Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent have ended hostilities in a long-standing patent infringement battle. Yesterday, the two companies jointly asked Judge Marilyn Huff, the federal judge presiding over the case in a US District Court, to grant a motion to end all claims in the matter. The case had been ongoing for over four years.
Microsoft has released two new Office for Mac updates. The first, Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4, deals with security vulnerabilities, as well as as some "extremely important" stability and reliability issues. It should in fact allow some copies of Office to finally update properly, since earlier patches would potentially fail if they were installed simultaneously, through SSH, or to a system where the home directory contains a space.
Microsoft has released new updates for the 2011 and 2008 editions of Office for Mac. The 2011 update, v14.1.3, solves a bevy of problems, including documents not opening in some browsers. The bulk of fixes appear to be directed at Outlook, targeting issues such as contact images not displaying in the Contacts Search box. The email client has had import from Mail disabled under Lion, however, since the option "does not work as expected" under Apple's new OS, according to Microsoft.
A San Diego federal court found on Friday that Microsoft had to pay Alcatel-Lucent $70 million for allegedly violating a long fought-over patent. Jurors decided that Outlook copied a patent for a touchscreen form. Microsoft had been hoping to keep the damage down to $5 million if it lost, arguing that the patent covered a minor element of picking a date, but the court took Alcatel's view that the feature played a "central role."
A leaked PDF file shows how Apple intends to migrate people from MobileMe to iCloud. The document is split into three different sections: one for iOS 5, another for OS X Lion, and a third for Windows. With the first two, Apple's wording currently assumes a person is using the iOS 5 beta or the Lion developer preview.
Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed rumors and said it would buy Skype for $8.5 billion. The mutually approved deal will see Skype's voice and video chat help out platforms like the Xbox 360 and its Kinect camera as well as Windows Phone. Outlook and Microsoft's corporate communication system Lync would also get help, Microsoft said.
As promised last week, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Office for Mac 2011. Changes to the suite primarily revolve around Outlook, which can now communicate with Sync Services in Mac OS X and exchange calendars, notes and tasks with other apps. Resend and Redirect buttons have also been added, and the updated software can make use of Exchange-based server-side rules.
The first Service Pack for Office for Mac 2011 will go live next week, Microsoft has announced. The company is promising a collection of stability, security and performance updates, as well as "some new features." Chief among these is calendar, task and note sync between Outlook and Mac OS X's Sync Services, which will for instance allow Outlook appointments to be copied to an iPhone or iPad.
Microsoft has rolled out a new trial version of Office for Mac 2011. The release contains all of the apps in the Home and Business edition of the suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the first Mac version of Outlook. Although the trial expires after 30 days, a valid product key unlocks the full program.
Intego has updated Personal Antispam to v10.6.5. The program previously offered support for Mail and Entourage, and can now operate in conjunction with the newly-launched Outlook for Mac 2011, part of Microsoft's Office 2011 Mac suite. Personal Antispam is sold as part of Intego's Internet Security Barrier X6 suite. The latter also includes Virus Barrier X6, ContentBarrier, Personal Backup and FileGuard.
Microsoft has posted its first-ever update for Office 2011 for Mac, v14.0.1. The patch is 110.5MB, and deals mainly with stability problems that could lead to programs freezing, or simply quitting entirely. Only Outlook has not received any stability tweaks.
Apple has updated its MobileMe Calendar beta, adding support for Outlook calendars for Windows users. Using the new MobileMe Control Panel v1.6.1, beta users can view and edit MobileMe calendars from within Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010. Users who also sync Outlook to an Exchange Server should not have issues, as the data for Exchange and MobileMe are kept separate and can be viewed side-by-side on iPhones, iPads, Macs or PCs.
Microsoft on Monday acted on its promise to be open by posting official specs for Outlook's Personal Folders (PST) format. The combination of a Data Structure View Tool and a File Format SDK give developers an explanation of how to write and read to the format without having to have Outlook itself installed. Developers previously needed to have the e-mail app installed and could only use existing Windows-focused APIs.
Some early screenshots of Microsoft's Office 2011 for Mac have been leaked, a report claims. Not the least because the updated software is only due late this year, the shots are said to represent early code, still in transition to a final Cocoa-based form. Of special note may be Outlook, which is replacing Entourage and employs a streamlined design paired with the ribbon interface first introduced for Office on Windows. Several of the screenshots can be seen below.
restoroot.com has released an upgraded edition of its winmail.dat conversion plug-in for Mail, Letter Opener 3. Winmail objects are automatically converted into attachments, vCards and iCal files, allowing proper interaction with Outlook messages. Version 3 features a complete rewrite for Snow Leopard compatibility, as well as a number of small functionality improvements.
Microsoft on Thursday announced plans to release a new version of Office for Mac sometime late in 2010. The update will feature a new application, Outlook for Mac, that will serve as a replacement for Entourage. The company is also set to include Visual Basic support once again, after the feature was removed from the Office 2008 release.
Microsoft today used its Windows Partners Conference to expand the details of Office 2010, including its web version. Initially considered separate, Microsoft now says Office Web is a counterpart to 2010 but will make it freely available to anyone with a Windows Live account. It will also be free to use on the local network for companies that buy volume licenses of Office 2010, though companies that just want the web app component will also have the option of a subscription.
