In a nutshell, Excel 2008 for Mac is only needed by Mac users in mixed-OS business settings who use the program moderately, and only because they are forced to use the 2008 edition to read XML files. For the rest of us, there seems little point in upgrading.

Entourage

Entourage can provoke some strong reactions from Mac owners. Firstly, it’s Microsoft and secondly, let’s face it, you either love or hate the more corporate replacement for Apple’s Mail, iCal and Address Book. Still, the all-in-one approach of having all three functions in one window, so that you can read your emails, organise your schedule and keep your contacts up-to-date, is a useful one.

Perhaps the chief reason why Office 2008 will be welcomed by existing Entourage users is that it’s now Intel-native. Also, the interface has been overhauled to more closely reflect Leopard, and it certainly feels more Mac-like. Existing users who haven’t migrated to Intel will be less pleased, as the program now takes considerably longer to launch on a G4 or G5 machine than Office 2004. With an Intel Mac it’s extremely snappy, although that old spinning beachball of death does still put in the odd appearance, particularly on graphics-intensive HTML messages.

There aren’t many fundamental changes to Entourage 2008 for Mac. This update is more like a move around of the furniture and a lick of paint. However, there are some changes, and those worth a special mention include the inclusion of a three-month calendar in the sidebar, the improved Preferences panel, a fully customisable toolbar and a handy Favorites bar that enables one-click access to your favourite Mail views.

Also worth mentioning is the Quick Filter tool, which is an easy search method for filtering search results in any of Entourage’s components. That’s just as well, as the Google-style search window in the toolbar doesn’t appear to work in the version we tested.

The one feature that’s entirely new to Entourage is the My Day panel. Yes, it does sound a little dorky in that folksy, Microsoft way, but this floating panel, which can be launched as a standalone application, can list your appointments in a continuous timeline, show any To Do tasks you have, and will generally keep you on schedule. You can print your appointments off and add new tasks without ever launching Entourage.

You can even opt to keep My Day as a mini icon in the OS toolbar, or summon it up with a shortcut keystroke of your choice.

Now, in case you’re one of those people who likes to keep a foot in each camp by running Address Book and iCal alongside Entourage, there’s a pretty comprehensive set of Sync options to keep Entourage in step with Apple’s own contacts and scheduling programs. It’s also handy if you use an online address book such as Plaxo. If you sync your Mac Address Book with Entourage, that in turn can sync with your Plaxo address book, and everyone is up-to-date and happy.

Entourage 2008 isn’t necessarily a must-have update for all Office users, but if you’ve moved to Intel and you’re using Leopard, you’ll love the new graphics and improved performance.

PowerPoint

While Pages seems yet to find its niche, and Numbers, though easy to use, can’t match Excel’s power, Keynote, the presentation element of Apple’s iWork ’08 suite, has for a long time been the best presentation app on any platform. The combination of slick, professional templates and an innovative, guide-supported layout engine makes it the obvious choice, and the support for custom animation splines in the latest version mean it’s nipping at the heels of Flash if you’re looking for a shallow learning curve application that can do basic animation.