Apple Computer and Microsoft have announced a new
five-year agreement that commits Microsoft to developing its Office
apps suite for Intel-based Macs, although the suite won’t be ready
for the first of Apple’s new Intel-driven machines.
Apple announced its first Intel-powered Macs this week at the
Macworld show in the US, after deciding to migrate in time away
from IBM’s PowerPC processors.
As part of the software agreement, Microsoft will create
“universal binaries” for its Mac Office suite, which includes Word,
Excel, Powerpoint and the Entourage e-mail client. The binaries are
versions of the software that run equally well on both the older
PowerPC architecture and the new Intel-based machines.
However, until Office’s applications are rewritten to run on
Intel-based Macs natively, Mac users will have to run Office using
the new machines’ Rosetta emulation system.
The drag to providing immediate native Office support for
Intel-based Macs has been caused partly by Apple launching new
Intel iMacs this week and announcing it would start shipping Intel
laptops next month rather than sticking to its previously
announced plans to move to Intel processors from the middle of
2006.
By the end of this year, all Macs will be sold with Intel
chips.