Tuesday, May 13,2008 @ 5:05pm
Office 2008 triples 2004 sales, VBA to continue trend
Microsoft is selling copies of Office 2008 for Mac to the order of three times the rate of the former 2004 version, a trend which it hopes to continue once Visual Basic functionality is restored in a future version. CNET reports that while Microsoft will not share exact sales numbers, it says that they are the highest in the unit's 19-year history. Microsoft gave partial credit to Apple for the milestone, saying that increased Mac sales are "one of the components that is helping us."
Visual Basic scripting has long been embedded with Office for Mac, but was dropped from 2008 as Microsoft wanted to ensure that the suite would run properly on Intel Macs. The company has not mentioned when the next version would be available, but said that it would aim for a two to three year turnaround for major releases, versus the four it took to bring out the current version.