Microsoft announces Office for Mac 2011 ship date, price

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 will be available to buyers by the end of October, Microsoft announced on Monday.

Users can choose from a Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 version and a Office Home and Business 2011 version.

From Monday, users who buy Office 2008 for Mac will be able to upgrade to Office 2011 for free, from its launch to 30 November. There are no other upgrade pricing plans.

Pricing will be £89.99 for Home and Student 2011, with the option to upgrade to a three install version for £109.99. Home and Business 2011 will cost £189.99, with the option to upgrade to a two install version locked to a single user for £239.99.  Both versions ship with Mac-specific Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger but not OneNote, with the Business variant also including Outlook.

This is the first time that a full Outlook client has been available for the Macintosh platform. Previous versions of  Office for Mac have included the Entourage email package, but this will not be included and will not be supported beyond Office for Mac 2008. All components of Office for Mac 2011 will use Microsoft's Ribbon user interface, and the suite will be available for 12 languages besides English.