Some months ago, I supported a petition started by a friend of mine, Dimostenis Kaponis, addressed to Apple and Mac software developers asking them to bring descent support for Greek to Mac OS X. One year after that petition, which is not the first, it looks like Microsoft finally heard the call of the Greek Mac community. As ThinkSecret mentions, Microsoft Office 2004 will support the Greek language, as well as many other languages that are currently supported by Mac OS X, but only through its Unicode framework.

Unofficial sources informed us that Apple has started work on improved support for Modern Hellenic as well, including fonts and a polytonic keyboard throughout. We are uncertain whether this work is completed or indeed is even in an advanced state. We do not expect Apple to release a Hellenic localization of the OS in the International version in 10.4, but that'd definitely be a pleasant surprise.

Currently, complete Hellenic support can only be added to OS X via a semi-official patch by the Hellenic IMC (Rainbow Computer S.A.) or by a free patch called XGreek. Both solutions are riddled with bugs and incompatibilities with several applications as well as Apple's Software Update.