by , 3:05 PM EDT, August 29th, 2008

Frontline Systems, the original Solver developers, announced along with Microsoft on Friday that Solver for Excel 2008 is back, free and immediately available for download.

"We are incredibly happy that Solver is now available for Excel 2008," said Gavin Shearer, Program Manager in Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit. "Our great working relationship with Frontline Systems made it possible to deliver Solver quickly, efficiently, and with high quality."

Solver

"We're offering Solver free for Excel 2008 as a way of re-introducing ourselves to Mac users," said Daniel Fylstra, Frontline Systems' President. "We developed the very first Solver for Excel on the Mac, but for many years our product focus has been on Windows. With the Mac's recent resurgence, we felt this was a good way for us to get back onto the Mac platform."

Microsoft has previously explained that the popular Solver function in Excel 2008 had to be dropped because their implementation depended on Visual Basic for Applicatons (VBA). In June, Microsoft announced that they were woring to bring back that function. On Friday, Microsoft also announced the immediate availability of Solver in their MacBU Office Team blog.

Solver for Excel 2008 requires a PowerPC or Intel system, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, and Excel 2008 12.1.2 or later. It is a free download.