New and Noteworthy: Office 2008 for Mac hits beta; Avid adds Intel-Based Mac support; more

Office 2008 for Mac hits beta APC Magazine reports that Microsoft Office 2008 is in a private beta phase. "'We're in private betas right now' confirmed Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU), during an exclusive interview with APC magazine. While Jones was unable to speculate on the timetable for any public beta or the targets for RTM (release to manufacture), a demo of an alpha build showed the revised user interface is moving in a very appealing and Mac-like direction. It's a move sure to please the thousands of Office for Mac users who became nervous after APC reported last year that the suite's UI would be overhauled and borrow ideas from the work done in Office 2007 for Windows, which saw the menus and toolbars replaced with a single 'ribbon.'" More.

Avid adds Intel-Based Mac support The Boston Globe reports that Avid has announced availability Universal Binary editions of Media Composer and Avid Xpress Pro. "Avid also said that its version 2.7 of the Media Composer system introduces a script-based editing tool that uses phonetic speech-recognition technology to automatically sync text with media." More.

Top Five Media Tools for Apple TV Owners InformIT culls the best tools for getting meida onto the Apple TV. "As wide as the range of video sources and formats is outside of what the Apple TV supports, there is also a range of tools for capturing, converting, and adding that video to the iTunes library in a format that can be viewed on the Apple TV." More.

Apple may exceed expectations in March quarter Macworld UK reports that Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves made a few observations regarding recent NPD sales tracker data, pointing out that Mac sales seem to be exceeding his estimates for the quarter. "The analyst also observed that Apple's customers are choosing the better-featured (and more expensive) Mac configurations, and predicts 1.5 million Mac sales in the current quarter. Mac sales growth continues to exceed the rate of PC sales growth." More.

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Adobe CS3 apps (including Photoshop CS3) to ship in late April/early May
• Boot Camp 1.2 beta released: Windows Vista support added, updated drivers
• Mac OS X 10.4.9 (#10): Reducing system volume; Quicken: .Mac backup failure (cont.)
• Apple TV (#5): Incorrect time; Problems synchronizing photos from iPhoto; Fails to connect to Internet; more

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