Mac users will have to wait four more months to work with documents produced by Office 2007 on Windows and Office 2008 on the Mac. The delay-plagued Open XML converters were slated to show up six to eight weeks after the debut of Office 2008, a schedule that would have put their release by the end of February at the earliest and mid-March at the latest. As recently as last month, Microsoft had confirmed that the converters were on track. Today, however, Microsoft said they would not appear for months.
Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit on Thursday said the first update for Office 2008 should be available in mid March. However, getting the update out will push back the release of the final Open XML File Format Converter Update to Office 2004 for Mac. “The final converter was previously scheduled for delivery 6-8 weeks after U.S. availability of Office 2008; instead, the final converter will be available to customers by late June 2008,” the company wrote on its Mac Mojo Web site.
Geoff Price, product unit manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, posted information about an upcoming update for Office 2008 for Mac on the Mac Mojo blog. The good news is that the developers are working feverishly on the new update, which reportedly "contains fixes for high-priority issues we’ve identified." What the high-priority issues are no one will say, but a spokesperson assured us that the team "will provide further details prior to the release," scheduled for March 11.
