Microsoft is launching Office for Mac 2011 in October in 3 flavors, provider officials mentioned on August 2.“For better alignment across platforms, the Workplace 2011 pricing and edition options map closer with Windows Workplace,” according to Microsoft;s press release.The 3 SKUs, or versions — Workplace for Mac Home & Student 2011, Office for Mac Home & Enterprise 2011 and Office for Mac Academic 2011 — will be available at retail starting in late October. (The Academic version, for students and faculty, will be available via authorized academic stores.)
(click on chart to enlarge)The Home and Student version includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger and will retail starting at $119 (U.S. estimated retail price, single install only). A Family Pack version, with three installs, will be available for $149. The Home and Small business 2011 version includes Word, PowerPoint,
Office Professional Plus 2007, Excel, Messenger and Outlook. A single install version will go for $199 and a Multi-Pack with two installs allowed for $279. The Mac Academic 2011 product (single install only) includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger and will retail for $99.Workplace 2011 will be available in 13 languages, including Danish, Dutch, English,
Office 2010 Serial, Finnish, French, German, Italian,
Windows 7 Enterprise, Japanese,
Office Standard, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. It will be available “in several regions” starting in October,
Office Professional Plus, with availability expanded through the rest of the year.Microsoft also is launching a free upgrade program for users who buy Office 2008 for Mac between August 1, 2010, and November 30, 2010. Those purchasing between those dates from Microsoft or an authorized authorized reseller can register for the program online at Microsoft officials announced in August 2009 that the provider was working on a new version of its productivity suite for the Mac. The new suite will include Outlook in place of the current Entourage mail client, support for Microsoft’s information rights management (IRM) content protection, and support for Visual Basic. The suite will be 32-bit only and use a version of the Microsoft Ribbon interface.