Microsoft Launches Office 2004 for Mac

HostReview.com
Tuesday, September 20, 2005; 10:32 AM

Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today announced availability of Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 2 (SP2), introducing significant enhancements to enterprise collaboration. A result of the Mac BU’s close work with its corporate customers, SP2 delivers new features to boost Microsoft® Exchange Server support in Entourage® 2004. In addition, SP2 provides updates across all Office 2004 for Mac applications to help improve overall product security and address top issues identified by Microsoft and its Mac users.

“As a longtime Microsoft customer, we consistently have a positive experience with Mac BU products and were eager to test the Office 2004 for Mac SP2 beta,” said Joe Stevano, senior systems administrator for Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc.

SP2 expands on the Exchange Server functionality built into Entourage 2004 to deliver deeper support and help provide Mac users in an Exchange Server environment with the necessary tools for effective and efficient collaboration. Mac enterprise customers can benefit from improvements that help enable better e-mail and calendar management, enhanced public folder support, and faster client-server synchronization.

“Being able to work so closely with other teams at Microsoft puts us in an ideal position to meet the collaboration needs of our Mac customers,” said Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for the Mac BU at Microsoft.

SP2 also includes cumulative security updates and prioritized fixes for issues identified by Microsoft and through customer feedback. The Mac BU monitors and receives customer feedback through customer support calls and tools such as Microsoft Error Reporting Protocol, which provides bug data anonymously.