Microsoft will release Office for Mac 2011 at the end of October.
The suite will come in two editions: Home and Student, comprising Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Messenger will cost £89.99, or £109.99 for a three-licence Family Pack; Home and Business adds Outlook to the mix from £189.99. Anyone who buys Office 2008 from today will get a free upgrade.
Microsoft revealed a year ago that Office’s Entourage app would be replaced by a new Outlook app for email, calendars and other information management tasks. As well as taking the same name as its Windows counterpart it will also provide closer integration with Outlook on PCs as well as better compatibility with Microsoft Exchange servers.
Microsoft has also done away with the current unwieldy and slow database, which stores all messages in one single and potentially huge file, will be replaced by a new system that, among other things, will provide support for Time Machine backups and for Spotlight searching.
The company has posted a video outlining some of the new features, including Outlook.
