New version of Office for Mac expected later this year

New version of the apps suite for Mac users expected by the end of the year, a Microsoft exec tells a German tech publication.

More than three years after releasing the current version of Office for Mac, Microsoft is readying a major refresh.
Mac users can expect a new version of the apps suite by the end of the year, according to Thorsten Hübschen, leader of Microsoft's Office group in Germany. The revelation came during an interview with Computerwoche at CeBit 2014, a computer trade show occurring this week in Hanover, Germany.
Hübschen blamed the delay on the merger of the Mac business unit -- the Mac suite's development team -- with the Microsoft business unit in 2010. After the unit was shut down, a planned version of Office Mac 2013 never materialized, Hübschen said.
While Hübschen did not offer much in the way of details about the new product other than saying that development teams were working on the apps and that more should be known about the Mac version in the second quarter.
A Microsoft representative confirmed that development the Mac version of the app suite is under way.
"The team is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac," a representative told Computerwoche in an email. "While I don't have details to share on timing, when it's available, Office 365 subscribers will automatically get the next Office for Mac at no additional cost."
The current version of Office for Mac was released in October 2010, some two years after the previous major release in 2008. While the release of the Mac version has historically lagged that of the more popular Office version by several months, it has been more than a year since Office 2013 for Windows was released in January 2013.