Microsoft Details Office 2008 for Mac

Microsoft began offering a few details of its upcoming release of the Office 2008 suite for the Mac platform, by first listing work to Entourage to further support Exchange services and features.

In a post to the Mac Mojo Web log, Mac BU General Manager Craig Eisler said that support for Exchange within Entourage 2008 would be the company's most reliable to date. He said that he had been using the builds of the product for two months and was "delighted" by the stability, reliability, and interoperability.

Customers have taken a central place in the development, and the Mac BU was working closely with the Exchange team to insure that Entourage would continue to be as interoperable with the product as possible.

One of the features being brought into Entourages its the Out-Of-Office reply (OOF) functionality. Previously, Mac users had to log into the online Office application to set up the feature.

"Just like in Outlook 2007, you can configure your OOF to send separate replies based on who sent you a message and automatically turn on and off between certain date and times??"no more worrying about remembering to turn off your OOF message," Eisler said.

Other aspects of Office being worked on are changes to the Entourage calendar and database, new installation and deployment options, SharePoint integration, and new security functionality. Eisler said he would elaborate on these new features in future posts.

"I hope you will enjoy Office 2008 as much as we do - the whole BU is using Office 2008, with builds that get better every day," Eisler wrote. "It's been a monumental project for the team - I'm proud of the work they've done in Office 2008 and we can't wait to get it into your hands in January."