Microsoft Office for Mac 2016 Official Release Date - 8/1

[emily]

I just got this beautiful email from our reseller:

Naturally there is no Skype for Business client listed. I am so not surprised by this. Lync 4ever!

[mm2270]

8/1's not far away now. Time to start prepping for it. Thanks for posting this Emily!

As for SFB, I would hope MS will eventually release that for the Mac, as its available on Windows, so of course the org wants to move to it for unified comms, even though we're barely through our Lync release into the environment.

[Aziz]

Time to start prepping!

I also want to be able to make calls using my Polycom cx 600 phone. Whenever I use Lync to make or answer a call, it crashes. Hopefully Skpye for Business fixes this.

[joecurrin]

Those bullet points feel so 1998...

[mm2270]

Yeah, its lovely isn't it? And just look at those underlines AND italics used on the same line! So... classy.

Hence the "beautiful" comment from @emilykausalik I think :)

[emily]

Unfortunately my sarcasm does not translate well on internet forums. @mm2270 caught what I was throwing, though.

[chriscollins]

Skype For Business is coming this fall.

[gachowski]

@chriscollins

How good is your source? : )

I was under the impression that Mac Skype For Business, was significantly far away than this year.

C

PS and there was no promise that it wouldn't be Lync rebrand for a second time...

[chriscollins]

Preeeeety good.

[gachowski]

: )

[andrew_nicholas]

Has anyone been able to find official release notes on this yet?

[talkingmoose]

I think Emily's humor was lost on some folks. ;-)

Microsoft may make some general announcements to a few media sources to help get the word out when the time really comes, but the best place to check will be their Office Blogs site. You can pretty much count on any announcements to be made there and they'll be official.

[emily]

Just confirmed with my reseller that the above was sent to her directly from Microsoft. So yeah.

[jhbush]

@emilykausalik am I crazy or is that a Saturday? Odd day to release software.

[emily]

My guess would be is that is when MS is making it available through their Volume License Servers, so in that case it doesn't really matter much what day it is.

[jhalvorson]

I haven't been able to verify the date with other resources. I wonder if your vendor is simply creating SKU's for the new products.

I would like to be silly and point out that screen shot shows "8/1" but it doesn't indicate which year. :)

[emily]

Yeah when I met with our account rep yesterday she said it came to her in an email directly from Microsoft. I haven't heard anything from anywhere else either.

[emily]

Or it's available now: https://blogs.office.com/2015/07/09/office-2016-for-mac-is-here/

[mm2270]

Seems like that release is only for Office 365 customers. Not the regular non-365 version yet. From the information on that blog, we're looking at September for that version.

[Aziz]

Just downloaded it from Office 365 .Waiting for the regular, volume download to appear.

Edit: Alrighty... There has to be a way to suppress all these Keychain requests.

[Aziz]

Doesn't happen in Word surprisingly. Hopefully the non Office 365 version doesn't have these prompts (i'm doubting this).

Example:

[mm2270]

That looks like its trying to access the JAMF Device Certificate. Is that what that is? @Abdiaziz can you look in your Keychain Access application for that identity and confirm what that is? Is it Lync related or is that the identity from the JSS?

[Aziz]

@mm2270

I don't think it's related to JAMF since it also showed up on my personal machine (never touched by Casper). It's an application password called "Microsoft Office Identities Settings 2".

[emily]

I remember seeing that one a machine I was testing… I think it was a managed machine.

Meanwhile, the new apps won't auth to our ADFS. Hooray.

[Simmo]

It's not playing nice with SAML authentication..

[mdonovan]

I can't wait to install software from my favourite convicted monopolist!

[jleomcdo]

Abdiaziz - I have experienced these same prompts when I open office docs from our SharePoint site. If I click on "Always Allow", then it will overwrite my keychain item for my sharepoint site. Then the next time I go to sharepoint, I have to enter my password.

What is your experience with these prompts?

[Aziz]

@jleomcdo

I always have to enter my password to visit our Sharepoint site. Also, I am not able to open Excel docs with Sharepoint (version 2010), hopefully 2013 should fix that which we are upgrading to soon,

[Vitamin-Z]

@Abdiaziz We just tested the roll out. Get the same keychain prompt but only in Excel and PowerPoint.

[Aziz]

@Mansour

I've noticed it so far in Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote.

Word and Outlook do not have this behavior.

[Vitamin-Z]

I assume there is no way to suppress the keychain popup. Since this is O365 edition this is how they keep licensing in order. For the Windows version you have to sign in too.

[Vitamin-Z]

btw. did anyone uninstall Office 2011 prior or post Office 2016 install? I hopped that the Office package would do an upgrade but it left some 2011 files behind, unlike when I was doing Outlook 2016 push. So, now I need to remove older office version to keep this clean but even after indexing it I still don't see the uninstall option.

[mm2270]

You may be better off using a script to do a clean uninstall/removal of Office 2011 if that's what you want to do. @talkingmoose has a script he posted that I've used which can do this. You can find it here I would use the shell version, not the Applescript one.

[andreytrofimov]

@Abdiaziz I am also seeing the keychain prompts. Each app needs to reference your O365 credentials to start for the first time. Your O365 username and password are saved in your login keychain (6 new keychain entries total) when you initially activate Office 2016.

[emily]

@drey207 that makes a lot of sense!

[donmontalvo]

@mdonovan ...where is the LIKE button? :)

I can't wait to install software from my favourite convicted monopolist!

[corbinmharris]

Anyone know if there is going to be an upgrade path from Office 2011? My boss is not thrilled about "renting" desktop software.

[bpavlov]

Standalone and volume license copy is supposed to be released in September.

[georgecm12]

Standalone and volume license copy is supposed to be released in September.

Volume License copy is supposed to be released "in early August," per the Microsoft Office blog. (https://blogs.office.com/2015/07/22/your-top-10-questions-about-office-2016-for-mac-answered/)

[emily]

I just checked our volume license site and while Windows 10 is there, Office 2016 is not. …I hate Microsoft.