Microsoft unveils Office98 for the Mac

On Tuesday, Microsoft held the first public demonstration of its upcomingOffice 98 Macintosh Edition, while outlining the product roadmap as well.Due by the end of the year, Office 98 for the Mac will include Word98,Excel98, PowerPoint98, Outlook Express, and Internet Explorer 4.0. Notablyabsent from this list are Access and Outlook. Microsoft contends that themarkets Apple targets--education and the creative professional--are nothigh-end database users. Also, Outlook97 is geared largely toward thecorporate drone with a need for scheduling and mail capabilities, anotherunneeded feature for most Macintosh customers.

The Macintosh version of Office doesn't even require a setup program: Yousimply drag the Office folder from the installation CD-ROM onto your Machard drive icon and the program installs itself. A similar type of setup isexpected in the next version of Office for Windows, due in late 1998.

Macintosh users began resenting Microsoft Office with the previous release,which forced users to use a Windows-like user interface. The product wasalso bloated and slow, a feature Windows users have come to accept withresignation. Microsoft did a survey of Mac users to determine what theywanted from this version of Office and got the following top responses:

"We're not taking a lowest common denominator approach. We're taking whatusers need and optimizing it for the Mac platform," said Matthew Price,a group product manager for Microsoft Office Macintosh Edition.

Also present in Mac Office98 is a feature Microsoft is promising forWindows 98 and future versions of Office for Windows: self repair. If theuser inadvertently deletes crucial system files, the program will reinstallthose missing components from CD-ROM automatically. The Mac Office fileformats are also completely compatible with Office97 for Windows files