Anilrgowda

Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit has kept true to its promise from a couple of weeks ago by announcing an update to its Remote Desktop Connection client today... in beta form. RDC 2.0 for Mac (beta 1) has been a looooong time coming, and finally brings RDC up to Universal Binary status. But that's just the beginning of the listed features. According to Microsoft's download site, here are some features you can expect to see in the new beta:

• Universal Binary
  Runs natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macs.
• Remote Desktop Protocol 6.0
  Provides better compatibility with Windows Vista, improved security features, and many other improvements.
• Multiple Sessions
  Lets you connect to multiple Windows-based computers at the same time.
• Improved User Experience
  Provides a true Mac experience and improved usability.
• Improved Customization Options
  Lets you change application preferences, including keyboard shortcuts, while you are running a session. Changes take effect the next time that you connect.
• Dynamic Screen Resizing
  Lets you resize your session window or switch to full-screen mode during a session.
• Improved Printing Support
  Supports all configured printers on your Mac. No longer limited to PostScript printers.

For those not familiar, RDC allows you to remote desktop into your Windows computer from a Mac. And despite Microsoft's sometimes shoddy reputation among Mac users, RDC works pretty darn well for the task at hand. It's not virtualization of course, and so people who want to run Windows apps natively will still want to run something like Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion. However, RDC is certainly very helpful for performing small tasks on a Windows machine that's across the room, down the hall, or on the other side of campus (as the case may be).
Also announced today was an update to Microsoft's Office Open XML File Format Converter. The software was originally released in May of this year as a way to convert Open XML documents created with the Windows version of Office 2007 to a Mac-friendly format. Version 0.2 (Beta) "improves conversion of Word documents that contain XML content, inline graphics, hyperlinked graphics, WMF/EMF graphics, SmartArt graphics, tracked changes in the document header and footer, Unicode characters, and Japanese Rubi fields," writes Microsoft. "In addition, this version succeeds when converting Word documents that contain bibliography fields, citation fields, and complex tables."
The RDC beta is currently only available in English, although you can expect that other languages will be supported once the final version is released. It also expires on March 31, 2008—but luckily for us, RDC is free (or has been in the past, anyway), so when the final version gets released, you hopefully won't be put in a bind. The Open XML converter expires at the end of 2007.