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Enjoy now Mafia$oft. It wont last!

May 13, 08 - 09:18 am Comment from: Luke Skywalker

The reason it's selling faster is because so many more people are buying Macs.

And no, iWork isn't there, yet.

May 13, 08 - 09:18 am Comment from: Jay-Z

Ugh. I was so much happier when I was Microsoft-free.

Just installed the new beta of OpenOffice... laaaaaargely good enough to open and save .doc stuff!

I'm happy with office 2008.... the alternatives are not as good (iwork,neooffice/openoffice). If MS was smart, they'd have their MacBU influence their other products.

May 13, 08 - 09:27 am Comment from: Demon

For the vast majority of Computer users iWork is all they will need. For the hardcore MS Office users I'd Recommend Open Office as their replacement.

May 13, 08 - 09:31 am Comment from: Buster

I have office 2008.

Yup, MS made it ....just good enough.

May 13, 08 - 09:34 am Comment from: Buster

...is SP1 a fancy term or updating office to version 12.0.1?

The removal of the feature was an effort to diminish the appeal of the Mac in corporate spaces.

The return of the feature indicates pressure from the customer in sufficient volume.

This is not earth shattering, just a pleasant rumble.

Many Macs are sold to switchers. One of the arguments for switching is: "Yes you can continue to use MS Office". So maybe the switchers are behind this MS Office fo Mac success. Then again, they won't buy any Office for Windows.

i think one of the reasons for the huge success is the price. i remember it wasn't so easy to get a "student"-version of office 2004 for 129 euros, mostly only the standard-version for 499 was available. but the student-version of office 2008 is sold everywhere i can buy a mac for 119 euros and no one cares whether you're a student or not.

I have been playing with Office 2008 for a couple of weeks, to compare with the free apps I push (http://www.thefreemac.com). It really felt like OpenOffice + iWork but without the snappiness of either (and that was on a MacBook Pro).

We buy it because we all buy it. It is like Photoshop. Have you tried Pixelmator? $60 and superb. We will still spend our $$$ so that we know the right apps for our resumes.

They have to make Office 2010 (or whatever) feel less bloated. Modularize the program more and look at apps like Bean or NisusWriter.

Yeah, where's the „SP1“?

I have NeoOffice and iWork - that's all I need. Microsoft Office on the Mac is a POS.

May 13, 08 - 09:56 am Comment from: Spark

I bought Office '08 thinking it would run... well, snappier... on my Intel/Leapord Mac Pro than did the pre-Universal Binary versions. I am daily disappointed by its slowness. Slowness to launch (Word, Excel, all apps in the suite), slowness use. I suspect it has something to do with my extensive font list. I would like to hear from others that are running Office '08 in regards to launch times and other performance opinions. Does anyone see significant improvement in speed and snappiness versus earlier versions?

May 13, 08 - 09:58 am Comment from: LateRegistrant

To celebrate this wonderful development, I have just upgraded from Office X to Office 2004. Can't use Excel 2008 because it lacks the Analytic Tools.

MDN - you simply don't get it. Many users NEED Microsoft Office if they want to use a Mac at work. We have 150 windows users, and 2 Mac users. I work in R&D;and was able to stealthy migrate to using a Mac as my work machine. I would not have been able to do this without MS Office.

Rather than constantly griping about Microsoft, you should be thanking them for allowing the migration to Macs in the enterprise.

When VBA returns to the Mac version, I'd consider upgrading but only if and when they get it working (properly) again.

May 13, 08 - 10:03 am Comment from: qka

Blah, blah, blah

Don't need Microsoft. Use iWork. Use Neo Office.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

Yes, we hate Microsoft. But if you have heavy work to get done, those others just don't cut it. At least not for spreadsheets and word processing. I will grant you that Keynote is better than PowerPoint.

Blah, blah, blah.

We return you to your previously scheduled diatribe.

May 13, 08 - 10:04 am Comment from: qka

P.S. The lack of VBA is why I have not upgraded from Office for Mac 2004 to 2008.

Maybe Microsoft is learning new tricks.

Nahh!

"The Mac BU also announced it is bringing VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac. The Mac BU is always working to meet customers’ needs and already is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac."

But first, several more years of development for Messenger for Mac. Not for feature parity but for a whole new super cool set of colorful and shiny icons. Maybe even animated! (still in alpha)

Welcome to Mactopia.

"Rather than constantly griping about Microsoft, you should be thanking them for allowing the migration to Macs in the enterprise."


"Thank you sir. May I have another?"
*THWACK*
"Thank you sir. May I have another?"
*THWACK*
"Thank you sir. May I have another?"
*THWACK*
"Thank you sir. May I have another?"
*THWACK*

May 13, 08 - 10:14 am Comment from: MacNScott

"Mac users have more disposable income and have proven they'll pay more for software, accessories, and peripherals than their Windows counterparts."

IF it is any good.

So we need to wait until 2012 to get VBA support?

My office is mainly mac users, but we do a LOT of collaboration with outside offices that are all windows based. We need VBA and thus NeoOffice, etc won't cut it. I do agree with an above poster though, Keynote does rock and the powerpoint export is decent enough that I do all my presentations in it.

Until they give us VBA, we're hanging out with 2004. I hope it still works in 2012...

May 13, 08 - 10:20 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

I just upgraded from Office 2004 to Office 2008 and I'm asking myself why? O2008 is slower and has no new and improved features since the upgrade. The Spotlight integration in Entourage would be great, if it worked. And my Mac definitely isn't snappier.

May 13, 08 - 10:23 am Comment from: shen

"Rather than constantly griping about Microsoft, you should be thanking them for allowing the migration to Macs in the enterprise."

ummm, the reason you need it is because MS made the file formats proprietary. any document app should be able to open any document. it is your data, you wrote it, you should edit it in what ever you want.

the fact that you think they should be thanked for locking you into using their stuff proves that you are a moron who has no concept of rights, history, lock-in, or fair use.

please, do us all a favor, and never open your stupid mouth here again.

Yawn.

No Microsoft software is going to make me give them another blue bean...

"I hope it still works in 2012..."

Packages will be delivered via high energy laser pulses from Microsoft's relocated headquarters, an orbiting, sentient AI platform being constructed now, in secrecy, as our second moon. Wednesday's will be bonus Points days for parts of North America and Burkina Faso. Virgin Shuttle Tours will not be given docking privileges.

May 13, 08 - 10:41 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

I'd love it a lot more if Entourage didn't crash daily.

Well, why not go for the low-hanging fruit here too?

May 13, 08 - 11:08 am Comment from: Ray

I am writing my dissertation at the moment. I have an MB and a Pro. The MacBook struggles with the dissertation ever since I reached about 100 pages. Many times it cannot save the document saying the drive is full ( the machine has many many GB's available to it). The MacPro does not have this problem.

So M$ still has a lot work to do on Office.

just my $0.02

May 13, 08 - 11:23 am Comment from: Cubert

Can someone post whether there are any speed increases with 2008? Office 2008 on an Intel Mac runs slower than 2004 in Rosetta!

Thanks.

Interesting that MS is doing another about-face on something, this time it's VBA for Mac Office. I wonder how many people defected to NeoOffice to get the VBA functionality there which they could no longer get in Mac Office 2008? MS must have finally realized they were driving potential customers away, and are scrambling to get them back.

And it sure must be fun having a job at Microsoft, getting to work on such forward-thinking projects as... retrofitting old, outdated technologies such as VBA to work on today's computers. Yeah, that'll attract the tech world's best and brightest for sure.

The train left the station a long time ago.

ChrissyOne:
Is it still crashing after applying 12.1 update? Do you send crash logs to MacBU?

May 13, 08 - 12:06 pm Comment from: jocknerd

Meanwhile, OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta for OS X is now available. Do everyone a favor and download and please provide feedback. Lets make this the defacto office tool out there. Screw Microsoft.

May 13, 08 - 12:18 pm Comment from: HazMatt

MDN:
"Microsoft sees the writing on the wall. Muahahahaha!"

Nameless MDN Editor, are you twelve years old?

May 13, 08 - 12:31 pm Comment from: iamdj

NeoOffice. (the period is intentional)

May 13, 08 - 12:35 pm Comment from: Petey

Lets get one thing straight.

This software is selling more because Apple is selling more Macs and their market share is going up - NOT because Microsoft has written a decent version of Office finally for the Mac.

Tried the wannabees: Neo Office, iWork suite, etc...

Not knocking the efforts of their developers - keep new versions coming - but they're not even close to being a MS Office replacement!

iWork is great Keynote plows powerpoint out the water. Pages and word are similar to me. But excel still crushes numbers for power excel users. If you are doing the basic excel stuff I say get iWorks. If your a power user you need excel because numbers doesn't do trend lines, pivot tables and a few other features. Even though excel on the mac has some slight differences(still options with different tables) than pc based excel it still gets the job done.

May 13, 08 - 12:55 pm Comment from: Harvey

I think it is great that Mac Office 2008 is selling so well. Remember, Microsoft doesn't make hardware, so they don't compete with Apple's hardware side.

If making Mac software is profitable, and selling Windows Whosit is not, they will move inexorably toward the Mac like a moth to a lightbulb. Maybe by 2012 they will have reinvented themselves as a Mac software development house.

May 13, 08 - 12:55 pm Comment from: Timbo

Here's a question for all of you more technically savvy than I am:

If I understand correctly, iPhone 2.0 will be able to send and receive mail through Exchange servers.

Could Apple pull off the same for the Mac and incorporate this into future versions of iWork? Please say yes.

May 13, 08 - 12:59 pm Comment from: Harvey

@Timbo

Actually, that is what's happening in June, except it is iLife, not iWork. What's synchronized through Active Sync is only the sort of stuff that's in Outlook.

The iPhone can sync with the Mac. They are adding the ability to sync to Outlook through Exchange. So if you have one Mac and one Windows PC, you'll be able to keep them in sync with each other with an iPhone.

May 13, 08 - 01:02 pm Comment from: bjtwuk

Microsoft Office is currently better than Apple iWork. Or, at least, Excel is better than Numbers. Numbers is not only slow (at opening documents, at updating cells, at sorting), but it is also not very usable.

Here is just one usability example: Have you ever tried to add more than one blank row to a spreadsheet? In Numbers, you can only add one row at a time. If you want to add more, then the only way to add rows is at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Micro$oft thought that they could shaft the Apple community and try and force everyone to Vista. If you need all the functionality of Office then you NEED to get a peecee running Vista to do it. But good 'ole competition blasted Microsoft out of the water. Between iWork and NeoOffice Micro$oft decided it couldn't stand the heat and relented.

I am a Micro$oft free zone and recommend it to everyone. Why pay the MS tax just to use your computer. Why deal with the zillions of security problems that plague MS users everyday? In retrospect it is good that MS figured out that they needed to fix the situation or Office would die, but why not DO THE RIGHT THING TO BEGIN WITH?! Put in the functionality rather than try to screw your users.

Yeah, I need Excel, the windows version. NeoOffice Barfs badly on complex spreadsheets, as does Numbers. I need VB Macro's as alot of spreadsheets I use have them enabled for functionality. Sorry, I'll stick to Excel in on XP in a VM

To a large degree, I see this as 'Vaporware' from the Microsoft camp.

They know that there's a lot of Mac adoption on the consumer side ... and sales of Office 2008 indicates a lot of White Collar types that can influence the adoption of Macs into the Enterprise.

To prevent more wholesale defections away from Office into the different options (NeoOffice, iWork, etc), all MS has to do is to deliver a message that stops these potential "lost sales" for looking for alternatives.

Thus, their promise is to "Bring Back" VBA gives people a warm fuzzy that they don't need to look for alternatives, but merely sit back (fat dumb happy) and wait for MS to deliver.

The clincher here is that this isn't being promised as a **FREE** upgrade to existing (eg, "screwed") Office 2008 customers, but as something that will come about ... um ... "eventually" in a MS Office product whose name and shipping date haven't been even announced. Gosh, its not like we've ever seen this sort of pattern ever before!


-hh

MDN, try not to comment with that silly "use iWork" nonsense.... iWork is a total joke in a corporate situation. It may be fine for the home user or some small little office with a few employees, but it can't do 1/10th of what office can do and it can't do 1/10 of what I (and 85% of the corporate world) needs..

I understand you're a blind fanboy but you continue to show your ignorance of user needs... Learn something before making a total ass out of yourself on a daily basis..

May 13, 08 - 02:32 pm Comment from: Micro Me

Late the party again. Something to do with the earth's rotation and the sun's shadow.

To echo many of the posts above, yes MDN, like many Mac users, I need MS Office. iWork, Neo Office, Open Office etc. just won't cut it.

But if you're considering Office 2008, stop and think. On my Intel iMac, it's actually slower than Office 2004 under Rosetta; painfully slow to launch, and slow to run. There's also a lot of waste space around the top bars. And you'll pay a fortune to get the version that allows Entourage to attach to an Exchange server (I baulked at that, and still use Entourage 2004).

Bad Microsoft. Very bad.

May 13, 08 - 02:34 pm Comment from: Micro Me

Whoops. Late TO the party.