Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
VBA To Return to Mac; Office 2008 SP1 Released
5/13/2008
Microsoft Tuesday released Service Pack 1 for Office 2008 for Mac, the first major update to what the company called its most successful Mac Office launch in 19 years (in terms of sales volume). In a surprise move, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit also announced that it plans to bring Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) back to the Mac platform with the next major release.
Most Successful Mac Office Suite
Office 2008 for Mac was launched back in January, and Microsoft said today that it has been the most successful release to date, tripling Office 2004's launch numbers.
"The response has been amazing--since we launched in January, the velocity of sales for Office 2008 is nearly three times what we saw after the launch of Office 2004," said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft, in a statement released to coincide with the SP1 launch. "As we set our course for future versions, we are working closely with customers and will also expand our staff to ensure that Office for Mac remains the most powerful and compatible productivity suite for Mac customers."
Microsoft did not supply specific sales figures for Office for Mac or cite reasons for its success, although Mac sales have been soaring of late, particularly in the laptop market. Last month Apple reported selling about 2.3 million Mac systems in its second fiscal quarter alone, more than half again what it sold in the same quarter the previous year. According to IDC, Apple is now the No. 4 computer manufacturer in the United States (desktops and notebooks combined), experiencing a 25.1 percent increase in market share in the first three months of the year. Gartner's estimate is even more rosy: a 32.5 percent increase. Gartner also reported that it expects Apple's market share to double in the next three years in the United States and Western Europe, despite overall stagnation in the industry.
In the education space, IDC reported back in March that Apple's notebooks were the highest-selling notebooks, topping the list of institutional higher education notebook sales. And things look favorable for Apple down the road as well, as Student Monitor reported in a fall study that Apple laptops are at the top of the "plan to purchase" list for students in the next 12 months.
Office 2008 SP1: Stability, Security, Performance
So what's new in Office 2008 for Mac SP1? According to Microsoft, the latest update (12.1.0) includes improvements and tweaks in the areas of stability, performance, and security across the entire suite, addressing issues brought to Microsoft's attention through customer feedback and reports generated through the Microsoft Error Reporting Protocol.
Recommended Reading
- Digital Arts Alliance Adds Fordham U
The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July--the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3).
- Payment Card Security Toughens with DSS 1.2 Release
Opinions are mixed on what the new Payment Card Industry (PCI) DSS 1.2 standard will mean for security pros going forward. However, the mandate is clear: protect data.
- 6 Universities Join NASA Astrobiology Institute
Research teams from six universities have been selected by NASA to become members of its Astrobiology Institute with the aim of exploring the "origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe." Teams were each awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, according to NASA.
- Amazon To Host Microsoft Solutions in the Cloud
Amazon announced Wednesday that it is conducting a private beta test of Microsoft's server products running on Amazon's hosted computing platform, which is called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon expects to offer companies the ability to run their applications on EC2 using Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server sometime in the fall, according to an announcement issued by the company.
- CRM Pushing into New Areas of Higher Ed
Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution can require "difficult or even painful behavioral challenges" for administrators in higher education, according to Nicole Engelbert, a lead analyst with research and analysis firm Datamonitor. "It means re-orienting yourself to your students. That can be tough, so you need to be ready for that."
- Integrated Collaborative Environment Leverages Web 2.0
Here's a bit of trivia for your next high-tech happy hour: A "nog" (in addition to being a Christmas favorite) is a wooden block built into a masonry wall so that joinery structure can be nailed to it. For the founders of Piscataway, N.J.-based startup Bluenog this obscure bit of carpentry nomenclature was the perfect metaphor for an integrated software suite that includes a content management system (CMS), rich portal features and business intelligence (BI) capabilities.
