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For the first time, Microsoft has made product activation mandatory for users of Office for the Mac.

But Microsoft has saddled the new Office for Mac 2011 with an activation process that's significantly more draconian than that demanded of customers running the Windows version of the suite.

Office for Mac 2011 comes with a 25-character alphanumeric activation key that must be entered within 15 days of running any of the suite's applications for the first time. During that grace period, the software works as if it had been activated.

At the end of the grace period, Office for Mac 2011 refuses to launch. "[It] becomes unusable," a Microsoft spokesman said in an e-mail reply to Computerworld's questions Wednesday.

Failure to enter the key and activate the suite displays a message on the screen that reads, "You must activate your copy of Office for Mac before you can use it," along with a button that initiates the online activation procedure.

Both the grace period and the ramifications of not activating Office for Mac 2011 are stricter than those facing Office users running Windows.

Office 2010, for instance, gives customers 30 days to activate the software, and even lets them reset the grace period countdown clock up to five times, giving users up to 180 days before they must activate.

Computerworld has the details HERE!