Many businesses operate around Microsoft Outlook. As Macs become more and more popular I've found people are interested in using Macs and PCs in an office environment. This poses a problem for offices that rely heavily on Outlook. I never understood why Microsoft didn't place Outlook on Office for Mac from the get-go, but for some-reason Mac users were forced to use Microsoft Entourage. While Entourage looked similar on the surface business users quickly found it lacked many of the features they relied on in Outlook.
Well, Microsoft is taking a big step forward in announcing that Outlook will ship in the next version of Office for Mac. This version of Office for Mac is expected to be released in late 2010.
Microsoft seems to finally be taking steps to allow all users (regardless of operating system) to have the full functionality of Microsoft Office. Microsoft also announced a business edition of Office for Mac that will allow Mac users better synchronization with Exchange Servers.
While I think this is great, I still believe the best way to get true operating system independence is to switch your office over to Google Applications.
