Microsoft Office 2004

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  • Reply 81 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    Will do.



    One of them is http://www.shahine.com/omar/



    He's a lead developer and the programmer manager for Entourage.



    http://blogs.msdn.com/decheung/



    He's also connected to Office:Mac, I believe.
  • Reply 82 of 192
    gabidgabid Posts: 477member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kirkland

    Will do.



    One of them is http://www.shahine.com/omar/



    He's a lead developer and the programmer manager for Entourage.



    http://blogs.msdn.com/decheung/



    He's also connected to Office:Mac, I believe.




    Thanks!
  • Reply 83 of 192
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    I notice at various retailers the Student version is between $129-$149.



    Presumably what's in the package is exactly the same as what's inside the "Standard Upgrade" edition, but my question is, how does Microsoft know who qualifies as a student and who doesn't? Their license goes so far as to say parents of full time K-12 students are entitled to buy this edition...



    ...is a special (prior) educational serial code required?
  • Reply 84 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    Nope. Microsoft makes no effort to verify that those buying the Student & Teacher edition actually qualify. It's pretty much a roundabout way of having a "Consumer" edition of Office without admitting that the price they charge businesses is rather absurd.



    Since any family with children of school age, all college students, and all educational professionals qualify, over half of American households qualify for S&T Edition. And since the S&T software can be installed on any three machines (with no restriction on concurrent use), it's by far the most economical option for the average home user of Office.



    $50 a seat is hard to beat.



    Too bad Microsoft doesn't apply such logical pricing to their operating system (where they don't even have a reasonable family packages).
  • Reply 85 of 192
    whisperwhisper Posts: 735member
    $150? Heh, if you're enrolled in the UT system (like I am), you can get it for about $6/disc
  • Reply 86 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    Yeah, I'll get it for like $6 for working at SMU. But for retail software, $50 a seat is hard to beat. Even AppleWorks can't compete with that.
  • Reply 87 of 192
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kirkland

    It's pretty much a roundabout way of having a "Consumer" edition of Office without admitting that the price they charge businesses is rather absurd.



    It definitely is. A similar "Small Business" 5-user version of an Office suite for $199. would wipe the floor with Microsoft in this segment. I've never understood why Corel, Mariner, StarOffice don't take that tack.
  • Reply 88 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    Word Perfect's office suite is $250, and the upgrade (which allows upgrading from MS Office) is always around $140 or so. But no one moves to it, in part for psychological reasons. Whenever anyone tries to undercut the established pricing in the market, people wonder "is this a cut rate product? is it a good deal, or just cheap software?"



    Sun couldn't sell Star Office for $20. Repriced to $120 and it's moving fairly well now.



    OpenOffice is free, and very usable on Windows and Linux, but there's no real move in progress towards it.



    Microsoft pulled way ahead of the competition on the Mac in the mid-1980s, was the only DOS product vendor to make a smooth transition to Windows (since they started with Windows 2, while most of their competitors didn't try to run on Windows until Windows 3 or 3.1) and was the first to really integrate their four products into a genuine suite. They've outfoxed most everyone in the market, and are now nigh-unassailable.
  • Reply 89 of 192
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    For $130 I would consider the upgrade, as that price seems relatively fair. For $230 I don't think I'd bother, given how little new functionality there seems to be. MS was going to release two or three of those Demo things, but apparently we're only getting one? What I've seen so far barely qualifies for $130. Hopefully there's more. Stability (according to most users I've spoken with) would be the best new addition but I'm not holding my breath.
  • Reply 90 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    The second Flash demo is up now.



    The third'll be up before the product ships in May.
  • Reply 91 of 192
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Not quite sure what to make of the new charting stuff in Excel. Looks somewhat easier than before, but I'm wondering if all the 3D and transparency features are still buried in all those convoluted dialogs Office v.X has.



    Overall the Tool Palette looks more powerful than before because it integrates things into the workflow that used to be dialog-only territory... but is it becoming too overcrowded with crap becomes the new question. Painter syndrome would be a very good thing to avoid IMO.



    Scrapbook will be pretty interesting for PowerPoint users if it can also hold audio and video clips, and not just static media. Seriously though, if this is all they can come up with after more than two years of development, that's pretty sad.
  • Reply 92 of 192
    kirklandkirkland Posts: 594member
    There's also the Notes functionality in Word.



    And Project Center in Entourage. As well as the revised Entourage interface.



    These are very mature product categories. After 11 versions of Word, it's probably pretty hard to come up with more whiz-bang features.
  • Reply 93 of 192
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    The more I think about it, the Project Center looks awesome, but the lack of integration with iSync is really going to hurt.



    ? No syncing with Address Book

    ? No syncing of contacts and calendar to .mac



    Naturally any integration with iChat and Safari is lost as well.



    Also, since Palm Desktop has now been discontinued in favour of iSync, what's the status of the Entourage Palm conduit?
  • Reply 94 of 192
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kirkland

    There's also the Notes functionality in Word.



    And Project Center in Entourage. As well as the revised Entourage interface.



    These are very mature product categories. After 11 versions of Word, it's probably pretty hard to come up with more whiz-bang features.






    Yah. I think the Notes thing will be useful mostly to corporate types but even then its questionable. Given how ultra-PC everyone in the workplace is today, how many people speaking during important meetings are going to allow their words to be recorded verbatim like that? Not saying it's not a useful idea, just wondering what percentage of Word users are really going to tap into that.



    The Entourage improvements are fairly encouraging but mostly superficial IMO.



    You do make a great point about the maturity of these products though. And I have always maintained there's actually *too much* functionality in Word... that they would be better to "cut the glut" a little and make it more responsive, stable and elegant. I gues though, it would be tough for them to charge for a full upgrade if all they did was make it "more responsive and reliable."
  • Reply 95 of 192
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,295member
    For me, notes is the killer app. From time to time, I like to be able to record a lecture or sermon and it is a great feature to be able to take notes at the same time that take you to the exact point in the recording. $150 seems very reasonable to me. I am not a student, nor do I have any children. However, I am a certified foster parent in the state of Oregon who happens to be between children right now. Would that still qualify me for edu discounts?
  • Reply 96 of 192
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    People give me a break, it's not too complicated. You expect MICROSOFT to integrate with Apple's Address Book and iCal? Dream on. Never happen. This is from the company that discontinued IE. If anything they'll just can it citing "unfair competition and tie in" of Address Book and iCal... No not really but they aren't going to integrate. Not that MacBU probably doesn't want to. We forget they are a mini-company in a company. They all use and like Mac and would probably like to do that, but are simply not allowed to by their bosses in Redmond. That's like asking M$ to make a version of Windows Media player that actually worked 100% on Mac.
  • Reply 97 of 192
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Moogs





    [...]



    ...that they would be better to "cut the glut" a little and make it more responsive, stable and elegant. I gues though, it would be tough for them to charge for a full upgrade if all they did was make it "more responsive and reliable."




    They can keep the glut - they can cut the glut - I don't care. But what they absolutely should do is make it more responsive, stable and elegant. Perhaps some of the glut is responsible for the lack of progress responsiveness, stability and elegance - although I am convinced that they can achieve this progress and still include all the special features for those who choose to use them.



    As for the special features themselves, I think that they should make them easier to use. Some things that were fairly straightforward to use in previous versions seem to be more complicated now.
  • Reply 98 of 192
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    People give me a break, it's not too complicated. You expect MICROSOFT to integrate with Apple's Address Book and iCal? Dream on. Never happen. This is from the company that discontinued IE. If anything they'll just can it citing "unfair competition and tie in" of Address Book and iCal... No not really but they aren't going to integrate. Not that MacBU probably doesn't want to. We forget they are a mini-company in a company. They all use and like Mac and would probably like to do that, but are simply not allowed to by their bosses in Redmond. That's like asking M$ to make a version of Windows Media player that actually worked 100% on Mac.





    Microsoft has supported Mac-specific technologies in Office before, like the ability to embed a Quicktime file in a Word document, IIRC.



    While iCal can probably be safely ignored (since it doesn't inteface with other program) Address Book is a diferent story. AB is meant to be a system-wide database and will probably hook into more and more programs from 10.3 onward.



    And while OpenOffice is currently vaporware, 2006 is approaching. MS should start playing very nice with the Mac community.
  • Reply 99 of 192
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Still waiting from news from ThinkFree Office in Cupertino. They were supposed to release a major update to their (pretty decent) suite Q4 of last year. Their site has been kind of stagnant. I'm worried they might go belly up soon. Would be too bad, but if it happens you can almost certainly point to their dependance on Apple's Java implementation as the reason for slow development cycles and mediocre performance (though the features were good).
  • Reply 100 of 192
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    Well, I preordered my (educational) copy of Office:mac 2004 from the Apple Store as soon as it came up. The new version will be shipping just in time, before I graduate from law school at the end of May. Yay!



    Escher
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