In an effort to jumpstart slow sales of Office v. X on the Macintosh, Microsoft will offer a free, 30-day trial version on all new Macintoshes and a US$300 discount on the full product.

The Office v. X Test Drive is a fully functional version of Office, but lacks the ability to print documents and expires 30 days after first use. U.S. customers who purchase Office at the same time they purchase their Macintosh can get it for US$199, a US$300 discount from the retail US$499 price. Similar promotions are underway in Australia, Canada, and Japan. Microsoft indicated last fall that Office v. X sales on the Macintosh platform had not met the company’s expectations.

The company is also selling Entourage, a personal information manager that was previously bundled with Office v. X for Mac, as a separate product for US$99. The standalone version is identical to the bundled version; in particular, it does not provide support for Exchange features such as group scheduling, as does Microsoft's OS 9-based Outlook 2001 for Mac.

Finally, the company has unveiled MSN for Mac, a new Internet access client that includes Web browsing, e-mail, digital media, spam filters, parental controls, and other features. Similar to MSN 8 for Windows users, MSN for Mac will be free for MSN Internet Access users, and can be used by customers who have their own Internet service provider for a fee of US$9.95 a month. (For more details, see "MSN for Mac OS X Planned" on page 26 of the Oct. 2002 Update.)

However, Microsoft’s Macintosh Web client has a new competitor: Apple has announced development of its own Web browser, Safari, for new Macintoshes. Safari is based on the Konqueror browser, part of the open-source KDE graphical user interface for desktop PCs.

Microsoft's Macintosh Web site is www.microsoft.com/mac.