Microsoft today is providing Macworld Expo attendees with an in depth guided tour of Office 2008 for Mac, which is expected to ship starting tomorrow (Jan. 15). Microsoft will show off the software at a day-long training session entitled "A Day At The Office: Microsoft Office 2008" beginning at 9 a.m. PST and running until 6:30 p.m. Other sessions and labs wil be held throughout the expo.
During the session, developers from Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) will provide training and overviews for the new productivity suite, which comprises Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. New suite-wide functionality will also be demonstrated.
Other sessions at the expo include a hands-on look at the Office 2008 Special Media Edition to be held Jan. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and a conference called "Introducing Office 2008 for Mac: Form, Meet Functionality" to be held Jan. 17 from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
The new version of Office for Mac is expected to ship tomorrow following a half-year delay from the original ship date. The new version is a Universal Binary, able to run on both older PowerPC Macs and newer Intel-based Macs natively. The new version is not expected to match the Windows version feature for feature, but it will incorporate a number of new features and applications, including. among others, Microsoft Messenger for Mac.
Some of the other new features in Office 2008 for Mac include support for Open XML, a redesigned user interface, Ledger Sheets for Excel, My Day for Entourage, Publishing Layout View for Word, and SmartArt graphics for PowerPoint. Office will be available in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian.
More information about the Office 2008 for Mac session can be found at the links below. We'll provide more information once the suite ships.