Microsoft has announced some big news concerning the next major revision of Office for Mac: it is currently on track to ship late next year, and it will replace the much-maligned Entourage with a bona fide version of Outlook for Mac.

In the meantime, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has a final version of Entourage Web Services Edition ready for those who need better Exchange support now, and they will be packaging it in a new "Business Edition" of Office for Mac 2008 starting next month.

Seriously, it's Outlook. For real.

You read the news right: Microsoft is finally making a real, actual, official, true, and correct version of Outlook for Mac OS X. This new application, which Mac BU general manager Eric Wilfrid told us he has been using for nearly a year, is built from the ground up to fully support Exchange's latest protocols. Written in Cocoa to take advantage of the latest OS X technologies, Outlook for Mac will also have a completely redesigned database that will be compatible with Spotlight and Time Machine.

"Because it's designed for the Mac, it will be different from Outlook for Windows," Wilfrid said. "But it will be fully compatible. For instance, Outlook for Mac will support Information Rights Management, which controls access to sensitive documents."

As a sort of stepping stone towards a full Outlook client for Mac OS X, the Mac BU has released Entourage Web Services Edition. This version of Entourage is architected to connect to Exchange 2007, and it provides much faster data synchronization and improved e-mail and calendar support. Users of Office 2008 with SP2 applied can download Entourage Web Services Edition today, but bear in mind it requires Exchange 2007 SP1 RU4 or later. It's definitely worth checking with your IT department to see if your company's Exchange server is compatible.

Finally, the Mac BU is rejiggering the versions of Office 2008 it is making available to consumers. The "Student and Home Edition" will stay the same, but a new "Business Edition" arrives on September 15. Packaged in a Serious Business Black box, this new edition will include Entourage Web Services Edition and Document Connection for Sharepoint compatibility, and it will sell for the same $399 as the "Standard Edition" did. Also included with the Business Edition are over 200 professionally designed, business-oriented templates and clip art, as well as seven hours worth of training at lynda.com.

According to Wilfrid, a recent survey showed that 90 percent of Office for Mac 2008 users would recommend the package to colleagues and friends—despite the fact that the loss of Visual Basic and a lack of complete Exchange support relegated Office for Mac 2008 to also-ran status in many business environments.

But with Visual Basic set to return next year and the news of a full Outlook client coming to the suite, the Mac BU hopes to suggest that Office for Mac is serious business.