Microsoft has once again delayed the arrival of Open XML converters for Mac Office 2004, leaving the suite incapable of reading Microsoft’s Office 2007 file formats more than a year after its launch.
Ironically on the day that Microsoft pledged to make its software more interoperable, the company admitted customers will have to wait even longer for two of its own flagship products to work together properly.
Instead, the company plans to release an early update of the newly-launched Office 2008 for Mac, which will postpone work on the converters. “The team is mobilised to get Office 2008 updates out as soon as possible; as a result we are pushing back the release of the final Open XML File Format Converter Update to Office 2004 for Mac,” the company reveals on its Mac Mojo blog.
“The final converter was previously scheduled for delivery 6-8 weeks after US availability of Office 2008; instead, the final converter will be available to customers by late June 2008.”
The converters have been subject to a series of delays. First announced back at Apple’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference in August 2006, they were originally planned to launch last Spring. Last May the the company announced the converters would be here by summer 2007.
The continued delay could pose problems for cross-platform organisations, who will have to save documents in the older file formats to ensure compatibility. However, there are beta versions of the converters available on the Mac Mojo site.
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