Oct 26, 2010 14:04 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has launched the equivalent of Office 2010 for Apple Mac computers. There are two SKUs of Office for Mac 2011 designed to cater to students, home users and business customers alike. Mac owners that are looking for the best that the Office productivity suite has to offer on non-Windows machines can choose between Office for Mac 2011 Home & Student and Office for Mac 2011 Home & Business.

For the time being, office for Mac 2011 is localized in no less than 13 languages. The promise from the software giant is that by November 2010, the productivity suite for Mac will be offered in no less than 45 markets around the world.

Both SKUs of Office for Mac 2011 contain the same range of components, with one exception. While both home and business users will get Word 2011, Excel 2011, and PowerPoint 2011, only customers running Home & Business will be able to leverage Outlook 2011.

With Office for Mac 2011, Microsoft is including the Outlook email client with the Home & Business edition of the productivity suite.

According to Microsoft, Office for Mac 2011 Home & Student will cost $149.99 while Office for Mac 2011 Home & Business comes with a price tag of $279.95.

Office for Mac 2011 brings to the table a variety of enhancements, including: Outlook integration, Office Web Apps, Coauthoring capabilities, the Ribbon UI, a template gallery, Photo Editing, Full Screen View, Broadcast Slide Show, Sparklines, Visual Basic, Recorder Objects, etc.

Eric Wilfrid, general manager of Microsoft’s Office for Mac team notes that he and his team managed to put aside the overall Microsoft vs. Apple conflict, and worked to build the best Mac productivity suite they could.

“As someone who works at Microsoft and deals with Apple often, I acknowledge that our companies compete,” Wilfrid revealed.

“Some people choose Windows, and some people choose Mac. That conflict tends to get a lot of attention, but I deal in the reality that there are customers who love their Macs and also love using Office.”