Am I the only one who thinks that Microsoft needs to scrap the entire mac version of office?
The mac version has ALWAY had MAJOR compatibility issues with the windows version. Can't they just make a port of the windows version using wine and make it intel only?
Uh, no.
Have you seen Office 2007? The program WITH NO MENU BARS?
Office 2008 KEEPS the menu bars. I'm using Office 2007 in Parallels at work right now because I'm forced to use it. I'm jumping to Office 2008 the second it comes out. I want my menu bars back, dammit!
I wouldn't tell any company to stop producing software for Mac, but I sure won't be buying. My last Office for Mac purchas was X. I recently bought Office 2007 for Windows and all I can say is its unbelievably confusing. its taken days just to figure out the menus.
On the other hand, I purchased iWork 08 a few weeks ago with a new iMac, and I've also downloaded OpenOffice. They're both way easier to figure out than office and a lot cheaper.
I think that there will be lots of profit for Microsoft if they cut the price substantially. Lets hope that between iWork and Open Office that they will decide to cut the price to remain competitive, but not eliminate Office for Mac.
Office 2007 is confusing because there are no menu bars any more. Office 2008 for Mac keeps the menu bars.
Open Office is more of a competitor to Office than iWork. iWork is good enough for home users, but business and corporate users still need something like Office.
You think you Entourage guys are bad off? Try being forced to use Lotus Notes at work.
Entourage is positively embracing of open standards in comparison to Notes. Stellar UI design in comparison too.
Wah.
Goddamn right! Every verison of Lotus Notes I've used has been like a form of paricularly perverse torture. Basic frikkin' things like copy/paste, undo, drag & drop, save, etc, just don't work like any sane person would expect them to. It's just horrible!
Thank God I've never had to pay for this software. I always seem to win a copy every year at Macworld. As far as Entourage goes, does anyone else have my problem.....? I set up an "archive" for E mails I need to keep and things just keep disappearing after a while. Also, don't dare click on an E mail while others are downloading, the whole thing blows up and I have to dump the preferences after forcing quit and restart the program to get it to work. I run the database software regularly and it says everything's fine... it's NOT fine!! I've already switched my newsletter and presentations away from MS Office, I'm thinking it's time for a complete switch. I guess this year I'll be trolling the Filemaker booth for a new copy of Filemaker 9, and yes, I was lucky enough to win a copy of 8.5 advanced last year.
Office 2004 runs well-enough under Rosetta. I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. On the PC side, I think Office matured around 2000. All releases after that offered nothing substantially new to the average home user.
I only wonder if Office 2008 will support right-to-left languages such as Arabic -- something its PC counterpart could do for probably over ten years now.
With all the Exchange-related additions to Entourage, it feels like MBU is changing the focus of Office: where once it was targeted at the SOHO market, it looks like they're now focusing much more on SMBs and the enterprise instead.
If M$ cedes the low-end to Apple's iWork, iCal and Mail.app, that's fine by me. It's a win/win for both Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft gets to sell more expensive licenses in higher-volume environments and keeps Mac-heavy companies from thinking about defecting from Exchange; Apple gets software that enables Macs to run as something at least resembling fully equal peers on M$-heavy networks, removing a big barrier to entry for Macs in big businesses.
I simply despise everything Microsoft. It's not that I have some deeply-rooted vendetta against the company. Far from it, actually. It's just that every single time they attempt to produce a product, it comes off half-assed and poorly executed. Vista, the Zune, and MS Office are all prime examples.
On another note, I do hope that there is a way to eliminate the astroturfing.
Office 2004 runs well-enough under Rosetta. I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade.
Wait till you start to get files emailed to you saved as ".docx," ".pptx" and ".xlsx". You're going to have to send an (embarrassing and groveling, to me at least) email to the person saying "Could you please re-save it as .doc/.ppt/.xls and resend since we Mac users are still stuck with the 2004 version?".
(Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in Q&A column yesterday, and mentioned one can downloaded a fix for this problem. Did anyone have luck finding it, and making it work? I can't find a solution anywhere on Microsoft web pages).
Open Office is more of a competitor to Office than iWork. iWork is good enough for home users, but business and corporate users still need something like Office.
Definitely. I just checked out the lastest NeoOffice. Finally got spell check! It's REALLY looking nice! Especially since it has a database and drawing. I still don't understand why they don't separate the apps (like Netscape/Mozilla->Firefox), and it starts up slow, but hey, not any slower than Office 2004. M$ should indeed be very, very scared of OpenOffice. I have to give it to them. It's really coming together. I hope businesses and home users start using it, and momentum helps it out like with Firefox.
On the other hand, I just used Pages 08 for a project, without ever using it before, and it REALLY helped me to make some maps in a pinch, when GIS wasn't cutting it. I was very pleased with its interface. Like Publisher done right.
I am a corporate IT guy, and a Mac user at work. I work in a small division of a very large company. In my organization over the last year Exchange has been configured to first not accept POP3 email connections, and then a few months later, IMAP connections. This forced us to abandon all email clients except the only two that still seem to work with Exchange server as it is now configured: Outlook and Entourage 2004.
I initially found Entourage fine for basic email, but it doesn't seem to have the calendar features that Outlook has. Workers in my company have embraced the calendar collaboration tools on Outlook, and all of our meetings are now scheduled through Outlook. If you want to book a conference room: book it through Outlook. Etc...
So, for the time being, I am running Outlook under Paralells/Win XP on my Macbook Pro. (I was lucky my boss approved the expense for this "fix").
I'd rather have a version of Entourage that played nice with Exchange than to have to run Windows. So, I'm all for this new version of Entourage! Hope it works!!
If it doesn't, I may have a tough time in three years when I'm due for my next computer upgrade. I think it was the Intel inside this Macbook Pro that helped me stay "Mac" when I got this system in January.
Comments
Yes, Microsoft Office 2008 is very enthralling right now.... *NOT*
That's funny, because you were making people think you did find Office 2008 enthralling. But then you tacked the "not" at the end!
4 years since the last version - and we get auto-reply.
Wow.
I'm under-whelmed.
Hey, it?s Microsoft doing what it does best. Under-whelming the consumer at EVERY turn
Am I the only one who thinks that Microsoft needs to scrap the entire mac version of office?
The mac version has ALWAY had MAJOR compatibility issues with the windows version. Can't they just make a port of the windows version using wine and make it intel only?
Uh, no.
Have you seen Office 2007? The program WITH NO MENU BARS?
Office 2008 KEEPS the menu bars. I'm using Office 2007 in Parallels at work right now because I'm forced to use it. I'm jumping to Office 2008 the second it comes out. I want my menu bars back, dammit!
I wouldn't tell any company to stop producing software for Mac, but I sure won't be buying. My last Office for Mac purchas was X. I recently bought Office 2007 for Windows and all I can say is its unbelievably confusing. its taken days just to figure out the menus.
On the other hand, I purchased iWork 08 a few weeks ago with a new iMac, and I've also downloaded OpenOffice. They're both way easier to figure out than office and a lot cheaper.
I think that there will be lots of profit for Microsoft if they cut the price substantially. Lets hope that between iWork and Open Office that they will decide to cut the price to remain competitive, but not eliminate Office for Mac.
Office 2007 is confusing because there are no menu bars any more. Office 2008 for Mac keeps the menu bars.
Open Office is more of a competitor to Office than iWork. iWork is good enough for home users, but business and corporate users still need something like Office.
You think you Entourage guys are bad off? Try being forced to use Lotus Notes at work.
Entourage is positively embracing of open standards in comparison to Notes. Stellar UI design in comparison too.
Wah.
Goddamn right! Every verison of Lotus Notes I've used has been like a form of paricularly perverse torture. Basic frikkin' things like copy/paste, undo, drag & drop, save, etc, just don't work like any sane person would expect them to. It's just horrible!
Still, that's my punishment for working in IBM
I only wonder if Office 2008 will support right-to-left languages such as Arabic -- something its PC counterpart could do for probably over ten years now.
If M$ cedes the low-end to Apple's iWork, iCal and Mail.app, that's fine by me. It's a win/win for both Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft gets to sell more expensive licenses in higher-volume environments and keeps Mac-heavy companies from thinking about defecting from Exchange; Apple gets software that enables Macs to run as something at least resembling fully equal peers on M$-heavy networks, removing a big barrier to entry for Macs in big businesses.
You think you Entourage guys are bad off? Try being forced to use Lotus Notes at work.
Entourage is positively embracing of open standards in comparison to Notes. Stellar UI design in comparison too.
Wah.
Wasn't the UI the result of all those Claris Emailer people moving north to Redmond way back when? Anyone remember that? Bueller?
On another note, I do hope that there is a way to eliminate the astroturfing.
Office 2004 runs well-enough under Rosetta. I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade.
Wait till you start to get files emailed to you saved as ".docx," ".pptx" and ".xlsx". You're going to have to send an (embarrassing and groveling, to me at least) email to the person saying "Could you please re-save it as .doc/.ppt/.xls and resend since we Mac users are still stuck with the 2004 version?".
(Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in Q&A column yesterday, and mentioned one can downloaded a fix for this problem. Did anyone have luck finding it, and making it work? I can't find a solution anywhere on Microsoft web pages).
Microsoft..... aaaargh.....
Open Office is more of a competitor to Office than iWork. iWork is good enough for home users, but business and corporate users still need something like Office.
Definitely. I just checked out the lastest NeoOffice. Finally got spell check! It's REALLY looking nice! Especially since it has a database and drawing. I still don't understand why they don't separate the apps (like Netscape/Mozilla->Firefox), and it starts up slow, but hey, not any slower than Office 2004. M$ should indeed be very, very scared of OpenOffice. I have to give it to them. It's really coming together. I hope businesses and home users start using it, and momentum helps it out like with Firefox.
On the other hand, I just used Pages 08 for a project, without ever using it before, and it REALLY helped me to make some maps in a pinch, when GIS wasn't cutting it. I was very pleased with its interface. Like Publisher done right.
That's funny, because you were making people think you did find Office 2008 enthralling. But then you tacked the "not" at the end!
Borat (Sacha Noam Baron Cohen) is one of your own. I wouldn't criticize.
Borat (Sacha Noam Baron Cohen) is one of your own. I wouldn't criticize.
Nice.
I initially found Entourage fine for basic email, but it doesn't seem to have the calendar features that Outlook has. Workers in my company have embraced the calendar collaboration tools on Outlook, and all of our meetings are now scheduled through Outlook. If you want to book a conference room: book it through Outlook. Etc...
So, for the time being, I am running Outlook under Paralells/Win XP on my Macbook Pro. (I was lucky my boss approved the expense for this "fix").
I'd rather have a version of Entourage that played nice with Exchange than to have to run Windows. So, I'm all for this new version of Entourage! Hope it works!!
If it doesn't, I may have a tough time in three years when I'm due for my next computer upgrade. I think it was the Intel inside this Macbook Pro that helped me stay "Mac" when I got this system in January.