Microsoft Office
Hi
I am a switcher and if MS Office would not exist for the Mac I would never switch Office is just too important when dealing with other people. And OpenPoffice, Iwork etc. are just not 100% compatible with .doc files.
But I still have some questions left.
1. Why is there no Outlook in Office for Mac? Why is it called Entourage?
1.1 Is Mail, iCal etc. not much better than Entourage or is Entourage better?
2. What is the deal with Microsoft? Will they possible stop producing Office for Mac someday? Or would a US court possible then make Microsoft split up into 2 companies Office and Windows Microsoft?
Thanks
I am a switcher and if MS Office would not exist for the Mac I would never switch Office is just too important when dealing with other people. And OpenPoffice, Iwork etc. are just not 100% compatible with .doc files.
But I still have some questions left.
1. Why is there no Outlook in Office for Mac? Why is it called Entourage?
1.1 Is Mail, iCal etc. not much better than Entourage or is Entourage better?
2. What is the deal with Microsoft? Will they possible stop producing Office for Mac someday? Or would a US court possible then make Microsoft split up into 2 companies Office and Windows Microsoft?
Thanks
Comments
Originally posted by punica888
Hi
I am a switcher and if MS Office would not exist for the Mac I would never switch Office is just too important when dealing with other people. And OpenPoffice, Iwork etc. are just not 100% compatible with .doc files.
But I still have some questions left.
1. Why is there no Outlook in Office for Mac? Why is it called Entourage?
Entourage and Outlook are different applications. To your questions, only Microsoft can answer them. I have zero experience with Entourage 2001, the only Classic version of the app. Entourage v.X is somewhat Exchange-compatible. Entourage 2004 is somewhat more so. My general take on Entourage is that its purpose is to keep a bloated staff of programmers busy rather than to write a quality application.
Originally posted by punica888
1.1 Is Mail, iCal etc. not much better than Entourage or is Entourage better?
I really think the choice is a toss-up. You need the active cooperation of your IT staff to get Entourage 2004-level Exchange functionality on the Apple suite of Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Entourage requires only passive cooperation of IT. However, its developers adher to the school of thought that believes the error message is the primary communications medium between application and user. Mail's junk mail filters allow access to your suspect mail. You never see flagged Mail in Entourage. Very, very bad design choice.
Until the end of May, my primary email client at work was Outlook 2001 on MacOS 9.2.2. It provided competent, though not particularly elegant, email access to our Exchange server. Having switched to a new Mac G5 running Office 2004, I have switched to Entourage 2004. I also setup Mail to access my Exchange account. Entourage 2004 is one of the most counterintuitive applications I have ever used. However, it has given me new insight into certain puzzling aspects of Exchange. Exchange is a fundamentally flawed system. Entourage reflects many of those flaws, only not always in parallel.
Originally posted by punica888
2. What is the deal with Microsoft? Will they possible stop producing Office for Mac someday? Or would a US court possible then make Microsoft split up into 2 companies Office and Windows Microsoft?
Thanks
Office is the goose that lays the golden eggs for Microsoft. This is true of the Windows version. It is also true of the Mac version. Most of Microsoft's operations lose money. Office:mac subsidizes Microsoft's money-losing operations. Over the last couple of years, Microsoft has been dropping non-revenue producing products. You can expect profitable products like Office:mac to live a very long time.
1. Why is there no Outlook in Office for Mac? Why is it called Entourage?
Microsoft used to make two separate apps... Outlook and Entourage back in 2001. Outlook was just for Exchange and all your other email was for Entourage. Now in 2004, it's all been rolled into Entourage. I don't know why they chose that name.
1.1 Is Mail, iCal etc. not much better than Entourage or is Entourage better?
It depends on your needs. If you're in an Exchange environment, Entourage is the only way to go. Entourage 2004 offers the fullest Exchange support for Mac OS X. It's still lacking in a lot of areas of Exchange, however. It doesn't even support all the things Outlook 2001 did for OS 9. It will never been like Outlook for Windows. However, Microsoft is promising much improved Exchange support for Entourage in the next few months.
If you aren't in an Exchange environment, and you need a solution for personal email, contacts, calendars, etc., then Apple's Mail, Address Book and iCal will be your best bet. They are much more integrated, elegant, unintrusive, intuitive and quicker than Entourage will ever be.
2. What is the deal with Microsoft? Will they possible stop producing Office for Mac someday? Or would a US court possible then make Microsoft split up into 2 companies Office and Windows Microsoft?
Anything's possible, for sure. If OS X threatens Windows on X86 hardware, I'm sure Microsoft would contemplate stopping development of Mac Office. However, the Mac BU is a profitable and successful unit. Microsoft just announced that Office 2004 is their most successful release of Office for the Mac, ever. Even if something were to happen, it wouldn't happen soon. It's definitely not something to worry about.
I have a Gmail and .Mac account both being accessed with Mail, and it's superb. Good integration with iCal and Address Book, not to mention Address Book's ability to sync with my phone - good for backing that up. I have played a little with my Pages trial and it just doesn't feel there yet, I quite like Word 2004, now I've got all my templates and styles sorted.
Originally posted by Mr. Me
Entourage requires only passive cooperation of IT.
I really disagree with this. If you are using Tiger, Entourage, and the Exchange server is 2003 with SSL enabled, you need more than passive help from IT. Entourage and Exchange play about as well together as Kobe and Shaq. When it works, it works pretty good. When it doesn't, it's damn ugly.
That being said, the Project Center in Entourage is a great idea and is actually, mostly, pretty well implemented.
I bet Entourage in an all Mac office would be great.
Originally posted by israces
I really disagree with this. If you are using Tiger, Entourage, and the Exchange server is 2003 with SSL enabled, you need more than passive help from IT. Entourage and Exchange play about as well together as Kobe and Shaq. When it works, it works pretty good. When it doesn't, it's damn ugly.
That being said, the Project Center in Entourage is a great idea and is actually, mostly, pretty well implemented.
I bet Entourage in an all Mac office would be great.
I think the experience with each installation of Exchange will be a little different, maybe a lot different. I got my installation of Entourage 2004 onto my firm's Exchange server without IT's help. Entourage setup wizard automatically discovered and registered me onto the LDAP server. To gain a similar level of access using Apple's software, I need to manually access the LDAP server. This, I cannot do without IT's help. But, it is email that I really want and Mail does a better job with Exchange email than Entourage does.
As for Microsoft "dropping" Mac support, it is very unlikely at this point. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft makes money, and that's all that really matters. Also this way they have access to unreleased, and upcoming Mac products, and can start copying them faster...
Originally posted by almostwise
...
As for Microsoft "dropping" Mac support, it is very unlikely at this point. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft makes money, and that's all that really matters. Also this way they have access to unreleased, and upcoming Mac products, and can start copying them faster...
Btw, someone mentioned the possibility to split
the MS Mac BU off from MS entirely. Is it
likely by any means?
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Btw, someone mentioned the possibility to split
the MS Mac BU off from MS entirely. Is it
likely by any means?
This makes even less sense. The MacBU is highly profitable. Microsoft needs the money to offset its many money-losing ventures. Why in God's name would Microsoft divest itself of profits? And remember that Office:mac shares its codebase with Office:win. I've drawn the picture. Do I have to color it in?
Originally posted by Mr. Me
This makes even less sense. The MacBU is highly profitable. Microsoft needs the money to offset its many money-losing ventures. Why in God's name would Microsoft divest itself of profits? And remember that Office:mac shares its codebase with Office:win. I've drawn the picture. Do I have to color it in?