Microsoft has detailed release plans for the various editions of Office 2008 for Mac, including a nearly-free upgrade for some users.
The Office 2008 for Mac machine is finally gathering momentum. The Intel-native suite will be launched in Australia on January 31st, 2008, in a somewhat odd mix of three editions.
There's the full Office 2008 package of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. Then there's Office 2008 Home & Student Edition, which also contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. Errr, hang about - what's the difference?
"Office 2008 Home & Student Edition is a specially priced version for non-commercial or home use" explains Microsoft's local MacBU spokeswoman Julia Nicholls. "It doesn't have Exchange support or the Automator tools which are in the (full) Office 2008 for Mac suite for business users".
Nicholls was not able to reveal pricing for the suite, nor if Microsoft would be offering the same aggressive student discount as it's done on Office 2007 for Windows to combat the nefarious forces of piracy and competition, but says "we'll certainly be assessing it".
Third in the lineup will be Office 2008 for Mac: Special Media Edition, which adds the Mac version of Microsoft's Microsoft Expression Media program for managing digital media assets. Nicholls told apcmag.com that this edition would be "geared towards creative professional users like photographers and Web designers who need a product to help manage the multiple images that they need to work with". Microsoft is clearly hoping to give itself a wedge into Adobe's territory, given that most of those users cited would be running the likes of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and employing Adobe's own asset-management tools.
Microsoft is also hoping to spike the sales of Office 2004 in the final five months of the product's life before Office 2008 arrives. Anyone who buys Office 2004 between September 26 and February 29 will be eligible to upgrade to Office 2008 for $27 ‘postage and handling' (that's either a lot of postage or a lot of handling, or maybe just a lot of both).
Over the last month, Microsoft has raised the cone of silence at its MacMojo blog to start revealing key features of Office 2008 including the revised UI, the ‘out of office' assistant and advances in business deployment (which will include use of Apple Installer's PKG format, work with Apple Script and be accessible through Apple Remote Desktop).