SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU) announced at this week's Macworld Expo that Office for Mac will soon see some improvements, including support for SharePoint Products and Technologies and Office Live Workspace as well as support for Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Entourage. Both will be available soon as Beta releases and will arrive later this year as free updates for Office for Mac users.

The Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac Beta, which is due for a private Beta release next month and a final release later this year, will allow Office for Mac users to collaborate and share documents with colleagues using Mac or Windows. Features include downloading and uploading of documents, document check-in and check-out, offline document caching, and access to Microsoft's SharePoint Workspace, Document Library, and Office Live Workspace.

EWS support in Entourage will launch as a public Beta this month and enter final release later this year. The MBU said the move from WebDAV to EWS will improve compatibility, performance, and reliability and enable support for syncing Tasks, Notes, and Categories with Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 or later.