fingertips making it easier for you to find what you need. You can even minimize the ribbon and the Toolbar for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts.”

Office for Mac 2011 might be in Beta stage at this point in time, but Microsoft is hard at work to make sure that customers will have the final product available by the end of this year. According to the company, Office for Mac 2011 is right on track for general availability in the fourth quarter of 2010.

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