Monday, August 7,2006 @ 5:40pm
Universal Mac Office, Messenger coming
The Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) of Microsoft today announced that it would offer a Universal version of its flagship MS Office productivity suite and Mac Messenger client. The company said it has made great strides in gradually transitioning to the new platform as Apple completes its transition to Intel-based Macs. The impact of the new architecture and operating system capabilities combined with the Mac BU's support of Mac OS tools and technologies has led the Mac BU to several product roadmap decisions aimed at providing Mac customers with solutions to meet their needs. "Tens of millions of lines of code have been 100 percent transitioned to Xcode on the road to a Universal version of Office for Mac," says the Mac BU.
"The Mac BU also will provide free, downloadable converters to allow users of current versions of Office for Mac to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML formats following the availability of Office for Windows," the company said.
Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0 is the first Universal application from the Mac BU, and will be available in late 2006. The software will deliver numerous new features which include federation for Messenger for Mac personal users with Yahoo! Messenger customers, customized emoticons, and spell checking. Additionally, users can display a personal message or the song they're listening to in iTunes.
Universal Remote Desktop Connection
A new, free, Universal version of the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) Client for Mac is already under development that allows Mac users to access Windows-based computers on their network. The next version of RDC is planned as a fully supported free product.