Microsoft Office X Ships -- With today's release of Microsoft Office X for Mac OS X, one of the major hurdles to mainstream use of Mac OS X has been crossed. Along with the new features we mentioned in "Microsoft Office 10's Carrot and Stick" in TidBITS-591, Word X boasts an improved Data Merge Manager that can use the Office address book as a data source, Excel X promises an improved List Manager, and PowerPoint X offers multiple slide masters, multiple language support, and support for QuickTime transitions. Entourage X has changed the most, and it now retains formatted text when pasting from other Office documents, offers a recently used address list, provides a redesigned calendar interface, supports international address formats, works with the Keychain, handles changes in time zones, offers improved performance, and supports rich content within messages, signatures, and notes. Microsoft Office X requires a PowerPC G3-based Mac or better with at least 128 MB of RAM and 196 MB of disk space running Mac OS X 10.1. It costs $500 for a new copy, with each individual application at $400. Upgrade pricing is a bit complex; to upgrade from Office 2001, Office 98, Word 2001 + Entourage 2001 Special Edition, or any individual Office application costs $300. However, through 18-Jan-02, upgrades from Office 2001, Word 2001 + Entourage 2001 Special Edition, or any individual Office 2001 application costs only $150. Upgrades to any individual Office application from a 2001 or 98 version also cost $150. For anyone who purchases Office 2001 between 24-Oct-01 and 31-Dec-01, a free upgrade to Office X is available via Microsoft's Technology Guarantee program. If you don't own Office at all, or you own a version older than Office 98, the Technology Guarantee program is a good way to get a copy of Office 2001 for Mac OS 8.1 and higher along with Office X for Mac OS X. [ACE]

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/officex/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/06514>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/officex/prodinfo/t _upgrade.asp>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/officex/prodinfo/ techguarantee.asp>