New Office Versions and Virtual PC 6.1

Pricing

The Student pricing is the only reasonable one there.
WTF is up with the other prices?

MS doesn't list any new features for VPC 6.1, but they do say you need it to receive future bug fixes and updates, i.e. it's the only versions MS will support.

Is Apple.com going to sell it???

Office x

The teacher edition will probably not allow upgrades - just be careful.

Also, I'm curious as to when the new file format version of Office will be out. I'd hate to spend $150 on Office - wtih the money going to criminals - when I would just have to shell it out again next year.

Yeah, I am a bit cautious of the $150 student/teacher version as well

what about a reduced priced version when you buy a new mac?

that is what i really want. the new software at a great price.

the software upgrade costs are still high from an earlier version.

Re: Pricing

Originally posted by synergy
The Student pricing is the only reasonable one there.
WTF is up with the other prices?

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Dude, they cut the price of Office by $100. Plus they only charge $100 more for the Pro version with VPC AND Windows XP Pro. Looks like a sweet deal to me.

It's just not easy trusting Microsoft...I've been burnt too many times by them before.

Originally posted by carletonmusic
Is Apple.com going to sell it???

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The student version is for sale on Apple.com. I assume the others are too.

May be a sweet deal, but there was an awesome deal before.

The $199 office suite for Mac with a purchase of a new mac computer.

That is the deal i still want. maybe $250 with the Professional version.

but anything more than that costs too much for me.

Nothing new in the apps. Just product pricing and packaging differences.

Lame

Re-activate?!?

Well, this 6.1 update essentially just rebrands the software, replacing the name "Connectix" with "Microsoft" in all of the documentation and graphics. There are four bugs that were fixed. One deals with an Airport Extreme issue, the second a problem with drawing arcs in Java, the third with a compatibility mode for installing copy-protected software, and finally a fix for an auto-restore issue with OS 9.2.2.

What really surprised me, though was that XP decided that after this udpate, the "hardware" had changed so much since my initial installation, that it really needed to call home to Microsoft for a reactivation. Anyone else see this? I wonder what they did to the virtual machine underlying this, as I haven't changed my physical hardware at all.

So whats new, looks like Office X with the patches in a new box

Know how I got Office X?

A friend bought it for $7 (!!) in the universitities bookstore when he bought Jaguar. They had a bundle for some reason.

Naturally everybody in sight copied it. Now half the university has Office X and Microsoft got $7 in return. I'd say we founded our very won Justice Department. One that does something against Microsoft anyway..

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Yeah, I am a bit cautious of the $150 student/teacher version as well

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I don't see why - at $150 it's cheaper than an upgrade. You could just buy that edition again any time you wanted to move up a version.

Bah! When is Apple going to come out with their own Office suite? With all of the amazing software products they have come out with I am still amazed they are neglecting this very important area. M$ Office is extremly overpriced; Entourage is a horrid application, Powerpoint is irrelevant, which leaves only Word and Excel as useful apps. I want M$ completely out of my life!!! Please Steve, come out with Apple Office, put OS X on x86, and force M$ to compete.

if apple were to put Mac OS X on x86 it would be the end of Apple (hardware)

Originally posted by xtekdiver
Bah! When is Apple going to come out with their own Office suite?

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that's a good question. considering apple's strategy in the audio/video applications area, i.e., strategic purchases that will position apple at key entry points in specific applications without having to create the applications in-house, i would've expected apple to have made a move on, e.g., openoffice or something like that. just an idea. apple could certainly build off of it in the same way they built OSX. with the MS/apple relationship fairly strained in recent months (no new explorer development, apple's proprietary Mail and Keynote applications) it may seem high time to 'cut the cord,' so to speak. just a thought...let me know what you think.

Re: Pricing

Originally posted by synergy
The Student pricing is the only reasonable one there.

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The $149 price for the student edition is really fantastic. Not only is it $50 below the previous educational pricing, but it also lets you run Office on three (3) systems. That fits very nicely with Apple's Family licence for OS X.

Of course, this is just a strategy for Microsoft to sell more copies of Office. After all, it's already been out for almost two years and (almost) everybody who really needed it already bought a copy.

Let's hope this pricing structure stays if/when they release a new version of Office next year.

Escher

Has anyone here used OpenOffice before? I think there is a Mac version. Just wondering how it compares to MS Office.

I am always leary of MS products, mostly because of their annoying EULAs. I do use Office, but only because I was able to get the full suite for $45 through my university. The EULA for that deal allows you to install on one desktop and one portable. That's fine, since that's all I have. Problem is, you better not have a hard drive die on you, or have to re-initialize at any time. Re-install past the second time and you cannot run Office apps on both computers at the same time if both are on the same local network. Ever try dealing with MS customer service or support? It's easier for me to just turn off Airport, launch the second app, then restart Airport again. Works fine that way.

When it comes to MS products, I highly recommend piracy as the only way you are sure to get something worth what you pay for it. Word is a good word processor, but it is bloated and often tries to "help" by automating tasks you don't want it to. Keynote is much better and easier to use than PowerPoint (not to mention that you can export to a QT movie. You can do something like that in PowerPoint using Producer, but it only works in Windows and is a pain in the rear to use). There is no Mac version of Access database. Entourage is just plain ugly and annoying (but I also hated Outlook Express. I've always used either Eudora or Mail.app). Excel is nice, but I suspect that for most people the AppleWorks spreadsheet probably works just fine. And you can save your worksheets as Excel files anyway.

I just hope that Apple gives us a really powerful version of AppleWorks that can truly stand up to MS Office.

Originally posted by betoranaldi
if apple were to put Mac OS X on x86 it would be the end of Apple (hardware)

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I could not disagree more. Apple would not only gain market share with their software they would surpass hardware sales of even Dell. Apple's innovative industrial design is superior to anything out there. For example, compare Toshiba's 17" laptop to Apple's. Which would you buy? Nuff said!

There's one question that I have about this new lineup of Office X products from Microsoft that I have never seen answered:

Can you still buy Virtual PC separately? I have just about no use whatsoever for the Office X applications (AppleWorks, horrid and in need of a redesign as it is, is fine for everything that I do), and the only product I would potentially want is Virtual PC. But if I have to pay $499 to get it, then count me out.

I wonder if FWB's RealPC will ever come out.

Originally posted by xtekdiver
I could not disagree more. Apple would not only gain market share with their software they would surpass hardware sales of even Dell. Apple's innovative industrial design is superior to anything out there. For example, compare Toshiba's 17" laptop to Apple's. Which would you buy? Nuff said!

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This has been debated in many other threads ad nauseam. Let's not turn this thread into an OS X on intel thread. It's about Virtual PC 6.1 and the new Office X lineup.

Originally posted by spice weasel
Has anyone here used OpenOffice before? I think there is a Mac version. Just wondering how it compares to MS Office.

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OpenOffice only runs under Xwindows. It really isn't ready for prime time. However, an alliance with Sun might prove interesting. But I think Apple needs to weave their magic here.

Originally posted by sebimeyer
Know how I got Office X?

A friend bought it for $7 (!!) in the universitities bookstore when he bought Jaguar.

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My University has some sort of deal with Microsoft so all students and faculty get Office for free*.

*but then I realized some of my tuition is going to Microsoft I write papers in TextEdit anyway because it renders text in a more attractive manner.