18 Nov

Microsoft: Mac, Linux systems can access Office Web

Posted by admin in mac.

through Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from Computerworld. For besides Mac coverage, visit Computerworld’s Macintosh Knowledge Center.

Microsoft clarified this week that the upcoming Office Web — a lightweight version of its Office train that runs as an online service — will be available to users running Mac OS X and Linux, as well as from Apple’s iPhone.


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In a post to the Microsoft-run Channel 10 blog, someone identified as Sarah Perez spelled finished system requirements for Office Web. According to Perez, the online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be accessible not only from Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer (IE) and not above Windows, unless also from Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers running on Mac OS X and Linux.

Firefox comes in versions for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows, while Safari has editions for both Mac OS X and Windows. Together, Firefox and Safari accounted for more than 26 percent of all browsers used during October, Web metrics firm Net Applications Inc. reported earlier this month. Microsoft’s own IE, meanwhile, owned 71 percent of the browser usage apportion in October.

Last month, when Microsoft confirmed Office Web, it said that both Firefox and Safari would be supported but did not specifically say that the online applications would be available to non-Windows users.

And users of Apple’s iPhone will be able to access Office Web, Perez uttered. The iPhone includes a scaled-down version of Safari.

The online retinue, which is slated to debut at the similar time Microsoft rolls out what it’s now calling Office 14, the next upgrade of its business suite cash cow, leave also subsist the capital from Microsoft to run on the open-source Linux operating system.

Microsoft has not set a launch date for Office Web—Office 14 is expected to debut in late 2009—nor has it said whether it will be available to users free-of-charge, as is Google’s Docs, and if not, for what reason it price the service.

A private technology preview of Office Web will begin later this year.