| With the introduction of the GUI (graphical user interface) based Windows operating system, Microsoft sent the Apple Computer Company into a tailspin that they did not come out of until they re-hired fired CEO Steve Jobs. Despite a bitter rivalry in the operating system wars that took place in the early days of graphical computing, when Jobs was slated to return to Apple, Microsoft bought a reported $150 million of Apple stock.
Two years after Microsoft became a major shareholder in the Apple Computer Company, Microsoft released its first version of their famous Office Suite software for the Macintosh computer. In 1989, Microsoft Office for Mac hit the shelves of moat computer software stores. Due to its growth over the years, Microsoft now refers to Office as the Office System rather than the Office Suite.
MS Office for Mac has a 2004 version that is currently on the market and the Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 version is slated to be released in late 2007 with beta testing having started in March of 2007. The new 2008 Office System from Microsoft comes complete with Microsoft Excel for Mac, Word, PowerPoint, Equation Editor, and Entourage.
Microsoft Word for Mac computers is similar to its Windows version although the Mac version allows for a notebook paper background so that it looks as if work was typed directly onto a piece of lined notebook paper. Microsoft Excel for the Mac is similar as well allowing for formulas to be computed in cells for ledger style books and other data analysis. The PowerPoint application is also based on the Windows version of the software as well with subtle changes between the two. The 2008 version of Office for Mac will contain support for Office Open XML for data markups and will have a program with features similar to Microsoft Publisher.
What is different between the two software bundles is the absence of Microsoft Access database program and the Microsoft Outlook email application. Also, Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA, will no longer be supported in the Macintosh version. The lack of Access support comes from the Mac Office being a completely different development team than the Windows developers. This also explains the subtle differences in features and design.
Although Microsoft Outlook is not supported, Microsoft Entourage handles email and scheduling just like its cousin. Microsoft Entourage also has a personal project management component to track milestones and goals in the various projects a user may be working on. Microsoft Entourage does have complete support for the Microsoft Exchange Server and connection to a mail server is extremely easy.
Other Office software for Mac computers are some of the open source tools that are free for users to download and use at full functionality. The most widely known, and supported, office suite is OpenOffice.org. Formerly OpenOffice, the application was bought from Sun Microsystems and combined with their Star Office. Another free version comes in ThinkFree which is an online office suite so it is portable across operating systems.
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