Filed under: Macworld, Software
Office for Mac 2008 coming for Enterprise on Feb 1
A TUAW reader from a company with an Enterprise license from Microsoft wrote in to ask if we had any solid information on when Office for Mac 2008 was being released to licensees. Well, our man on the floor managed to get a comment from a Microsoft rep to the effect that the English, Spanish, and French localizations will be released on February 1, with more languages coming on March 1.Interestingly, the campus computer folks at my university report the same February 1st date for the universities, but that is apparently for IT deployment on university computers. My campus bookstore is saying that the student and faculty site licensed version will not be available until April. However, I suspect your mileage may vary at other universities.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BabyGotMac.com said 9:57AM on 1-18-2008
Too bad it doesn't have proper 'Enterprise' support in regard to Exchange or deployment.
Someday, some Mac developer is going to make a bundle when they write a proper Exchange client.
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ep said 10:16AM on 1-18-2008
After playing with a copy (we broke down and bought a copy in the store just to get a head start on how to do an enterprise deployment), I have to admit the Entourage is better, and certainly more on par with Outlook in many places, but it is no direct replacement for Outlook.
For my company's needs, they are now supporting everything we require. We don't use public folders or tasks, so that makes our lives much easier, but I know this is a deal breaker for many others.
Eric
PS: If I could only get Evolution on Linux or iCalendar on OSX more stable with Exchange and supporting more of these features, I would dump the whole MS Office suite.
Andy Ruff said 10:17AM on 1-18-2008
Deployment in 2008 is much improved--uses the Apple package system rather than a custom installer.
There are some improvements to Entourage and Exchange... it's more reliable, speedier, and the calendar workflow is improved. No tasks and notes sync yet, but we've got plans to get there.
HandyMac said 10:02AM on 1-18-2008
Not an Office user myself, but I wonder: Why is it (apparently) sold in separate language versions? I thought this was finally the first really OS X-"native" MS Office? Is it just to keep the $ in M$? Real OS X apps are multilingual (e.g. iWork, 8 languages in 1 package).
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Eric Pullen said 10:03AM on 1-18-2008
Thank you so much for answering this question... Feb 1 is still way to long in my opinion, but at least its a solid answer.
Just makes me wonder why releasing this to Enterprise customers will be much later than in the stores... they've NEVER done this with Office for Windows. Guess we are still just second class citizens in the eyes of M$.
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ahoge said 10:09AM on 1-18-2008
i really like the box graphics :>
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Stephen said 11:10AM on 1-18-2008
Newbie question - does ntourage 2008 not support/allow access to exchange public folders then?
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Brandon said 11:25AM on 1-18-2008
From what I've sen in our org. - we use address book public folders extensively. Entourage2008 supports the address book, but it doesn't support Distribution Lists inside of public, which for me is a deal breaker.
Stephen said 11:32AM on 1-18-2008
Any idea if it supports calendars in public folders?
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Michael Rose said 12:38PM on 1-18-2008
Yes, calendars in public folders are supported -- they also were in 2004. Not supported: auto booking of resources.
phlyingpenguin said 11:51AM on 1-18-2008
This explains why it's marked "First week of February" in the Indiana University software download site too.
http://iuware.iu.edu/title.aspx?id=755
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Sam said 1:53PM on 1-18-2008
so wait...they do vista enterprise and office 2007 enterprise 2 months before it goes retail but do office for mac one month after retail? way to care about your mac constituency, M$.
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codeman38 said 2:49PM on 1-18-2008
And there's no 30-day trial version in the meantime either... again, unlike Office for Windows, which had one *before* the actual release, from what I recall.
aviationwiz said 2:23PM on 1-18-2008
I believe the University of Minnesota website said right around February 16th for our licensed copies for students.
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tevetorbes said 4:05PM on 1-18-2008
I called the ITS department at Vanderbilt University and the woman I spoke with also confirmed Feb. 1 fwiw.
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Matt said 4:49PM on 1-18-2008
Sounds like the people MS has on the show floor know more than the people back in Redmond. When we emailed the Home Use Program, they replied "We do not know when or if Mac Office 2008 will be available." This was on the 17th, two days after it was available to consumers.
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been there said 10:58PM on 1-18-2008
To those of you with pub folders - get over it. MS is killing support for these in the next Exchange. 2007 Exchange is already a HUGE PITA to manage them, and in the famous language of MS - Public folders are being de-emphasized. Love that wording. Sounds like something Hillary Clinton would say - to anything. But, that's politics.
I'm really POd that MS is not releasing this to enterprise. As an EA holder (and direct manager of the account) I had to get mine from a less than legit site. No way I'm dumping $500 for something I already pay over $300,000 per year for. Not even $50 would be right.
Aggrevated that the Mac is a second class MS citizen all around. Someone PLEASE write a proper Exchange client.
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voiceoverthewall.com said 8:20AM on 1-24-2008
I asked the manager of my campus store and he said "a couple of months" which sounds alot like the end of the semester to me...probably april as stated above.
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