14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has confirmed the fact that its first Universal Office productivity suite for Mac has now evolved past the alpha phase and into the private beta. Universal because Office 2008 for Mac will be a suite compatible with both Intel-bases Macs and PowerPCs. As of yet, the Redmond Company failed to provide the actual date when Office 2008 will be made available, but however, it did point to the second part of this year.
"Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is expected to be available in the second half of 2007, and will provide Mac users with tools designed to be simple, intuitive and easily discovered - to help them work smarter and more efficiently. We are excited to get this next version out as another example of our team's dedication to building leading-edge products for the Mac platform," stated Roz Ho, general manager for the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit, at the beginning of 2007.
Office 2008 for Mac has since grown and Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit confirmed that the suite is in the beta stage. Office 2008 for Mac will feature Escher, the rendering engine it will share with the 2007 Office System.
New to Office 2008 for Mac will also be the graphical user interface, similar to the Ribbon. According to Microsoft, the Elements Gallery will focus on enabling users to discover Mac specific features. Office 2008 for Mac will also deliver new Mac-first, Mac-only features.
Publishing Layout View, Ledger Sheets and My Day will be available exclusively via Office 2008 for Mac. Designing layout-rich documents will be a streamlined process with Publishing Layout View. Microsoft has also simplified the management of common financial tasks in Excel through Ledger Sheets.
"My Day allows users to track priorities and stay on top of daily activities no matter what application they're currently working in. My Day is a stand-alone application that doesn't take up much screen space, offers at-a-glance schedule and task viewing without launching Entourage, and lets users color-code everything for visualizing daily priorities," added Microsoft.