The new Mac suite - comprising Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook 2011 - does inherit a number of Office 2010's top features, including simultaneous document editing or co-authoring, built-in graphics tools, PowerPoint slideshow broadcasting, Outlook's conversation view, and interoperability with Office Web Apps. Despite this, Office 2011 goes a long way toward integrating the Mac and Windows Office worlds into a seamless whole. There's no database application, no dedicated page-layout application (though Word 2011 is quite good at page layout for shorter documents), and no OneNote - the most serious shortcoming, in my opinion. Office for Mac 2011 ($279.95 direct from Microsoft) is still not nearly as full-featured as Office 2010 for Windows. The Mac suite remains well behind its latest Windows counterpart, Office 2010, but it's now on a par with Office 2007, and that by itself is a significant step forward from Office for Mac 2008.
Microsoft's newly released Office for Mac 2011 takes huge steps toward bringing the same experience to Office users on both Windows and Mac - but they're the steps that begin a journey, not bring it to an end.
