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The application suite will be retired in October, five years and three months after it was launched, Microsoft said on a product life-cycle page. At that time, Microsoft will stop providing updates and patches, including security fixes, for the suite.

"In line with Microsoft's standard Support Lifecycle policy, Office 2004 for Mac Mainstream Support will be retired October 13, 2009," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail reply to questions. "The Macintosh Business Unit is continuing to work on updates for Office 2008 for Mac and is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac."

Because Microsoft labels Mac Office a "consumer" product, it supports the software for half as long as it does the Windows editions. Office for Mac 2004 receives what Microsoft calls "mainstream support," which generally runs five years, but is ineligible for the additional five years of "extended support," a phase that includes security updates but provides other fixes only to companies that have purchased support plans.

"Microsoft will offer Mainstream Support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer," a company FAQ states. "Extended Support is not offered for Consumer, Hardware, and Multimedia products."

Microsoft also considers Office 2008 for Mac a consumer product, and so will end support for that suite on April 9, 2013.