It’s kind of good news for Mac owners when Office 2010 for Mac launches later this year Entourage will be consigned to the attic. It will be replace with a brand new and shiny Outlook for OS X that will rely on a new database, sync with Microsoft Exchange, and be compatible with Outlook for Windows.
Microsoft Mac Business Unit general manager Eric Wilfrid said he application will be a part of Office 2010 for Mac, which is expected to debut late 2010. “Outlook will be a Cocoa application,” Wilfrid said, citing the development layer of Mac OS X. “We’re building on the most modern OS X framework to make Outlook beautiful, to make it high performance, and to make it well integrated with the operating system.”
Outlook for Mac will also include information rights management with cross-platform support. The technology will allow users of Outlook on Mac and Windows to share confidential information on either platform. Features such as flagging messages, creating and accessing public folders and managed folders, and category sync will all be cross-platform as well.
Personally I prefer the support for Exchange Web Services built into OS X Snow Leopard allowing me to sync my Exchange mailbox, calendar, and contacts without needing to have any office suite installed.
