Microsoft offered a sneak peak of Office for Mac 2011 on Thursday at the Macworld 2010 expo in San Francisco. Office for Mac 2011 will be available later this year and includes new connections to Microsoft services to improve compatibility and help users collaborate more effectively.
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Among the new features are co-authoring tools and web apps. The new tools allow users to work on Word, PowerPoint and Excel files from different locations via a Microsoft Office Web Apps connection.
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Co-authoring is aimed at removing confusion from having multiple versions of documents and lost edits. The feature lets users keep track of the team with a Presence Everywhere function that offers real-time status updates on who is working on a document.
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Pushing Web Apps
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Office Web Apps is currently in beta, but is available for both home and business users across platforms. Documents are stored in the user’s Windows Live ID account or Microsoft SharePoint. It’s a direct move against Google Apps.
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Neither Apple nor Microsoft wants to lose to Google. So Office Web Apps is really trying to keep the product feeling relevant to the customer base, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
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Customers don’t like to move. So typically an entrenched vendor like Microsoft can hold on to customers if they meet minimal new needs and not break anything customers like. It’s an interesting dance to dance, but one that’s very important right now.
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Office for Mac Ribbon
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Despite the new collaboration features, Microsoft said it was careful not to completely rearrange the look and feel of the software. Rather, the new design represents an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery, leveraging the classic Mac menu and standard toolbar. Users can collapse the ribbon and the toolbar to get more screen space.
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With the new design, Microsoft intends to make it easier…