macintosh

The Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) at Microsoft Corp. has announced at the Apple Expo in Paris its product lineup for the upcoming Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac release.

The product, Office 2008 for Mac, is the core suite that includes Microsoft Office Word 2008, Microsoft Office Excel 2008, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2008 and Microsoft Office Entourage 2008 for exceptional productivity on the Mac.

A new combination for Mac users is Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, which features the Office 2008 applications together with the Microsoft Expression Media digital asset management system.

According to release, all versions of Office 2008 for Mac support the new Open XML file format and are Universal applications that will perform natively on Power PC- and Intel-based Macs.

“We built Office 2008 with the unifying goal of making it easier for Mac users to access the tools they need to get the job done — whether it’s creating a brochure for their business, managing their family schedule and finances, or finalizing a presentation to share between Macs and PCs,” said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft.

He added, “And, of course, Office 2008 for Mac will provide the document fidelity with the 2007 Microsoft Office system that our users need to stay connected with their friends and co-workers on PCs.”

Office 2008 for Mac features a leading suite of applications that Mac customers rely on to get their work completed with office applications and Microsoft Messenger for Mac.

“We’ve worked closely with Microsoft since it launched the first version of Office for Mac more than 20 years ago,” said Ron Okamoto, vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple. “Office delivers tremendous compatibility across platforms for Mac and PC customers, and we look forward to another great user experience with Office 2008 for Mac.”

Adobe Systems Inc's Photoshop, Illustrator and other Creative Suite 3 programs have not been fully tested with the latest version of Apple's operating system due for release next month, which could lead to incompatibility issues.

A substantial proportion of Adobe users are also Apple Mac users, with many waiting for the new Mac OS X operating system, code-named "Leopard."

"CS3 hasn't fully been tested under Leopard," Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen said. "If it doesn't work, we will make the necessary adjustments."

He said Adobe had not received a final copy of Leopard with which the software could be tested.

"What I think Chizen is saying is that they want more time than what Apple is giving them to make sure everything works," said Chris Swenson, an analyst with market research firm NPD. "They just don't want any hiccups that could hurt sales," he added.

However, no comments have been received from Apple officials.

Apple has said it will introduce the highly anticipated new operating system in October. The release was delayed so Apple could deploy engineers to work on software for the iPhone.

It may be recalled that Microsoft's Vista operating system, which went on sale in November of last year, also has had some incompatibility issues with other types of software.