Office 2011 for Mac, a 32-bit exclusive. Release date: Fall 2010
Posted on 21. Jun, 2010 by Costin Matei in News, Software News
Microsoft’s Office for Mac 2011 will be released this autumn, but will only be available in a 32-bit version, as it hasn’t fully transitioned to Cocoa for Mac OS X.
MacBU(the Macintosh Business Unit) updated its official website, revealing that its members were at the WWDC, participating at Apple’s developer sessions ( where the new iPad was also announced by Steve Jobs). The MacBU staff stated that they would put emphasis on increasing compatibility between the Mac and Win versions of Office. Jake Hoelter, the product unit manager from MacBU stated that their efforts to increase compatibility signify that they failed to complete the transition of the UI to the Cocoa for the moment. He added that Office will be 32-bit only because Apple’s frameworks require the team to complete the shift to Cocoa.
Office 2011 for Mac, a 32-bit exclusive. Release date: Fall 2010
Cocoa is one of the five application programming interfaces available for Mac OS X. Some elements of the latest Office for Mac, such as the ribbon user interface, are built on this API. The wholly renewed Outlook has been completely rebuilt in accordance to Cocoa.
Hoelter boasts that the new Office for Mac will be great and believes the biggest plus of a 64-bit application is the larger memory capacity. However, most people won’t notice a difference in performance, even if they have larger than average documents, he reckons. 64-bit is better for people who work with very large amounts of data, ’such as Excel files with data in millions of cells, or PowerPoint presentations with thousand of high resolution images.’
He went even further to play down the 64-bit version, stating that even the Windows Office Engineering team recommend that people who buy Office for Windows should choose the 32-bit version.He then asserted that his team supports Cocoa because with its help, it’s easier for them to give ‘the look and feel that Mac users want’. Cocoa will also play an important role in future creations.
Hoelter is confident that customers will be satisfied with the improvements in compatibility, collaboration and user experience brought by Office 2011.
It seems the new Office for Mac comes with a great feature similarity with its Windows counterpart; the support for Exchange will be improved, and the support for Visual Basic for Applications will be reincorporated. The look is also similar to Office 2010 for Windows, as it will feature the ribbon interface.
Another new addition will be the co-authoring tools that allow multiple users to work on the same file from different places. Microsoft Web Apps will allow users to share documents through the Internet. Microsoft is very proud of the new ribbon interface, which gives „the best of both worlds”, as it uses the well known Mac menu and Standard Toolbar.
Up to now, a Beta 3 version was developed, while the Beta 4 Office 2011 for Mac is almost finished.
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- Office 2011 for Mac release date: late October
- List of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac features
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