Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is the most recent version of the Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...

 productivity suite

Office suite

In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...

 for Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Mac OS X. It supersedes Office 2004 for Mac and is the Mac OS X equivalent of Office 2007. Office 2008 was developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit and released on January 15, 2008...

 and is comparable to Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows.

Microsoft Office 2011 includes more robust enterprise support and greater feature parity with the Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 edition. Its interface is now more similar to Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 is a Windows version of the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft's productivity suite. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007...

 and 2010 for Windows, with the addition of the Ribbon

Ribbon (computing)

In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft applications have embraced this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality...

. A new version of Outlook

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...

, written using Mac OS X's Cocoa

Cocoa (API)

Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...

 API, returns to the Mac for the first time since 2001 and has full support for Exchange

Microsoft Exchange Server

Microsoft Exchange Server is the server side of a client–server, collaborative application product developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Servers line of server products and is used by enterprises using Microsoft infrastructure products...

 2007. It replaces Entourage

Microsoft Entourage

Microsoft Entourage was an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS included...

, which was included in Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac. Support for Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...

 macros returned after having been dropped in Office 2008.

In addition, Office 2011 supports online collaboration tools such as Windows Live SkyDrive

Windows Live SkyDrive

Windows Live SkyDrive, initially called Windows Live Folders, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser...

 and Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps

Microsoft Office Web Apps is a web-based version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web applications allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a...

, allowing Mac and Windows users to simultaneously edit documents over the web.

Office for Mac 2011 has a number of limitations compared to Office 2010 for Windows. It does not support ActiveX

ActiveX

ActiveX is a framework for defining reusable software components in a programming language-independent way. Software applications can then be composed from one or more of these components in order to provide their functionality....

 controls, OpenDocument Format, or right-to-left

Right-to-left

A language is described as right-to-left if writing starts from the right of the page, and continues to the left. Right to left scripts are:* Arabic alphabet - used for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and many other languages....

 languages such as Arabic, Persian and Hebrew. It also cannot handle attachments in Rich Text Format

Rich Text Format

The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....

 e-mail messages sent from Outlook for Windows, which are delivered as winmail.dat attachments.

Two editions are available to the general public. Home & Student provides Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

, Excel

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

 and PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...

, while Home & Business adds Outlook and increased support. Microsoft Messenger 8 is included with both editions, and Microsoft Communicator for Mac 2011, which communicates with Microsoft Lync Server, is available only to volume licensing customers. Office 2011 requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 10.5.8 or higher.

Editions

Applications and services	Home & Student	Home & Business	Academic	Standard
Word Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...	Included	Included	Included	Included
PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...	Included	Included	Included	Included
Excel Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...	Included	Included	Included	Included
Outlook Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...	Not included	Included	Included	Included
Communicator	Not included	Not included	Included	Included
Office Web Apps	Not included	Not included	Included	Included
Remote Desktop Connection	Not included	Not included	Included	Included
Information Rights Management	Not included	Not included	Included	Included
Windows Share Point Services Support	Not included	Not included	Included	Included
Technical support	90 days	1 year	90 days

The Home & Student edition is available in a single license for one computer and a family pack for three computers. The Home & Business edition is available in a single license for one computer and a multi-pack for two computers. The Standard edition is only available through Volume Licensing. The Academic edition was created for higher education students, staff and faculty, and includes one installation.

Development

Microsoft announced Office 2011 in 2009. There were 6 beta versions released:

• Beta 1
• Beta 2 (Version 14.0.0, Build 100326)
• Beta 3 (Build 100519)—announced on May 25, 2010
• Beta 4 (Build 100526)
• Beta 5 (Build 100709)
• Beta 6 (Build 100802)

Access to beta versions were by invitation only, although leaked copies were circulated among Mac file sharing

File sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...

websites.

The final version was released to manufacturing on September 10, 2010, was available to volume license customers a day later, and made available to the general public on October 26, 2010. Service Pack 1 was released on April 12, 2011.