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Microsoft Details Shift From Entourage to Outlook for Next Major Release, Announces Office 2008 Business Edition

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Microsoft today announced that the next major version of Office for Mac will see the replacement of its Entourage for Mac e-mail client with Outlook for Mac. The company has also deployed a Web Services Edition of Entourage 2008 for Mac beginning today, offering users the ability sync Tasks, Notes and Categories.

Outlook for Mac will bring to the next major version of Office for Mac a number of new features, particularly targeted at enterprise users, designed to enhance productivity.
- Cocoa. Built from the ground up using Cocoa providing users with improved integration with the Mac OS
- New database. A high-speed file-based database with support for backing up files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching
- Information Rights Management. Helps prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content
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The Loop reports that the next version of Office for Mac is scheduled for launch in the "Holiday season 2010."

Microsoft also announced the introduction of Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition, scheduled for release on September 15th. The new edition will replace the existing Standard Edition and Special Media Edition packages with a single suite offering support for Microsoft Exchange. New features in the Business Edition include:
- Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition. Improves performance, brings new features and support for the latest version of Exchange Server
- Microsoft Document Connection for Mac. Helps improve access and browsing to documents on SharePoint Products and Technologies and Microsoft Office Live Workspace
- New art. More than 200 business-related templates and professional clip art
- lynda.com training. Training for beginning to advanced users by lynda.com Inc.
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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition will be available for pre-order beginning August 18th at a price of $399.95 for the full version or $239.95 as an upgrade. The existing Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition will continue to be offered at $149.95.

Article Link: Microsoft Details Shift From Entourage to Outlook for Next Major Release, Announces Office 2008 Business Edition
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/08/13/microsoft-details-shift-from-entourage-to-outlook-for-next-major-release-announces-office-2008-business-edition/
It's nice to see Microsoft is still building upon their previous exploits on the mac in new ways and not leaving it behind. I like that entourage is FINALLY gone, and that outlook will be Cocoa
 
Die, Entourage! Die! Die! Die!
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EDIT: So - what will be lacking in the 2010 edition? Or have we achieved feature parity? With the addition of Outlook and the return of Visual Basic, I'm guessing we're going to be close.

Also, I wonder how new of an exchange server Mac Outlook will need.
 
too little too late,

If we weren't getting exchange in apple mail, this would never have happened.

I wont be using it.
 
$240 for the upgrade? Geez. No thanks Microsoft.

Do they mention that you probably need the latest version of Exchange server to run this stuff?
 
Hopefully the shift from Carbon to Cocoa will make it much stabler and less bloated in the process. Also, the shift away from Entourage to Outlook hopefully means Office's mail suite will no longer be so crappy.
 
Ah, Microsoft is really "Microshaft". It's amazing, they have tried for years to keep Macs out of the business/enterprise sector. Now that Apple has designed Snow Leopard to have full Exchange support without ANY version of MS Office installed, Microsoft is now seeing a lost $$$ opportunity and NOW that are giving in and making a business version of the Mac Office suite. They are not gonna get my money, I will stick with Snow Leopard without any additional software. MS=FAIL.
 
With Mail.app supporting native Exchange 2007 MS was going to have to do something about the half assed support for Exchange that Entourage has. Obviously the easiest thing to do is also the thing they should have been doing the whole time, is port Outlook proper to the Mac along with Word and Excel, like they used to do.

We dropped Office for Mac in favor of NeoOffice and Mail.app because Entourage sucked so much balls and did not play nice with home directory syncing or spotlight.
 
HLdan said:
t ANY version of MS Office installed, Microsoft is now seeing a lost $$$ opportunity and NOW that are giving in and making a business version of the Mac Office suite. They are not gonna get my money, I will stick with Snow Leopard without any additional software. MS=FAIL.
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er you realise that Apple would have had to pay to license exchange server support for SL? So MS aren't exactly losing out from this, if they REALLY wanted to they could have denied Apple the license in the first place.
 
No way that I'd even consider this upgrade unless 10.6, the new office, AND SPACES play nicely together. Freeware does a better job, heh.
 
0racle said:
With Mail.app supporting native Exchange 2007 MS was going to have to do something about the half assed support for Exchange that Entourage has. Obviously the easiest thing to do is also the thing they should have been doing the whole time, is port Outlook proper to the Mac along with Word and Excel, like they used to do.

We dropped Office for Mac in favor of NeoOffice and Mail.app because Entourage sucked so much balls and did not play nice with home directory syncing or spotlight.
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SL Mail isn't native either, it uses Web Services just like Entourage.
 
I can't wait. :)

Apple Mail is a joke in comparison with Entourage. While Outlook 2007 on the PC completely kills Entourage. Hopefully we finally get perfect Exchange syncing on Macs.
 
11800506 said:
Hopefully the shift from Carbon to Cocoa will make it much stabler and less bloated in the process. Also, the shift away from Entourage to Outlook hopefully means Office's mail suite will no longer be so crappy.
Click to expand...

Is the shift just for Outlook or is it for all Office Mac apps? And what difference does it make if they call it Outlook instead of Entourage if there isn't feature parity between the Windows and Mac versions?

Here's hoping spaces will finally work the way it should. And maybe the formula bar in Excel will be tied to the window and not floating all over the place. I HATE that.
 
I saw the title to this story and I really got excited, I thought maybe MS would make us pay for Visual Basic in a rebranded Business edition. Yes I am really willing to pay for VB. My dreams were shattered, boooo!
 
SwiftLives said:
Die, Entourage! Die! Die! Die!
------------------------------------
EDIT: So - what will be lacking in the 2010 edition? Or have we achieved feature parity? With the addition of Outlook and the return of Visual Basic, I'm guessing we're going to be close.

Also, I wonder how new of an exchange server Mac Outlook will need.
Click to expand...

Well, it is still missing parts of the Office Suite for Windows Professional.
Access (the database program)
Project (for project managers)
Visio (for charting people)
InfoPath
Publisher (web publishing?)

I am not even sure what InfoPath does and could be wrong about Publisher.

I would like to have a database program on my Mac. I could use MySQL (which I use at work), but I imagine less technically-oriented people might want something like Access.
 
eksodos said:
Apple Mail is a joke in comparison with Entourage. While Outlook 2007 on the PC completely kills Entourage. Hopefully we finally get perfect Exchange syncing on Macs.
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I agree. While Entourage isn't all that great, it integrates much better with our Exchange 2003 environment than what Mail.app could ever think of doing. Moving to Exchange 2007, which gives no immense increase in features or reliability, just to use SL's Mail.app is simply not smart. All I want in Outlook for Mac is the ability to use existing .Pst files, cross-platform Tasks and better public folders interactions. Mai.app for our particular Exchange environment = Fail.
 
applealex said:
I thought Microsoft was just sued and ordered by a federal court to stop selling Office in the U.S.
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It was told to stop selling Word. I don't recall anything about the entire Office suite. This will drag on appeals for some time, so I wouldn't worry about it being taken off the market.
 
It could be a sign that Microsoft is finally waking up to the fact that Apple is poised to do some real growth in business sectors, and that if they want a piece of that pie, they're going to have to do put in the work.

Kind of like saying "here's your toy, now go run along and play" to your little boy for years before finally realizing that he's growing up and ready for real tools, and if you're not ready to work with him, he's prepared to be your competition...
 
applealex said:
I thought Microsoft was just sued and ordered by a federal court to stop selling Office in the U.S.
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No, there was an injunction against selling Word. That matter is being appealed and there is still 60 days for that to happen. This has no affect on current litigation being that this version of Office won't be sold until late next year. MS is assuming that the suit will be resolved long before then.
 
pdjudd said:
No, there was an injunction against selling Word. That matter is being appealed and there is still 60 days for that to happen. This has no affect on current litigation being that this version of Office won't be sold until late next year. MS is assuming that the suit will be resolved long before then.
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MS has already filed an appeal? Are they preparing one? Where did you read this?
 
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