Microsoft earlier in the week released the beta version of the Mac edition of the Office application suite, Office 2019 for Mac, with new tools and functionality, like email delivery scheduling and Excel funnel charts.

While Office 2019 for Mac is the next perpetual update to Office on Mac and is set to ship alongside Office 2019 for Windows in the second half of 2018, and the beta is meant for volume license customers who intend to run the "perpetual" version of the suite, not the applications provided to Office 365 subscribers.



It offers new features to help end users create amazing content, such as the roaming pencil case and ribbon customizations across Office apps; with focus mode in Word; Morph transitions, in-click sequence, and 4k video export in PowerPoint; new charts and functions in Excel; and focused inbox in Outlook.

Albeit, these functionalities are already available in Office 365 ProPlus, as such Office 365 subscribers will have no reason to be tempted into beta testing Office 2019 on Mac, or any other version of the software.

With the new Office, Microsoft will be wooing those customers who are considering moving to the cloud, as Office 2019 for Mac will be a valuable upgrade to keep some or all of their apps on-premises.

Also, Office 2019 for Mac includes new features expressly for IT to help simplify deployment and management, with the Command-line tools allowing IT admins to centrally control how and when Office updates are applied to users' devices, and support for industry-standard MDM policies.

Additionally, it will give IT the power to enforce organization-wide security policies, including preferences for Visual Basic macros and app settings.

Microsoft, however hasn't fixed a date for the release of more broadly-distributed Office 2019 for Mac to the public. But you can join the Office 2019 for Mac preview, by signing up here.