Notes on Mac Office

The latest version of Microsoft Office for Mac, which comes out today, has been getting favorable reviews from some of the media given an early preview. See the latest from USA Today. Time magazine online called it "clearly superior" to Office for Windows, as the Mac Observer summarizes in this story. The software suite -- which comes with Mac versions of such programs as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint -- is the biggest product from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, which we profiled in this story earlier this year.

As we noted in our Tech Digest column this morning, the professional edition of Office 2004 for Mac will be delayed to accommodate a later-than-expected release of Virtual PC for Mac, which comes with the professional edition.

Mary Starman, lead product manager in the Mac BU, said yesterday that the company needed more time to address issues that arose during a standard security check of the new Virtual PC for Mac software. (It's the first full release of the product since Microsoft acquired it from Connectix Corp.) Also a factor was the delay in the upcoming service pack update for Windows XP; Microsoft wanted to include those updates with the new Virtual PC. (The software emulates the Windows operating system on Mac computers, letting users run programs written for Windows machines.)