The first Service Pack for Office for Mac 2011 will go live next week, Microsoft has announced. The company is promising a collection of stability, security and performance updates, as well as “some new features.” Chief among these is calendar, task and note sync between Outlook and Mac OS X’s Sync Services, which will for instance allow Outlook appointments to be copied to an iPhone or iPad.
The Microsoft announcement also points out however that Apple has set a May 5th deadline for MobileMe subscribers to upgrade to the new MobileMe Calendar. The updated web app no longer shares calendars with Sync Services, and as a consequence, Outlook will be unable to exchange calendar (or task) data with MobileMe. Mail, contacts and notes are still being supported.
Many of the changes in SP1 revolve around Outlook. The program is gaining support for Exchange-based server-side rules, as well as Resend and Redirect buttons, and the ability to edit existing messages. Solver integration is being implemented for Excel.
