In my earlier post – The Return of Microsoft Office – Appearing Everywhere – one of the pieces I thought was still a bit weak was the story around Mac.
Mac’s are increasing in popularity in both the business and consumer and the current version of Office for Mac dates back to 2011. Some elements have been added to this story in the interim – like OneNote for Mac – but the major components have changed little.
Last week Microsoft announced a preview of Office for Mac 2016. Although named 2016 it looks like the timeline is really mid-2015. It’s interesting to note that this is ahead of the Office 2016 variant for Windows.
Microsoft has always struggled a bit with the look-and-feel of the Mac version of Office – the desire to deliver a standard Office experience hasn’t always aligned with desire to give a Mac consistent experience. This, again, seems to be one of the major focusses of this release using the taglines: “Unmistakably Office” and “Designed for Mac”
The third major tagline is: “Cloud connected” which won’t be a surprise to anyone and links back to the strategic play I outlined in my last post.
Graham Chastney 