Microsoft reveals Office for Mac 2011 will be 32-bit only - Page 3

MS does.

Office is gonna need 64-bits anyway just to support the bloat. The mere 4GB you get in 32-bit seems awfully limiting for such a massive pig.

If the new Office is not based on Cocoa, it probably will not be accessible (or fully accessible) with VoiceOver. It cannot, therefor be purchased by federal and state governments who must comply with accessibility standards.

ty!

I mean this doesn't really matter that much. Office is about the last application you need to support 64 bit instructions.

However, I'm stunned that Office 2011 isn't totally converted to Cocoa by now. Really Microsoft? This is your flagship product and the only way you can get money out of wealthy Apple customers.

I'd love to see a Microsoft vs. Adobe snail race.

People don't forget this thing (2011) is just the beta. The real deal (SP2) will come out in another year or two, and by then they will implement 64 bit and make it launch fast enough to be bearable. This is MS after all.

Probably ROI, since iTunes is free and MS Office costs $150-$500.

I suspect that iTunes will be ported to Cocoa at some point, but right now there isn't a pressing business reason to do so.

^^^

I'm thinking they might be waiting until it's okay to make iTunes an Intel-only app before reconstructing it.

One more time

and apple's excuse for iTunes in 32 bit Carbin would be what exactly?

yep

the final unbloated version will be available by 2015, but everyone will have ipads by then

I would bet money it will be Cocoa, 64-bit and called iTunes X this fall with the iPod/iTunes event.

...Office 2004, Office 2008, Office 2011. Yep, yearly.

O.o

Did you stop using the Finder until Snow Leopard came out?
Are you on strike against Final Cut Pro too?

Office for Mac (2008) requires a little over 1GB for a full install. That's 4 programs.

iWork requires 1.2GB... That's 3 programs. But i don't hear you calling it a massive pig...

Sure, Entourage takes a long time (20-30 seconds) to load if you've got all of your emails from the past 5 years saved to disc and therefore a 5 GB user account that has to be read every time you start up, but I find the startup speed is similar to quite a few other programs, including apple's own iTunes (with a large library), Final Cut (also still 32-bit, by the way), and Logic (64-bit). iPhoto can also take 20-30 seconds to load up with a large library.

Anyways, it's to be expected that Office 2011 will bring lots of improvements.

As has been stated many times in this thread:

99.9% of Office users don't require a 64-bit version.

There are plenty of Apple apps still running as 32-bit apps. iTunes is free, but Final Cut Pro is not, and could REALLY use 64-bit architecture. I mean, if anything needs 4GB+ of memory, it's video editing, not word processing and emailing. Also, Finder only made the move to Cocoa last year, which is also pretty late considering it's a foundation of the entire OS...

Anyways, I doubt too many people will choose iWork over Office based on 32- vs 64-bits. The molecular scientist guys can try switching to Numbers, but I'm sure the lack of features in Numbers vs Excel will startle him.

iWork may also be cheaper, but considering there's been iWork 05, 06, 08 and 09, over a 3 year cycle you'll pay $160-240 to stay updated with iWork for 3/3.5 years, and $150 to stay updated with MS Office for the same timeframe...

Question: How many Snow Leopard Macs actually use the 64-bit kernel? I was under the impression that in the majority of circumstances, the system loads the hybrid 32-bit kernel by default.

Don't get me wrong -- 64-bit apps run just fine with the 32-bit kernel in Snow Leopard, provided you're on a 64-bit CPU.

If Apple is satisfied with the performance of using a 32-bit kernel in a 64-bit operating environment by default, then it stands to reason to me that it should be possible to write other 32 bit applications with acceptable performance in a 64-bit environment.


There is no "translation" in the way you seem to be implying -- at no point does the OS do anything along the lines of fetching a 32-bit instruction, then translating it into its 64-bit equivalent, then passing the 64-bit equivalent on to the CPU for processing. The CPU has a compatibility mode that fetches and executes the 32-bit code directly.

Switching the CPU between 64-bit and 32-bit operation mainly involves flipping a bit in a register. This should normally be done automatically every time a context switch occurs, as part of pushing and popping the running process's register set. So the performance penalty for switching back and forth between 64-bit code and 32-bit code should be just about indistinguishable from the normal performance hit that comes whenever any other context switch occurred.

I agree.

The two things I want from Excel are compatible file formats and compatible user interface.

Office 2000, Office 2002, Office 2003, Office 2004, Office 2007, Office 2008, Office 2010, Office 2011.

Fixed it for you.

I certainly don't. Personally, I have used 2008 Office and it's doing fine. It works on my latest MacBook Pro. I wish I could acclimate to iWork, but Office is just fine. Rattle the sword, MS, talk to the hand.....

I have a feeling they won't develop Office for iPad because it'll hasten the demise of the PC And so their Windows licenses will fall. Well Mac too, but they don't care about that.

Right now they only sell Mac Office software so they can continue their business of selling Windows to everyone else using Office. So the Mac doesn't actually compete with Microsoft, it complements them.

That it's free, unlike Office.

I will start my declaring my Apple loyalty. We have 2 iMacs, a Mac Pro and iPhones. Compatibility with work software recently saw me dig in my pocket and buy and inexpensive Acer i5 running Windows 7. I have also installed PC Office 2010 Beta on it.

Unfortunately for those wanting a strongly biased review, I cannot provide one. Windows 7 seems to just work and Office 2010 (even in Beta testing mode) also just works, neither have crashed once. I cannot see how 32 v's 64 bit is going to make a jot of realistic difference for 99.9% of users unless you enjoy HD video encoding and running every Office program all at the same time on Mac Office 2011.

Also reading peoples comments, I wonder just how people expect software writers to create a single product that can be all things to all people. I have found the expanding toolbars on Office 2010 to be a clever way of bringing me more when I want it in a clearer and more presentable way, while otherwise keeping the screen generally clear. Sure, there's been a steep learning curve, but that's only because I like to know all the ins and outs. For those that don't it will work fine too.

All I hope really is that Mac Office 2011 will feel similar to PC Office 2010 so I don't have to learn too much again. Entourage becoming Outlook will be a great help too for he same reason. I honestly can't see myself sitting there cursing Microsoft for not writing it in 64 bit code.

Nice one.

Except you're not differentiating Mac and Windows Office, which are basically 2 totally different product cycles... For all intents and purposes, Microsoft has released Office for Mac 2004, 2008 and 2011, which when all is said and done is half as many versions as iWork will have had in that timeframe. (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011)

Nice try, though.

Speaking of iTunes, what is up with it still not using more than one core? It's the perfect example of a consumer app that would have a huge benefit from using all cores (file conversion) yet Apple STILL doesn't support that?

Serious fail on fail action.

x1000 for Final Cut Pro.

I'll only upgrade if I'm forced to by clients. The ribbon interface is horrible to work with. Every time I use Office 2007, I want to scream at all that wasted screen space. Not to mention that with each upgrade (Windows or Mac), Office seems to get less stable. 2008 doesn't crash on my Mac, but it is painfully sluggish. Windows 2007 has crashed on my clients so many times that the only reason they have reverted to 2003 is their clients.

What kind of company makes their product worse in the face of real competition?

Is iWork 64 bit? Rhetorical question. They just put back in VBA support. Pretty sure if they did VBA AND 64 bit something would mess up big time.0

And to all the ribbon people. If you don't like it you can minimize it. At the very least it's still far better than the current "elements gallery." The toolbar palette is still there if you like using it.

I remember that. I switched to NisusWriter when Word 6 came out and only went back to Word when Nisus fumbled the OSX transition. I hope and plead that Word 2011 won't share WinWord's horrible, idiot style sheet functionality. It appears to be aimed at people who don't use style sheets (creating new ones for every %#*&##!!! variation in the text, which creates so much clutter that it makes style sheets almost pointless). The horrible implementation won't get anyone to start using style sheets. Even more than PowerPoint, I fear the Windowsization of Word.

I suspect Apple will release OS 11 before MS finally catches up to 64 bit and the potential of Apple. I also suspect this is a way for MS to make PCs look better by crippling their Apple products

Don't care. I'll continue to use iWork, OpenOffice.org, Google Docs or some other alternative before I break down and buy Microsoft software.

I'll just chime in and agree with others that point out: you are not hitting any ceilings with each MS Office app able to use 4GB memory. Apple themselves can't seem to be bothered porting many of their hugely popular apps to Cocoa/64 bit.

Chill on the MS hatefest for being just like Apple in this regard. The code transitions might be harder and huger than you think; even if they have ported to Cocoa/64 bit, it might not be stable enough yet.

As an aside, if you are paying hundreds of dollars for a word processor, spreadsheet and powerpoint slides, in my opinion you are a sucker.

I would be happy if MS would make the latest Mac and Windows version of PowerPoint export or save files with multiple (or at least Title and Main) slide masters in tact and backwards compatible with previous versions of Windows PowerPoint. Until then, the latest version of PowerPoint (mac and PC) is useless for anyone who creates custom templates of other companies, as many companies are slow to adopt the latest version.

Also, it would be nice if Excel files created in previous versions would open and save in the latest version without vague compatibility warnings.

Nobody anywhere makes new formats backward-compatible with old formats. That's why they're called new.


Turn off the warning

Nobody anywhere? I'm guessing your world only consists of MS products. "New" should not mean "render all your current files unusable" if you upgrade. You may be gullible enough to think that's a feature, but not everyone else is. Just about every other software application I use is either backwards compatible to at least one version back, or offers a save-as or export option that preserves at least the most important functions (like template masters). This is especially important for a suite of products with as large a variety of past versions in use as office. If you think it's reasonable to expect PowerPoint users to rebuild often used presentations they've already created every time they upgrade to the latest version you must be an MS employee.


The warning itself is not the real issue. Please tell me you don't provide tech support for a living.

If you take your car to a mechanic because your engine light comes on, and their solution is to disconnect the warning light, I would strongly urge you to find another mechanic.

Opening a file created in the previous version should not result in broken formulas simply because you upgraded. If upgrading is going to break parts of your spread sheet, the warning should at least provide details and highlighted cells to show which formulas and cell references need to be reworked. Otherwise, with both issues MS is doing nothing but discouraging users from upgrading.

Given your tendencies towards being an MS apologist, I wouldn't be surprised if, "Thank you sir, may I have another" is a phrase engrained in your psyche from some part of your past.

New formats do not render old formats unusable. Hopefully, the developer gives the option of reading and writing the old format. However, no computer user over the age of 7 expects his old application to read the new format.

Let me explain something to you, young man. No one takes a back seat to me in my criticism of Microsoft. I believe that Microsoft's handling of file formats in Office 2007 is deplorable. Just a week or so ago, one of my colleagues needed me to convert an Office 2003 .doc file into an Office 2007 .docx file because her installation of Office 2007 can't read the older format. My Office 2008 did the trick with aplomb.

A Mac user since 1989, this user is not a switcher. I never adopted Windows. Therefore, I never had to abandon it. However, when I have to deal with Windows, I handle it like the grown man that I am. I don't b!tch and moan like a little kid. Perhaps you will do the same when you grow up.

I've done some quick checking, & it appears that there is a free upgrade if you purchase the 2008 version between Aug 1 & Dec 31. However, for those of us who already paid full retail for the complete 2008 version, there is no paid upgrade price, say $99, just full retail, the same as if you never owned a previous copy. If I have to do that, I may skip this version & wait for the really super-duper 32bit version to come out in 2015!

Before posting additional complaints about the price of Office 2011, you would do well to look at the price of Office 2008.