Microsoft reminded customers running Office for Mac 2008 that support for the suite ends next Tuesday. “Support for Office for Mac 2008 will end April 9, 2013,” Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (MacBU), the firm’s OS X development arm, said in a post on the team’s blog Thursday. According to the company’s support lifecycle site, all versions of the 2008 suite will be retired next week. Office for Mac 2008 launched Jan. 15, 2008, or about five years and three months ago. The MacBU’s note was yet another reminder that Microsoft shortchanges customers running OS X. Microsoft supports the Windows versions of Office, even those that target consumers, for 10 years, or twice as long as it does Office for the Mac. Office Home and Student 2007, for example, which launched in late January 2007, a full year before Office for Mac 2008 appeared, will be supported until October 2017, more than four years from now.
