There were many rumors earlier this year about Microsoft releasing the next iteration of Office for Mac by the end of this year but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Contradicting reports claim that the release will now take place in 2015. Earlier this week a screenshot of Excel from Office for Mac 2015 was leaked online and looks like it wasn’t the only one. Additional screenshots have now been leaked online giving us our first glimpse at the next major update for the Office suite on Mac.
The screenshots are part and parcel of internal slides from Microsoft that have been leaked online by CnBeta, this is the exact same source which leaked the Excel screenshot a few days back. On one slide it is mentioned that Microsoft is aiming for a release next year so there’s probably no reason to keep your fingers crossed for it now.
The last major release of Office for Mac was over four years ago so one can say that it is long overdue. By the looks of things it appears that Microsoft is going to for a similar look and feel for its productivity suite across both Windows and Mac OS.
For that to happen Microsoft will have to redesign the entire user experience of Office for Mac, and it looks like the company is doing just that. Support for Retina displays may also be present along with integration of Microsoft’s cloud services such as OneDrive. Office 365 and SharePoint may be incorporated as well.
A report by ZDNet claims that perhaps Microsoft may even release a public preview of Office for Mac 2015 in the near future, a move that would certainly explain this barrage of leaks, though the company hasn’t confirmed if and when this is going to happen.
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