Outlook is coming to the Mac, Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit said on Thursday. The next version of Office for Mac will replace Entourage for Mac with a new application – Outlook for Mac.
Is this good news or bad? I hate Entourage, but I hated Outlook on Windows even more when I had to use a PC. In fact, Outlook is my second-most hated program of all time, right behind Lotus Notes.
Outlook for Mac will be included in Office 2010 for Mac, which Microsoft said will be ready for the holidays next year. (Apple has promised better Exchange support in Snow Leopard. It’s likely that Microsoft announced Outlook so far in advance to discourage current Entourage users from switching to the new Exchange-compatible version of Apple Mail coming in Snow Leopard).
It will include:
* A new database and Exchange protocol. Database supports Time Machine backups and Spotlight searching — finally!!!!
* Better cross-platform collaboration and calendering.
* Built from the ground up in Cocoa to offer better performance, better OS X integration, and get this, “make Outlook beautiful,” said said Eric Wilfrid, general manager for the MacBU.
No word on whether Outlook for Mac will be compatible with PST files exported from Windows versions of Outlook, which are a bear to import into other email programs.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is reducing the number of versions of Office it offers from three to two. Alongside the Standard Edition, it is now offering Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition, which bundles Entourage Web Services Edition and Microsoft Document Connection for Mac.
It will be sold alongside the current Standard Edition for the same price: $399, or $239 to upgrade. It is available to some customers today as a download or on Sept. 15. in shrinkwrap.
Link to Microsoft’s press release.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
