A few weeks back, I wrote about the frustration of working (or rather not be able to work) with Open XML documents on a Mac. Some wag even pointed out on a recent podcast that Apple beat Microsoft to provide support for its own document formats in the new iWork 08 application suite. I hear good things about iWork and it’s very reasonably priced (especially when compared to Microsoft Office) but I work with Microsoft Office 2007 on Windows and need something functionally equivalent for the Mac so I’m sure I’ll be getting a copy of Office 2008 for Mac in due course (attempts to get a beta invitation have failed dismally). There is light at the end of the tunnel though – since my original post, the MacBU has released a (time-limited) beta of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, so that at least gives me something to work with for now (the previous version was only for Word documents).

Another new product from the MacBU is (at last) a universal binary version of the Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac. I’ve been beta testing this and whilst it’s far more stable on an Intel Mac than the old version, it still doesn’t seem to offer something that I need – support for multiple client connections. I’ve provided feedback on this (others were less charitable in their contributions). In the meantime, I’ll be sticking with CoRD.

It seems that the MacBU is releasing new products but at an almost glacial pace. I don’t care that it’s been 4 years between Office releases – there was a similar gap for the Windows product – but surely the file format converters could have been ready when Office 2007 shipped on Windows. Similarly, based on what I’ve seen with the Microsoft’s RDC client for the Mac, it’s not exactly worth waiting for.