Office for Mac 2008 gets previewed

If you've got any Intel-based Macs in your enterprise, chances are that you've been waiting with baited breath for Office 2008 ever since it was officially announced. There are plenty of reasons to want this year's model: new features and functions, an overhauled UI, compatibility with Microsoft's new Office Open XML format. And the fact of the matter is, now that Adobe's Creative Suite applications are finally available as Universal Binaries, Microsoft's productivity suite is the last major Mac product that has yet to make the leap to x86. After months of delays, Office 2008 will finally be available on January 15th (the day of Steve Jobs's MacWorld keynote, coincidentally enough) and not a minute too soon.

So, what exactly does Office 2008 have in store for the Mac crowd? While we've been hearing a few tidbits here and there, a recent Ars Technica piece gives us the first extensive overview of the software suite that we've seen. It's chock full of screenshots, first impressions and overviews of the changes you can expect to see in Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Exchange. For the most part, it looks like Office 2008 is set to be the fastest, most "Maclike" version of Office yet, so click on over and check it out.

For more on Office 2008:
- see this Ars Technica preview