Microsoft has no plans to release Office for Mac 2013 - Page 3

Does Office 2011 use OS X text APIs? If not, then text will look lousy on retina (see Chrome two weeks ago). And that's terrible.

Otherwise, retina-ready shouldn't be as much of an issue for a text editor, even an enormous one. This should be even more of a non-issue once Microsoft's Metro UI is implemented across all their apps. Not much overhead involved in rendering flat non-rounded solid-color boxes for everything.

If you work for yourself, you pretty much don't need Word/Excel unless you're frequently exchanging complex documents with those who use it, but if you work/consult for large companies, you definitely need Office.    When I bought my last Mac about four years ago, I bought a copy of iWork figuring I would phase out my personal use of Office, but it never happened.   I rarely use the Apple apps even though  Numbers does have that one really nice feature where you can overlay differently sized grids within the same sheet.   And no one and I mean no one has EVER sent me a Numbers spreadsheet or a Pages text document .   I do use Keynote in the cases where I'm not going to give anyone copies of my presentation.   Keynote usually does blow people away as compared to a typical Powerpoint presentation. 

I don't care all that much if Microsoft updates Office for Mac quickly or not.   Every time they come out with a new version of Office (or their OS for that matter), they seem to take three steps backwards for each step forwards.   At the companies I consult for, some have the latest versions (with ribbon) and some have older (without ribbon) and I can move pretty intuitively between those versions and also with my Mac version.    I'm fine with the versions I have.   I don't need the app to work in the Cloud.   As long as I can still edit Windows based Office documents on my Mac and vice-versa without having formatting errors or other screw-ups, I'm fine.   (I happen to think this emphasis on having everything in the Cloud, including apps, is insane.   What happens when you're not connected or have a slow connection?   I'm very happy having my apps, especially those that are used every day, like Office, right on my hardware.  If that and touch screen capability are the only changes Microsoft is making, they can keep their update anyway.)

But having said that, there are probably far more Mac users now, in business and otherwise, then when Microsoft released previous versions of Office for the Mac, since Apple has been breaking their own Mac sales records almost every  quarter, so it seems a bit insane for Microsoft to skip or delay the next release of Office for Mac users.      

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider 

The Office for Mac 2011 update is expected to ship early next year alongside the Windows-only Office 2013.

And what compelling reasons are there, if any, for Windows users to upgrade from Office 2011 to Office 2013?

Cloud integration?  Really?  Exactly how important is that to the majority of Office users?  You know, the vast

middle of the bell curve who use Office "because everyone else does."  I'm sure they can get by without it.

And is Office 2013 really worth the hundreds of $$$?  MS hasn't released pricing info on the upgrade yet, but

Office 2010 Professional went for $350, and there was no discounted upgrade price for Office 2007 users.

Maybe Office 2011 is "good enough."  Microsoft has made quite a lot of money shipping software that's

just "good enough."

I can think of two things that might happen if Microsoft doesn't ship Office 2013 for Mac:

1. Apple replaces Office with an equivalent Apple productivity suite

Apple must have been preparing for the day when Microsoft might drop Office for Mac support.  And that day

is certainly coming soon.   Microsoft could cut off Office for Mac support in an attempt to protect Windows sales if and

when Mac sales reach a tipping point.  And Apple must have been waiting for any decent excuse to launch iWork Pro, or 

whatever their Office replacement would be called.  If Microsoft doesn't ship Office 2013 for Mac, it will be Apple's

cue to replace Office for Mac.

An Apple Office replacement could help Apple in other ways in the long run.  For example, if and when Apple transitions

the MacBook Air to ARM-based CPUs,  there would be one less third-party software vendor dragging their feet,

slowing down the transition.  Apple waited 10 years for Adobe to port their pro apps to OS X.  Never again  Not

for an OS transition, not for a hardware transition.

Of course, there is a chance that Microsoft could port Office to ARM on their own.   If they're serious about Windows RT

on ARM, they just might port Office 2013 to the ARM-based Surface.  If they're not serious about ARM, they'll keep it

Surface Pro-only, and thus Intel-only.  But you can bet that Apple isn't collectively losing any sleep waiting for Microsoft

to decide what to do.

OK, so let's say that Apple's Office replacement is successful.  That it satisfies the majority of Mac ex-Office users.

Then what happens?

2. Microsoft is forced to drop the price of subsequent versions of Office

As we've all seen, Apple's App Store model for iOS and OS X has brought down the cost of software on iDevices

and on Macs.  iOS has always been free, and OS X upgrades have gotten cheaper.  OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

will be a $20 upgrade when it is released this month.  Most apps on iOS are just a few bucks.  And even Mac

apps are far cheaper than they were before the Mac App Store.  Apple has conditioned their users to expect

lower software prices.

And Apple is happy to sell OS X and its in-house apps fairly cheaply.  Because they make their money on hardware.  

The OS and apps are all value-add for the users of their hardware.  This particular model is working very, very well for

Apple right now.

Fine.  So how does this affect Microsoft?  Well, Microsoft has announced that the Windows 8 upgrade will cost $40.

Even for the Pro edition.  And how much did the Vista to Windows 7 upgrade cost?  Windows 7 Home premium went for $49.

Windows 7 Professional went for $99.  That's a pretty steep drop.  Microsoft wouldn't do this if they didn't have to.  It

certainly looks like Apple's low software pricing has forced Microsoft to lower their prices too.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, they need to make money on their software.  Their Windows and Office businesses are their

bread and butter.  Profits from those two products fund everything they do.  Lowering prices may increase volume, but

that increase in volume may not compensate for the lower per-unit margins.  And, once you've dropped your prices,

it's very hard to bring them back up again.  Do the words "race to the bottom" ring a bell here?

Conclusion

Microsoft is stuck.  They could very well ship Office 2013 for Mac any day now, but by doing so they would be

encouraging the success of a Windows PC competitor.  And Mac sales have steadily increased in every quarter of the past 

6+ years.  The Windows market share is gradually eroding.  Microsoft will be forced to stop that erosion in any way

they can, even if it means holding back or canceling Office for Mac.  Not a major source of revenue for Microsoft,

but how else can they slow down Mac sales?

If Microsoft doesn't ship Office 2013 for Mac, Apple just might have a replacement ready and waiting.  They've

had years to plan, design, develop, test, and iterate.  And if Apple's Office replacement is good (and cheap),

Microsoft will lose the Office for Mac market forever.

Meanwhile, for whatever reason, Microsoft has been forced to drop upgrade pricing for Windows 8.  The days of 

nosebleed upgrade pricing are over.  You only drop prices to gain market share if you're a newbie or to regain lost

market share if you need to.  Times change.

Just my $0.02.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lkrupp 

Do we even need an Office 2013 for Mac? I mean how much more can you cram into an already bloated product whose myriad features go unused by the vast majority of human beings using it?

Indeed. On the specific announcement by MS, nothing new here:

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Microsoft!!!"

The old, monopolistic beast is back in true form. Too bad these are not the 90s anymore.

I agree--it doesn't seem like Apple has any interest in getting Office power users to switch to iWork. I think the market they are trying to tap is the defaulter home users--that is, the people who will use the option that is already installed, or, in the case of iWork, a two-click purchase. 

What I am curious about is how many Mac users use iWork vs Google Docs. When I bought my Air, I switched to the latter out of sheer convenience, and while its features are rudimentary, the suite is not so much worse than iWork that I feel the need to switch back. 

This brings up an interesting dichotomy regarding office suite "power users."

Over the years, I have needed to create or work with rather large presentations. Hi-res images, video, slide object animation (for clarity and/or wow factor), and precise timing. Keynote is much more capable for all these areas than PowerPoint. I mean PPT on Windows; I have never used PPT on OS X.

Attribute it to underlying architecture, OS capability, whatever you want. Keynote keeps everything timed properly, even if it needs to drop a few frames, whereas PowerPoint gives me inconsistent behavior on different devices, and consistently terrible performance.

A tech friend of mine ended up running a live show's multimedia aspects through PowerPoint on his brand new high-end laptop. It struggled to handle the most benign media, including standard definition mp4 video, and would frequently stutter on audio files.

The takeaway? A business office power user needs Word. A presentation giving power user needs Keynote.

I'm surprised in all this discussion there has been no mention of Microsoft's decision to use "activation" in their Mac Office suite.

This is unacceptable to me under any circumstances.  I actually purchased a copy of Office 2011 for Mac without reading the fine print (yeah, stupid), and it sits unused on the shelf.  (discounted price, no way to return it, grr).  I have no problem paying for software I use on a regular basis, whether I'm a fan of the company or not, but my computer is my own private computer and Microsoft has no business knowing what/when/how often/who or anything else about me or my software usage just because I've purchased their software.  They can kiss my *ss.

Because I actually purchased the product, I'd be perfectly happy applying some hack to install and use it, but the little searching I did at the time (more than a year ago) revealed nothing of use.

Oh, and Adobe's on my shit list as well, for the same reasons.

Meh.

Microsoft doing the only thing they can to fight the tide of the post-Microsoft era.

Apple is dominating and they are dying.

So what do they do? stop supporting Mac.

the only problem with that is that such a move only deprives them of money and further relegates them to irrelevancy, since more and more people using Macs will no longer have a need for Microsoft.

I myself use iWork.

The (extremely) rare time I actually "need" Office, I fire up OpenOffice or NeoOffice and I am done.

So no stealing MS software.  just using high quality, free software that does the same thing.

And MS Word is a joke compared to Pages.

Powerpoint is likewise compared to Keynote.

Perhaps MS just realized they can't compete. In the end, they only hurt themselves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaun, UK 

 

I just wish Apple would be more open about what's happening to iWork. Is it dead or are they finally going to release a new version?

They've been "vewwy, vewwy quiet" - true......

Quote:

Originally Posted by ash471 

I understand that iWork probably can't break into the enterprise market.  However, since Apple is making a product, why don't they make it suitable for business.  It just seems odd to me that Apple would purposely keep selling an inferior product.  It isn't that iWork is a bad product...it is an incomplete product.  Why won't Apple finish it off?  Give us features like reviewing and compare documents and better paragraph numbering...etc.  

They've got 100 billion dollars, why not spend 10 million on office software?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darryn Lowe 
Apple gave what most consumers need... simplicity....

 

iWork isn't aimed at you... it's aimed at everyone else.

DL's comment excerpted and emphasis added:

If you want to share documents, iWork is not aimed at "everyone else," it's aimed solely at other Mac users or those who work entirely alone.  Until you can "save as" in .Doc format and not have to create a new copy of an (often poorly) "exported" doc, you're locked in MacLand.  And dupe files do not = simplicity.

Just what the computing world needed:  three more proprietary file formats that 95% of computer users can't share. 

That's been my objection from day one - and it remains so today.  I totally prefer Keynote - and don't usually have to share those - but the rest?  Fuhgeddaboudit - I need to share my sheets and docs transparently and easily.  So Office it is.  (And Open Office - nawwwwwww.)  Bg biz users (I'm not one) also need collaboration features - and both Google and MS Office Live are leagues ahead in these capacities - although I avoid using either of them whenever possible.  Maybe Sky Drive's come together, but once I found I had to save a file before I could create it, I was outta there, and GDocs just feels primitive - and is also no respector of Word formatting. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


Fortunately, you don't have to tell Microsoft what's on your computer. When it asks if you want to activate it, you can say 'no' and it will give you a phone number to call. IIRC, they don't ask much (if anything) about the computer - they want the serial number on the Office package and I believe your contact information and that's it. It's a pain in the rear, but it doesn't take that long.
While we're on the subject, why in the world do they need 25 (or is it 30?) characters for a serial number? I hate having to type them all in every time I have to install the software.

Thanks for the reply.  Two things:

1) As far as I know you have to call an 800 number, no way around that.  So you're forced into giving them your phone number.  Not a chance I'm ever going to do that.  I guess one could call from a pay phone, if you can even find one anymore!

2) Why on earth would I give them contact information?  I bought and paid for their software; it's none of their f#$!@# business who I am or what I do with their software.  That's the biggest problem with this "activation" bullshit.  If I want customer support, fine, then maybe I need to be in their system, but I don't, I just want to be left alone and not profiled or marketed-to against my will.

*IF* there was a process to "authorize" the software without getting into their damn customer database, I'd be happy to comply.  I don't see that option.

Google docs work just fine. So does iWork. I havent done anything that required macros in ages. Apple really should try javascript macros in Numbers. They'd win alot of converts with something like that. 

Apple, and in fact the computing world, has to somehow escape the Office jail. Business is addicted to Office.Unless someone breaks this addiction Microsoft will be able to direct the future of mobile computing by limiting the real Office to Windows phones, tablets and computers. Perhaps there is no escape from jail. Eventually, Microsoft will get the OS and hardware right and there will be quite a few Netscapes floating about.

philip

Quote:

Originally Posted by sr2012 


Microsoft ~is~ in the Office jail. For mobile and tablet thank goodness finally people have come to their senses and are exploring decent alternatives (at least a different way of thinking, because, lo and behold, Microsoft has utterly failed to deliver Office for iOS or Android even after 5 years). Windows and Office is left to the "workplace". But to me if a corporation has to use Word and Excel then it has already failed.
Microsoft is game over. Don't even waste your time.

Well what do you think will happen if there is no Office of the iPad, Android tablets/phones but Microsoft puts out a mobile solution to working with Office on its mobile solutions? Will business buy iPads? Don't think so. Same with Macs. Then there's the education market. There are a lot of "failed" companies around as most use Office. You are seriously underestimating the threat. Wishful thinking in fact.

philip

Quote:

Originally Posted by jnjnjn 


When you need macros or visual basic in a spreadsheet, your doing something wrong.
Numbers is excellent as it is now,but could use more functions and more flexibility of some functions.
J.

Oh right, prepping Excel file contents for export to an RDBMS using a process where some business logic is involved is useless.

Look, they're just different tools.  There's nothing wrong with having good, potentially overlapping tools.  vba makes Office more useful for many of us -- I can do whatever I want inside of a spreadsheet with tools I already know inside and out pretty quickly without being an Excel power user.

And gosh, please heavens, don't even stick me with AppleScript again.  I took a short detour through Excel 2008 and wow, idiosyncratic, slow, and painful.

But the bottom line is Dan Knight's -- this is a non story.  Mac always gets Office on a different schedule.  The last concurrent release (versioning?) was, what, 6.0?

Because of some major data corruption issues that I couldn't fix having to do with the system generating each calendar event up to 15x (which I think had to do with synching issues between Office, Calendar and my iPhone, creating some kind of loop), I recently had to upgrade from Office 2008 to Office 2011 on the Mac.    I really thought that Outlook for the Mac was going to be far better than Entourage, but it's really a piece of crap (although still better, IMO, than Apple Mail).    It doesn't even have the navigation options so that if you have your mail sorted latest first, but you first look at the earliest message in the day, it would then go to the next earliest message.  Instead, it goes to the item below it in the list, which is an already read item.   Even the web version of Outlook for Windows gets this right and the Windows version of Outlook gives you preferences, so it can work any way that you want it to.     Also, you can't navigate from open message to open message.   You have to choose the next message from the list.    Entourage got all of this right.   Outlook 2011 gets this wrong.   

Because I manage a large number of websites, each of which have to have their own email addresses, I have many email accounts.   If I clicked "Send/Receive ALL", Entourage used to clearly access all accounts.   Outlook for Mac doesn't - it arbitrarily chose one account out of the list and not even my default account.  In order to receive from all accounts, I have to go to Tools>Run Schedule>Receive All.     That's a pain.  

The other thing I find is that the rules that I've set up, which worked fine under Entourage, don't work as well under Outlook.   It frequently puts things in the wrong folders, in violation of the rule, for no apparent reason.   

Did the people at Microsoft who designed this ever actually use it in real world situations?     I think they corrupted the UI on purpose so that people would think the Windows versions were better.   

And yesterday, I had some issue  and couldn't even open Outlook.  I fixed it by removing four Microsoft files from the Library, but I had to reconfigure a ton of settings.  It did preserve all my accounts and mail though.         Since I did not have a computer or application crash, nothing should have gotten corrupted IMO.

So if Microsoft fixes these issues, I would look forward to a reasonably priced upgrade in 2013 (although considering I only recently purchased, I feel like I should get it for free).    If not, I probably will wind up finally switching to Apple Mail.       And obviously, if Microsoft decides NOT to release Office 2013, a scenario that I can't really imagine considering that more people and more businesses are switching to Macs all the time, I'd have to eventually phase it out.   IMO, Microsoft has to release Office 2013 for Mac if only to fend off accusations of monopoly (even though one could argue that Office for Mac increases their monopoly).   

I have mixed feelings about the rest of Office.   Sometimes the ribbon is better and frequently it's not - especially when it comes to customization.   That's why I had put off upgrading to Office 2011 for so long.   Office 2008 worked fine for me.   In the office, where we have Windows-based machines, I'm able to pretty intuitively switch back and forth between older and newer versions of Office.     But I do prefer Excel to Numbers, even though Numbers has a few nice features that Excel doesn't have.    There's simply too much that you can't do easily in Numbers (at least the version I have, which is not the newest).     

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoetmb 

I have mixed feelings about the rest of Office.   Sometimes the ribbon is better and frequently it's not - especially when it comes to customization.   That's why I had put off upgrading to Office 2011 for so long.   Office 2008 worked fine for me.   In the office, where we have Windows-based machines, I'm able to pretty intuitively switch back and forth between older and newer versions of Office. But I do prefer Excel to Numbers, even though Numbers has a few nice features that Excel doesn't have. There's simply too much that you can't do easily in Numbers (at least the version I have, which is not the newest).     

Good post. I agree that Office for Mac 2008 was in many ways better than Office 2011. I particularly liked the floating palettes which allowed you to easily access frequently used functions and position them conveniently. The point is that Office in its present incarnation is far from ideal. It's good, but it's bloated and the interface is overloaded. Similarly, iWork isn't exactly fantastic either. I like the elegant simplicity of Pages and Keynote but agree that both are still incomplete.  

Sure, Apple is doing well in terms of capturing the Home market, but I see the biggest lever of growth as catching the Corporate market. Apple is definitely starting to attract large businesses. First it was Ad and Design agencies, then it was Law firms, and now Banks and Accountancy firms are starting to to bite. Apple surely wants to go on feeding this migration?

Maybe the secret of eating Microsoft's lunch is getting iWork to run PCs as well as iTunes does? I'd like to see a killer suite of new iWork programs with superb functionality to wow and suck-in longtime Windows users.

A lot of people seem to agree with this. So what is Apple doing? What was the last big project that Craig Fed. demoed at an Apple event? iMovie or GarageBand? The fact is that it is quite sometime since Apple updated iWork. iWork matters to everyone. iWork is a major source of additional incremental revenue for Apple. Every extra dollar in Apple's pocket is another nail in the Windows coffin. So my bet is that Apple is quietly reworking iWork to make it even better. My bet is a major announcement at the Apple 2013 Developers Conference. 

Get to it Apple, I for one can't wait to junk Office.