It’s been a while since Office:mac 2011 was launched back in 2010 so what have Microsoft been doing to keep us hungry Mac users happy?
In addition to launching Office 2013 for the PC and Office 365, they’ve been focussing on our new mobile lives according to a recent Microsoft blog. Developing Office for the cloud, Windows Mobile, Android and more recently iOS has certainly kept them busy. But Mac sales just keep defying the market analysts, recently reporting that more than 25% of “consumer computer” sales (Mac + PC + others) in the US were Macs.
So it’s about time that Mac users had something in return for their 365 subscriptions.
Yesterday, Microsoft did two surprising things. Firstly, they issue a major upgrade to Outlook:mac 2011 with a new interface more like that of it’s PC sibling. Note that it’s being rolled out to 365 subscribers first. Secondly, and rather more surprising, it announced that it’s Office:mac roadmap would include similar major upgrades to PowerPoint (yippee!), Excel and Word in 2015.
We can’t wait to try the new Outlook:mac to get some idea of what those Redmond folks might be considering adding to PowerPoint next year. We’d like to see native CalDav so that Google Calendar sync is easier and possibly VBA but let’s wait and see what they’ve delivered.
Once we’ve had a chance to play, we’ll report back on our blog here.
In the meantime, if you want to get the story from the horse’s mouth, read it on the official Microsoft Office blog.