Microsoft plans to ship Office for Mac 2011, thereby putting an end to its decade-long attack on Apple computers in business.

Office 2011 will replace the Entourage e-mail client and information manager with a real version of Microsoft Outlook, created for Macintosh.

This will enable the Mac users to become full participants on their companies' exchange-based e-mail systems.

Until 2003, Entourage could not be connected to an Exchange server. The server-side rules are still not supported, nor are synchronization of tasks and notes. Entourage also relies upon its own user interface, which is quite different from Outlook.

Office 2011 will deal with these issues.

The incompatibilities diminished somewhat over the years. "Nowadays, compatibility means more than just file formats. It's also workflow, collaboration, and user interface”, said Kurt Schmucker, a Microsoft official.