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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-18-2008 @ 9:57AM
BabyGotMac.com said...
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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1-18-2008 @ 10:16AM
ep said...
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.
1-18-2008 @ 10:17AM
Andy Ruff said...
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.
1-18-2008 @ 10:02AM
HandyMac said...
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$? Real OS X apps are multilingual (e.g. iWork, 8 languages in 1 package).
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1-18-2008 @ 10:03AM
Eric Pullen said...
Thank you so much for answering this question... Feb 1 is still way to long in my opinion, but at least its a solid answer.
Just makes me wonder why releasing this to Enterprise customers will be much later than in the stores... they've NEVER done this with Office for Windows. Guess we are still just second class citizens in the eyes of M$.
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1-18-2008 @ 10:09AM
ahoge said...
i really like the box graphics :>
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1-18-2008 @ 11:10AM
Stephen said...
Newbie question - does ntourage 2008 not support/allow access to exchange public folders then?
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1-18-2008 @ 11:25AM
Brandon said...
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.
1-18-2008 @ 11:32AM
Stephen said...
Any idea if it supports calendars in public folders?
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1-18-2008 @ 12:38PM
Michael Rose said...
Yes, calendars in public folders are supported -- they also were in 2004. Not supported: auto booking of resources.
1-18-2008 @ 11:51AM
phlyingpenguin said...
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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1-18-2008 @ 1:53PM
Sam said...
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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1-18-2008 @ 2:49PM
codeman38 said...
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.
1-18-2008 @ 2:23PM
aviationwiz said...
I believe the University of Minnesota website said right around February 16th for our licensed copies for students.
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1-18-2008 @ 4:05PM
tevetorbes said...
I called the ITS department at Vanderbilt University and the woman I spoke with also confirmed Feb. 1 fwiw.
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1-18-2008 @ 4:49PM
Matt said...
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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1-18-2008 @ 10:58PM
been there said...
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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1-24-2008 @ 8:20AM
voiceoverthewall.com said...
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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