Office 2004 11.3.7 ships; Adobe office apps?

Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has released Office 2004 11.3.7, the latest version of its productivity suite for Mac OS X. The new version includes fixes for a vulnerability that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. Specifically, this vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page. The vulnerability could be exploited through attacks on Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. The Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.6 Update must be installed on the computer before you install the Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.7 Update.

Meanwhile, Wired is speculating that Adobe may be planning a move into the office productivity suite market in a bid to dip into Microsoft's lucrative business. An article quotes Adobe group manager for platform evangelism, Mike Downey, who says "Though we have not yet announced any intentions to move into the office-productivity software market," he says, "considering we have built this platform that makes it easy to build rich applications that run on both the desktop and the browser, I certainly wouldn't rule anything like that out."

Part of what's driving the potential entry is AIR, short for Adobe Integrated Runtime. AIR (formerly known as Apollo) gives developers a way to take code written for the web browser and repurpose it for the desktop. Theoretically, Adobe could use this platform to deliver platform-agnostic, robust Office applications that would trump traditional AJAX-based apps and deliver competition for Microsoft.

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