Microsoft Releases Office 2008 for Mac Details

Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit used its company blog to post information on a new feature that users will see in the upcoming release of Office 2008 for Mac. Referred to as "Out of Office," the feature has been a mainstay on the Windows side for some time.
The "Out of Office" feature allows users to set up an automated message that responds to all incoming emails. This is especially handy if you'll be on a plane or otherwise unable to answer your email for a specified period of time.
The setup assistant gives you control over several aspects of the message including what will be sent in the body of the email; the start and end date/time you will be out of the office; and whether to send your reply to Address Book contacts only.
Entourage communicates with Exchange 2007 server through Web services to implement "Out of Office."

News Source: PC World

Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0.3

Messenger for Mac 6.0.3 makes it easy to take advantage of the full power of instant messaging, and it is a Universal application built to run on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs. If you encountered a sign-in issue with Messenger for Mac 6.0, you should upgrade to Messenger for Mac 6.0.3.
By using Messenger for Mac, users can:

• Chat with Yahoo! Messenger contacts
• Add a status message that your personal contacts can see
• Share what you are listening to in iTunes with your personal contacts
• Create, send, and receive custom emoticons with personal contacts
• Send and receive custom animated emoticons with personal contacts
• Search for conversation histories using Spotlight
• Check the spelling in your instant messages

By using Messenger for Mac, you can see when your friends, family, coworkers, and associates at other companies are online and then communicate with them instantly. Messenger for Mac offers two types of communication services — a personal account and a corporate account.
A personal account works with the Windows Live Messenger service. Contacts that you add to your personal account include friends and family members. Instant message conversations with users are not limited to users who have Messenger for Mac installed on their computers. You can also have instant message conversations with users who have other instant messaging services, such as Yahoo! Messenger.
A corporate account uses the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server service. Contacts that you add to your corporate account include coworkers who are in the same company as you and associates at other companies. Instant message conversations with other corporate account users are not limited to corporate users who have Messenger for Mac installed on their computers. With the federation features enabled on Live Communications Server, users can also have instant message conversations with users who have other instant messaging services, such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger, and iChat users who are signed in with AOL accounts.
Messenger for Mac 6.0.3 includes improved performance during file transfers and improvements to Kerberos authentication. It also introduces support for the Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian languages.

Download here- Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0.3

Office 2008 for Mac Coming this Year

Microsoft has announced that Office 2008 for Mac will be a universal binary release, meaning it can run on both Macs with Intel chips and on those with PowerPC chips. Just like Office 2007, the release focuses on revamping the user interface and will use the new XML file formats. Microsoft also announced that file converters for old Office for Mac documents will be available two months after the Office 2008 release, a beta version coming this spring. The new suite will not be using the Office 2007 “ribbon” but will be using the “element gallery”. "It's very Mac-like. It's not an incredibly abrupt change for our users," said Microsoft's Sheridan Jones.

Office 2008 for Mac has a few mac-only features. One program is called My Day; it offers users a quick way to view calendar information and unfinished tasks. "It's always there on your desktop; you can always see it," Jones said. As well, Microsoft Word 2008 offers improved page layout options: users can view the look of the final project as they edit. Finally, new templates called ledger sheets, offering built-in banking formulas, are available in Excel 2008.