Office for Mac 2011 goes on sale tomorrow

Beverley Head
Monday, 25 October 2010 17:01

Business IT - Technology

The latest version of Microsoft Office, tuned for Apple Macintosh, goes on sale in Australia tomorrow.

Billed as the 'most compatible' version of Office for Mac yet released by Microsoft, the productivity suite is particularly targeted at Macintosh users who regularly use a Windows PC or collaborate with Windows based PC users and need their applications to align as closely as possible.

According to Danica Aitken, Microsoft marketing manager; 'Three quarters of all Macintosh users use the Windows PC at least once a week, and they generally collaborate with PC users.' She said that Office for Mac 2011 had been designed to improve workflow and collaboration between Macintosh and Windows PC users.

She said that although previous products had some level of compatibility, there had been issues specifically to do with formatting and tables which meant that the sharing of information between Windows Pc and Macintosh users had not been seamless. The compatibility of the two Office suites was now much higher she said.

This was particularly important for workers who wanted to share content in the cloud using Windows Live SkyDrive, said Ms Aitken. She said Macintosh and windows PC users could collaborate in the cloud using Office based content; 'They can both open up content in real time and co-author in real time,' she said.

In addition Office for Mac 2011 brings Outlook to the Mac platform for the first time as part of the Office Suite, which she believed would be important to business users. Outlook however is only available in the more expensive versions of the product.