Introducing the new and improved version of Office for Mac, Microsoft has made a rebound from its past, possibly deliberately abortive Office editions, and offers OS X users a new Office experience – a decent one.  PCMag offers the details,

“…Microsoft has finally gotten it right. After a string of disappointing releases, the new Mac version of the world’s most widely-used office suite is a spectacular success, and an unexpected triumph for Microsoft’s Macintosh group.”

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 introduces significantly faster processing speed, a more agile interface, the official return of VB and Backstage, several featured ‘borrowed’ from iWork ’09 and many more, including at least one that’s considered better than its Windows alternative. This is indeed yet another reason to be happy for Mac users, but it’s also a vital piece of a greater picture: Microsoft’s ever-increasing and seemingly successful move to spread its tools and cloud services among as many local markets as possible.

This corporate-scale desire is being once again strongly validated, as the state of Minnesota has announced this Monday that it has signed one of the largest governmental cloud-computing deals in history with none other than Microsoft. In the light of Google’s major progress towards providing rivaling cloud-services for governmental sectors, this deal is definitely a good step for Microsoft, and demonstrates how important it is to always stay 2 steps ahead of the competition.