Microsoft Unveils Office 2011 for Mac

Submitted by lalit on February 11, 2010 - 3:21pm.

 

Microsoft today unveiled its Office 2011 for Mac at Macworld 2010 in San Francisco. Microsoft says that the new productivity suite will focus on anywhere, anytime and across platform sharing.

“Together with your team  - officemates, family and classmates – you are part of the community that helps shape each version of Office for Mac,” said Eric Wilfrid, MacBU general manager at Microsoft Corp. “You’ve told us that working together across platforms is a priority to you and that’s why we are making Office for Mac 2011 the best, most compatible productivity suite on the Mac.”

The key features in Office 2011 for Mac are:

  • New Co-Authoring Tools: Office 2011 will bring new co-authoring tools that will allow sharing and editing of files from Word, PowerPoint and Excel across platforms. According to Microsoft, co-authoring will improve the process of working together with teammates, remove the pain and frustration of multiple versions, lost edits, or even trying to set a time for group to meet.
  • Office Web Apps: The new Office suite will give access to Microsoft Office Web Apps and allow sharing of Office documents from any machine with an Internet connection. The Mac Office Web Apps will offer experience similar to Web Apps on Microsoft Office 2010 for PC users.
  • New User Interface Design: Like Office 2007 for PCs, Mac Office 2011 will also get ribbon interface. The new design is an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery and uses the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar along with the new ribbon. Users will have the option to collapse the ribbon and the Toolbar for more screen space.
  • Outlook for Mac:  Microsoft will replace much-hated Entourage email application with full-fledged Outlook for Mac in Office 2011. Outlook for Mac will leverage the Exchange Web Services protocol and is built using Cocoa allowing for improved integration with the Mac OS. The application will support import of .PST files from Outlook for Windows. Outlook for Mac features a reliable, high-speed, file based database with Spotlight search and back-up support from Time Machine.

Microsoft plans to ship Office for Mac 2011 later this year.