Microsoft Launches Pair of Mac Products

Today, Microsoft Office 2001 for the Mac was officially launched in San Francisco. The new suite features updates to Word, Excel and the PowerPoint® 2001 presentation graphics program, as well as Entourage™ 2001, a new e-mail program, contact manager, and tightly integrated personal calendar developed for the Macintosh version of Office.

Other Mac specific functions include the Office Project Gallery and the PowerPoint Movie feature. This version of the office suite allows for quick and easy Palm synchronization for those "customers on the go".

The upgrade version of Microsoft Office for Mac will cost $299 USD, with the full version retailing for $499 USD. You can read more about Office for Mac at Microsoft.

Also introduced by Microsoft today was a beta version of Microsoft Windows Media Player 7. New features include the same for the Windows version, and the Windows Media codec for listening to .wma files. The internals of the program were rebuilt to provide optimal quality and compatibility for the new codecs.

Executives at Microsoft stated "The Windows Media Player 7 for Mac beta is a milestone in our efforts to provide the best possible digital media experience across platforms."

Mac users will be able to download the new version from http://windowsmedia.com/ on Friday.