Microsoft Office 2011 Eliminates Incompatibility With Macintosh

After ten long years of hostile relations, Microsoft is finally breaking its battle with Macintosh with the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. This new version integrates a Microsoft Outlook for Mac users and substitutes the unreliable Entourage email client and information manager. This system has completely restored Mac as a business computer.

Before Office 2011, Mac users’ participation on their companies’ Exchange-based email systems have been very limited because of Entourage. As a result of the incompatibility between Mac users and Exchange, the Mac was regarded as a ‘second-class corporate citizen’. Moreover, Microsoft should be completely blamed for the sabotage as it has allowed the problem to last for ten years.

In 2000, Microsoft designed the Entourage to be used as a substitute for Outlook Express in Office 98. Coming up with Entourage rather than a new Mac version of Outlook was purely intentional on the part of Microsoft as admitted by its executives. They contended that Entourage was really aimed at a “new audience” compared to what Outlook served. The audience referred to here are Mac users who do not wish to get connected to Exchange.

As a consequence, there were obvious limitations to a possible Windows-to-Mac conversion in over a decade. Entourage became a major barrier for Mac users especially in businesses where it was already possible to use Exchange and Outlook.

Aside from the fact that entourage disallows connection to an Exchange server, at least until 2003; there are also several drawbacks to Entourage. For one, it does not fully support server-side rules and synchronization of tasks and notes. Secondly, Entourage uses its customized user interface, which is not similar to Outlook. Finally, it is not possible to import Outlook post office (.PST) files that are normally created on a Windows machine. This makes it quite difficult to transfer message files from Windows to Mac.

All these issues are now slowly eliminated. With Office 2011, Microsoft has replaced the problem-ridden Entourage with a user-friendly and highly compatible format. Mac users are now fully integrated into their Exchange e-mail systems.

Thus, with Office 2011, the Mac has become a full-pledged business computer. The Office 2011 was built with compatibility in mind. Microsoft’s Kurt Schmucker explained this further, “Nowadays, compatibility means more than just file formats; it’s also workflow, collaboration, and user interface.”

The Office 2011 has all these, and more! Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is now a complete package with compatibility in mind.