Microsoft has released Office for Mac OS X, and it has officially hit store shelves today. Dubbed Office v. X, the market dominating productivity suite has arrived in its final form for Appleis new OS. Microsoft is offering a "Technology Guarantee" to those who purchase Office 2001, or its component parts, that allows them to get the OS X version of the suite for free. From Microsoft:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft® Office v. X for Mac, the most popular suite of productivity applications on the Macintosh platform, is now available in retail stores across the United States to run on Apple Computer Inc.is new operating system, Mac OS X version 10.1. Fully compatible with Office for Mac and Office for Windows®, Office v. X combines the power of word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, e-mail and personal information manager (PIM) programs with the stability and reliability of Mac OS X.

The suite has been specifically designed to take advantage of core Mac OS X technologies, including the Aqua interface, Sheets and the Quartz graphics engine, to deliver graphically compelling documents and the ease of use unique to the Mac platform. New feature enhancements also have been made to Entourage™ X, e-mail and the PIM, as well as to Word X, Excel X and the PowerPoint® X presentation graphics program.

"Microsoft has created the new benchmark Mac OS X application -- Office v. X -- and Mac users are going to be thrilled with it," said Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer Inc. "Now users of Mac OS X can seamlessly exchange documents with users running Office on Windows."

Mac OS X Technologies in Office v. X

Each of the applications in Office v. X includes a bold and classy new Aqua appearance that fits beautifully with the Mac OS X user interface. All the components of the Office v. X user interface -- from dialog boxes to toolbar icons -- have been Aquafied, offering a smoother and cleaner appearance as well as enhanced discoverability.

Sheets have replaced select dialog boxes and alerts in Office v. X, enabling users to multitask within or between applications. When a user clicks to save a Word document, for instance, a Sheet appears in place of a dialog box. The user can choose to open a different Word document or continue working in another application, without having to complete the save first.

Quartz graphics technology in Office v. X makes it easy to create graphically rich and compelling documents that look truly professional. It allows users to add anti-aliased lines and shapes to give documents a smooth and finished appearance. Quartz also enables true transparency, so shapes, objects and pictures can be layered to reveal items behind them.

New and Improved Features in Office v. X

In addition to Mac OS X technologies built into Office v. X, the suite delivers features that enable users to complete projects faster and more easily than ever before. As the cornerstone of Office v. X, Entourage X boasts a refined, easier-to-use interface, improved support for Internet standards, and several new features to help users manage e-mail and personal information. Other new features in Office v. X include Multi-Selection and Clear Formatting in Word X, AutoRecover and Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts in Excel X, PowerPoint Packages in PowerPoint X, and many more improvements.

Pricing

Office v. X will be available as an upgrade version for an estimated retail price (ERP) of $299 (U.S.) and as a standard version for $499 ERP.* Between now and Dec. 31, Microsoft is offering a Technology Guarantee to customers who have acquired Office 2001 for Mac or an individual application such as Word 2001 for Mac. The Technology Guarantee makes these customers eligible for a free copy of Office v. X for Mac. For details and to download the coupon for the Technology Guarantee, customers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ or their nearest reseller.

Microsoftis wording is a bit misleading in the press release. Though it implies that anyone who has "acquired" Office (or one of the individual apps) at any time are eligible for the Technology Guarantee. The information page for the Technology Guarantee specifically states that you need to purchase Office 2001 (or one of the individual apps) between October 24th and December 31st of 2001 in order to qualify for the free v. X version of the software. We confirmed that with a Microsoft spokesperson, and you do have to purchase Office 2001 between October 24th and December 31st, 2001 in order to qualify.

You can find more information on Office v. X at Microsoftis Web site.