Microsoft Ships Office 2011 for Mac

Microsoft officially released Office 2011 for Mac on Tuesday, with several new features as well as the return of support for macros. Microsoft was the target of criticism for dropping macro support in Office 2008 for the Mac.

The latest Office productivity suite dropped Entourage in favor of a Mac OS X-native version of Outlook for managing contacts, calendars and email messages.

Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Messenger to handle user’s word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and instant messaging needs. It doesn’t, however, include Outlook.

Excel 2011

Office for Mac Home and Business Edition 2011 will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Messenger and Outlook.

Licensing for the Office suite has changed, too, because it binds an installation to a single computer. Previously, users could install the same copy on two computers as long as they didn’t launch the applications on both machines at the same time.

The Home and Student Edition is priced at US$119 for installation on a single Mac, or $149 for installation on three Macs. The Home and Office Edition costs $199 for installation on a single Mac, or $279 for installation on two Macs.

Academic pricing for the Home and Business edition comes in at $99 for installation on a single computer.