Some software vendors have announced which versions of their software are compatible with Lion and which are not.  Most have not including some heavy hitters.  Note: All of the testing, either by the vendors or individual users has been on what Apple calls the Golden Master (GM) which is the latest beta version of the software.  Apple can still make changes to Lion prior to the final public release of the software.

• Microsoft Office:
  There has been no official word from Microsoft, Office 2011 seems to work for the most part but with some glitches that most likely will be fixed in a future update.  Office 2008 is a Universal App (PowerPC and Intel) and will probably work with some bugs, but the installer requires Rosetta.




• Quicken:
  Quicken 2007 and earlier will not run on Lion.  Quicken Essentials for Mac with the latest update will run, but most people we have talked with find the reduced feature set and user interface to be unacceptable.   Look for a forthcoming article which will cover financial solutions for the Mac.




• Quickbooks:
  QuickBooks 2011 for Mac is compatible with Lion with the R10 update.  That said, as we mentioned earlier, the testing has only been done on the GM and not on actual release version of Lion.  Our advice is if you rely on Quickbooks, don’t upgrade to Lion right away.  QuickBooks 2010 for Mac and earlier versions are not officially supported on Lion.




• Daylite:
  Daylite will run fine for locally hosted personal databases.  For those running Daylite on a server, syncing over the internet and/or VPN do not work.  Syncing over the local area network does work.




• Billings Pro:
  Billings Pro will run fine for locally hosted personal databases.  For those running Billings Pro on a server, syncing over the internet and/or VPN do not work.  Syncing over the local area network does work.




• Adobe Creative Suite:
  CS3 and earlier were designed for PowerPC only and will not operate on Lion.  Creative Suite 5 and above should work fine with updates.




• Sophos Anti Virus:
  According to Sophos, version 7.3.1 is working with the latest developer release of Lion.




• Printer and Scanner Drivers:
  Many times, scanner and printer drivers break in just the incremental .x updates which was the case with the 10.6.4 update as well as the latest Snow Leopard update 10.6.8.  Most peripheral companies wait until the software is released before they will release compatibility information, let alone patches to correct any issues.  The only safe bet is to wait for the Lion release and see if people are finding any issues and then testing them on a non-vital machine prior to rolling it out to machines you rely upon for your personal or business use.

These are but a few examples.  Again, with any major update, you will want to make sure that software and devices that you rely upon will work after you upgrade.  There is a good, semi-complete listing of Lion compatibility at roaringapps.com.  When Lion gets released and people actually start using it, much more information will be available here and elsewhere.

If you have any questions at all, please contact your computer consulting firm.