New Office Versions and Virtual PC 6.1

[MacRumors]

Microsoft introduced (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/aug03/08-12OfficeRelaunchPR.asp) three new versions of Office v. X for the Mac today:

Professional, Standard and Student and Teacher editions are now available for $499, $399, and $149 respectively. More details are available at Microsoft's website (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/officex/officex.aspx?pid=officex)

The Professional version now includes Virtual PC 6.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc) for Mac. Previous owners of Virtual PC can download the 6.1 update (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/misc/vpc6_1.xml&secid=100&ssid=1&flgnosysreq=True) for free.

Virtual PC is still available as an individual purchase.

[synergy]

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

[daveL]

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.

[Grimace]

Is Apple.com going to sell it???

[allpar]

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.

[Powerbook G5]

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

[mdntcallr]

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.

[sockgap]

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

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.

[Powerbook G5]

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

[SilentPanda]

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

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

[mdntcallr]

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.

[e-coli]

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

Lame

[SkipNewarkDE]

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.

[gibjer]

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

[sebimeyer]

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..

[sockgap]

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

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.

[xtekdiver]

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.

[betoranaldi]

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

[hamfist]

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

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.

[Escher]

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

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

[spice weasel]

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.

[xtekdiver]

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

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!

[simX]

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!

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.

[xtekdiver]

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.


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.

[kb9000]

Originally posted by sebimeyer
Know how I got Office X?

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


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.

[mstecker]

So, let's see: Microsoft DROPS the price of office, announces a bundle with additional features, promises support for VPC, and this gets more negative than positive votes? Unbelievable.

[Nebrie]

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!

Uh no. Most PC users only see one thing. $2000 (toshiba) $3300 (apple). nuff said. If they're not buying it now, they sure as heck aren't gonna buy it when they can pirate it and stick it into walmart machine.

[edenwaith]

One thing I'm not seeing is an individual copy of VPC being sold. This just once again shows how M$ went and messed things up. So, when is some other x86 emulator coming out?

On the bright side, most of us are using Macs and were unaffected by the MSBlaster worm...my girlfriend's computer got affected, and she spent about 5 hours last night trying to get the thing cleared up so the computer would stop continually restarting.

Yet, M$'s stock went up a few cents yesterday, and today, it has only gone down 9 cents. What ignorant !%@# investors are. If Apple has even a hiccup, their stock tumbles down five dollars.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by mstecker
So, let's see: Microsoft DROPS the price of office, announces a bundle with additional features, promises support for VPC, and this gets more negative than positive votes? Unbelievable.

And what does a Microsoft promise mean to you? To me, it probably means they will only sell VPC with MS Office, and even then, probably only with the XP edition, thus cutting out the DOS, 9x, and Linux versions.

[Admin Edit: This is NOT what it means. click here (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=howtobuy)]

[GeeYouEye]

Before I install this upgrade, does it still run Linux?

[MacFan25]

The student prices are great, and I like how they bundled VPC with the pro version. Office is definitley a better deal now.

[mstecker]

Why in the world would anyone want to run linux under x86 emulation on Mac hardware? OS X is ALREADY a unix-based system. I can't think of a single Linux application that wouldn't compile and run natively under OS X (maybe requiring Apple's X11).

[sjk]

Originally posted by simX
Can you still buy Virtual PC separately?http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=howtobuy

Gee, was that so hard to find? ;)

[fpnc]

Originally posted by SkipNewarkDE
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.

What I wonder about, however, is whether MS has added some type of activation process for VPC. So is it possible that VPC 6.1 is now tied to a single Mac and installation just like Windows XP? Maybe VPC 6.1 requires an activation through MS before it will work.

[arn]

Originally posted by edenwaith
One thing I'm not seeing is an individual copy of VPC being sold. This just once again shows how M$ went and messed things up. So, when is some other x86 emulator coming out?


People are so quick to judge:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=howtobuy


Virtual PC for Mac - Windows XP Professional
Run Microsoft Windows XP Professional on your Mac.
Version 6.1 for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9
Suggested Retail Price: $249

Virtual PC for Mac - Windows XP Home Edition
Run Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition on your Mac.
Version 6.1 for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9
Suggested Retail Price: $219

Virtual PC for Mac - Windows 2000 Professional
Run Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional on your Mac.
Version 6.1 for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9
Suggested Retail Price: $249

Virtual PC for Mac - Standalone
Install your own licensed Microsoft Windows operating systems on your Mac.
Version 6.1 for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9
Suggested Retail Price: $129

Virtual PC for Mac - Upgrade
Upgrade only. Requires Virtual PC for Mac Version 5
Suggested Retail Price: $99


People need to stop making assumptions and crying out that the sky is falling... when it is not.

arn

[Doctor Q]

And what about teachers and students who need VPC? Why aren't there four versions and four prices: Standard, Standard+VPC, Standard for Teachers and Students, and Standard+VPC for Teachers and Students?

[pbooktebo]

I agree with xtechdiver that Open Office is not prime time, but it is free and I would encourage anyone interested to download Apple's X11 installer and Open Office (as long as you have free space). It is fun to use and was my introduction to the X11 system.

What I think Microsoft may be doing is trying to simply sell more copies of XP. I sometimes have a reason to want a Windows program on my powerbook, but never enough to buy a copy of Virtual PC and XP. However, if I got Virtual PC "free" with office, it would be much more tempting to get XP. In fact, think of all the users with Virtual PC who will feel like that app is wasted until they get a Microsoft OS...

I'm a student, but I plan on waiting for the user reports on this Virtual PC before getting.

Finally, my college (Stanford) offers a student version through our tech support for $89.00, although the school bookstore price was $199.00. I'm going to hold out to see if that is available. If you're at a school, you might look for that deal (I think you only get install disks, no box or manual).

[arn]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
And what about teachers and students who need VPC? Why aren't there four versions and four prices: Standard, Standard+VPC, Standard for Teachers and Students, and Standard+VPC for Teachers and Students?

$368 = Student & Teacher ($149) + VPC Home ($219).

arn

[fpnc]

Originally posted by mstecker
I can't think of a single Linux application that wouldn't compile and run natively under OS X (maybe requiring Apple's X11).

I think that's a broad overstatement. Many Linux source code bundles require changes in order to compile and run under OS X. That's why tools like Fink exist and why some people actually end up paying a fee for Linux apps that have been ported to the Mac.

But I agree that once you have BSD-based OS X you really don't need to lust after Linux.

[daveL]

Originally posted by fpnc
What I wonder about, however, is whether MS has added some type of activation process for VPC. So is it possible that VPC 6.1 is now tied to a single Mac and installation just like Windows XP? Maybe VPC 6.1 requires an activation through MS before it will work.
No MS activation. I just did the upgrade and started it up. Nothing strange. It did say it had a newer version of the special drivers that help with device performance. So I allowed it to update. When I restarted, I didn't really notice much of a difference in speed. I don't use it that much to notice.

BTW, MS did say there would be an update in Q4. I'm thinking it will include Panther and G5 support, if nothing else. This update is still a free one for VPC 6.1 users. This info was included in an email I received from Connectix yesterday:

"Microsoft is developing a new version of Virtual PC for Windows, which will be available in Q4 2003. Once this version is available, existing Virtual PC for Windows customers can upgrade at no cost."

[NavyIntel007]

My girlfriend and I are going to split the cost of the Education version. $18/app is pretty good. She can't download attachments with hotmail under safari and finds Appleworks unusable.

I don't understand people complaining about VPC being bundled with Office for $499. You were originally paying that much for just VPC.

I don't like microsoft anymore than the next person. I really wish they'd stop being so paranoid about marketshare and support all platforms (Apple should do this also with quicktime). I love my Tungsten C but, I would have bought a Pocket PC had it natively supported the mac platform as I'm sure many others would. They are moving in the right direction porting MSN to mac but take a giant leap back by not actively upgrading IE. If we didn't have a good enough reason to use Safari, we wouldn't. Hell, charge $20 for it. Some people need it to check bank statements and pay bills. Charge $20 for a full WMP. People would pay.

It's not like the GM won't sell you a Corvette if your wife drives a VW.

[ColdZero]

Originally posted by edenwaith
And what does a Microsoft promise mean to you? To me, it probably means they will only sell VPC with MS Office, and even then, probably only with the XP edition, thus cutting out the DOS, 9x, and Linux versions.

[Admin Edit: This is NOT what it means. click here (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=howtobuy)]

To me it means that they will support the platform as long as it is financially viable....just as any other company would, including Apple.

[FriarTuck]

I just placed my order for the Students & Teachers edition at ClubMac. They don't even have it in the warehouse yet -- it's supposed to arrive today.

$140 seems pretty fair to load two eMacs and a PB.

And that's one more reason to leave the doors to bad PC jail (the armoire where my Dell resides) closed.

Mister Softee wins, I win, and Apple wins.

[pagemap]

I wish MS would release a real version of outlook with office instead of that POS entourage. After testing the beta of Outlook 2003 on my PC, I am really amazed at the new interface MS put into place. I want that on my mac! Thats one of the few things I like better about my PC - Outlook 2003's interface is so much more efficient that anything available for the mac at this point.

Check out it's interface here.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/editions/outlook.asp

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
She can't download attachments with hotmail under safari and finds Appleworks unusable.
.

Why doesn't she use the plug-in for Mail.app that lets you access Hotmail?

Here's a link. (http://sourceforge.net/projects/httpmail-plugin)

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by GeeYouEye
Before I install this upgrade, does it still run Linux?

This makes that a dubious question...


Virtual PC for Mac - Standalone
Install your own licensed Microsoft Windows operating systems on your Mac.

[Snowy_River]

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

An interesting question would be whether MS now has an extra bit of leverage with VPC over Apple to keep them from developing an Office suite...

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by mstecker
So, let's see: Microsoft DROPS the price of office, announces a bundle with additional features, promises support for VPC, and this gets more negative than positive votes? Unbelievable.

It's because it's Microsoft lol, they could give all Apple users a free copy of Office and the thread would probably get loads of negatives (MS syping on us, MS monopolising etc etc)

I was a little dissapointed the update didn't bring performance improvements, I mean no-one knows Windows better than Microsoft.

arn...thank's for pointing out what everyone seems to be missing.

AppleMatt

[omnivector]

Originally posted by daveL
No MS activation. I just did the upgrade and started it up. Nothing strange. It did say it had a newer version of the special drivers that help with device performance. So I allowed it to update. When I restarted, I didn't really notice much of a difference in speed. I don't use it that much to notice.

BTW, MS did say there would be an update in Q4. I'm thinking it will include Panther and G5 support, if nothing else. This update is still a free one for VPC 6.1 users. This info was included in an email I received from Connectix yesterday:

"Microsoft is developing a new version of Virtual PC for Windows, which will be available in Q4 2003. Once this version is available, existing Virtual PC for Windows customers can upgrade at no cost."

you do realize there is a free, open source, cross platform, non-proprietary file format, office suite right?

http://www.openoffice.org

[pagemap]

I think the reason people are reacting negatively is because MS basically repackaged the same old product and are selling it to us again in a new box. Who cares if it has VPC. I for one am not going to pay for the same product twice. It would be like Apple re-releasing Jaguar in a pretty new box and asking us all to pay $129 for it. Not gonna happen.

[AppleMatt]

But it would be a new box...and pretty...why wouldn't you pay?

Steve gets my money :D

AppleMatt

[daveL]

Originally posted by omnivector
you do realize there is a free, open source, cross platform, non-proprietary file format, office suite right?

http://www.openoffice.org
Yes, I do. Where did I mention Office in my post? You don't have to buy Office to run VPC. I use it to run some third-party Windows clients that aren't available on the Mac. And I didn't pay for a Windows license, since I already had win2k from an old PC that died.

[xtekdiver]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
An interesting question would be whether MS now has an extra bit of leverage with VPC over Apple to keep them from developing an Office suite...

How does VPC give MS leverage? I am not sure I understand that. VPC has really lost a lot of its value and usefullness to the terminal client for OS X. Why run virtual when you can interact with an app running native on another box? As a recent "switcher", I have found OS X to be very capable of doing everything I need without Windows, and for the odd app or developing ASP.Net, using the terminal client works better than VPC. In fact, apart from Office, Apple has an extremely versatile platform. I think it's in their best interest to offer a competing product. Will Microsoft quit developing Office if Apple does? One can hope.

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by xtekdiver
Will Microsoft quit developing Office if Apple does? One can hope.

Office v.X is the biggest selling software package for Mac, and it significantly helped drive the switch to OS X. People who work in dual-format environment and switchers use and need Office. Hoping that Office will die is a foolish thing to do, in my opinion.

AppleMatt

[SeaFox]

Now that Microsoft has a special version of Office for Students and Teachers, do they still offer MS Office standard at educational pricing?

I imagine they don't. Which means instaed of buying Office at ed pricing while in school and being able to upgrade it to a regular Office so you can legally use it for your work, you now have to buy Office all over again or get charged with violating the user agreement (using your copy for non-educational purposes).:rolleyes:

[wirewyrm]

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


Maybe not long. At the store I work in the UK, All copies of iLife and Appleworks 6 have just been recalled.

[xtekdiver]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Office v.X is the biggest selling software package for Mac, and it significantly helped drive the switch to OS X. People who work in dual-format environment and switchers use and need Office. Hoping that Office will die is a foolish thing to do, in my opinion.

AppleMatt

Well, I am being a bit facetious, but my sarcasim derives from the fact that MS can't or won't compete fairly. If Apple develops an Office suite that plays nice in a Windows world, the Apple faithful will stop buying MS Office. There is no doubt in my mind that any offering from Apple will be superior in all respects, so MS will either have to compete or quit. Which do you think they will do? I think we despise MS because if they can't force you out, buy you out, or intimidate you out, they pick up their toys and go home. Let MS give us a good reason to buy their product, other than they are the only one. My point is I hope for competition, but my cynacism tells me they will quit rather than compete.

[sacrilicious]

$150 is very reasonable for the software you're getting. Too many of your are irrationally anti-Microsoft.

[daveL]

Originally posted by wirewyrm
Maybe not long. At the store I work in the UK, All copies of iLife and Appleworks 6 have just been recalled.
That's interesting! I wonder if that lends gredence to new releases early next week? Sure hope so. I'd really like a more complete Appleworks offering, which is fully updated for OS X.

[LegionCSUF]

My university offers Office v.X to students for $70. It used to be $20. :( But when the old deal with Microsoft ran out, the new one established was decidedly worse. Still, $70 is better than $150.

[dethl]

I have an order on hold for the older version of Office v. X for Mac. Should I ditch it and save myself $50, or keep my order that I've got now? (this is assuming that I can still get updates for my older version...i would much rather be able to upgrade)

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by arn
People need to stop making assumptions and crying out that the sky is falling... when it is not.

Yet.

Microsoft bundles. This is has been their principal competitive strategy for a couple of decades now, so we earned the right to be suspicious of their methods and motives a long time ago. Some of us are asking ourselves what Microsoft's primary purpose was in purchasing VPC (and simultaneously attempting to keep other PC emulators from entering the market). If I was allowed only one guess, it would be that they are looking down the road toward the discontinuation of OfficeMac and selling VPC plus Office for Windows in a bundle to Mac owners.

No, not this year. Probably not next year either. Later.

So the sky may not be falling, but it's turned a funny color -- and it looks like Windows blue to me.

[arn]

Originally posted by IJ Reilly
Yet.
.....
Some of us are asking ourselves what Microsoft's primary purpose was in purchasing VPC (and simultaneously attempting to keep other PC emulators from entering the market).



Well, anything's possible... but Microsoft's acquisition of VirtualPC technology from Connectix was primarily due to their interest in Connectix's Virtual Server product on the PC side.

The Mac version of Virtual PC was simply a side-effect of the acquisition.

I don't think this is all part of their "evil plan" :)

arn

[applebum]

Originally posted by daveL
That's interesting! I wonder if that lends gredence to new releases early next week? Sure hope so. I'd really like a more complete Appleworks offering, which is fully updated for OS X.


I read somewhere that Apple was coming out with an Office Suite called Iworks. It was supposed to be compatible with MS Office and the review I read was really saying it was going to be great. Has anyone else read this. I think it was in one of the British Mac magazines. I hope it is true.

[tizza]

Originally posted by applebum
I read somewhere that Apple was coming out with an Office Suite called Iworks. It was supposed to be compatible with MS Office and the review I read was really saying it was going to be great. Has anyone else read this. I think it was in one of the British Mac magazines. I hope it is true.

So where was this somewhere you read? Would be great if it was true, and indeed with the MS/Apple ties becoming much looser, one would expect Apple to be coming up with an improved Office suite over Appleworks very soon ...

[Ryan256]

Originally posted by sebimeyer
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..


That's what I did with the 2001 edition, and I can get the same deal with the Professional edition, which means I get Virtual PC and everything for $7! Sweet action!

I used Virtual PC 2.0 on my old beige G3 MT, and it was interesting to see Windows 95 on my Mac, but the performance was less than impressive. I suppose VPC ships with XP, eh? I'll have to see how version 6 runs on my PowerBook.

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by xtekdiver
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.

If Apple does "weave their magic" as you put it they have to be very careful about it. There are a lot of companies and more then a few users that won't touch open office. That's a fact. Yes it will be a fine product for consumers but not in a business environment. Not yet at any rate. If Apple did decide to work with Sun on this it would have to be super ultra mega top secret in the deepest bowels of Apple until a finished product is ready to ship. None of this public beta crap that occurred in Safari.
Microsoft gets a whiff of this they could pull another Internet Exploder and up and kill Office. (Granted in that case they weren't actually making money off the software so no great loss in canceling future versions of IE.) In any case Apple needs to tread lightly around the Redmond giant. At least until they can successfully trip em.

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by arn
Well, anything's possible... but Microsoft's acquisition of VirtualPC technology from Connectix was primarily due to their interest in Connectix's Virtual Server product on the PC side.

The Mac version of Virtual PC was simply a side-effect of the acquisition.

I don't think this is all part of their "evil plan"

Yes I know, but note I qualified the acquisition of VPC with their suppression of other PC emulation products. It's never entirely outlandish to look for ulterior motives where Microsoft is concerned. Microsoft got where they are today by consuming every bit of the pig, including the squeal.

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by wirewyrm
Maybe not long. At the store I work in the UK, All copies of iLife and Appleworks 6 have just been recalled. I'm pretty sure that the announcement of Document (or iWorks, or whatever they call it) is not imminent, and my reason is that MacRumors has no rumors to that effect!

[applebum]

Originally posted by tizza
So where was this somewhere you read? Would be great if it was true, and indeed with the MS/Apple ties becoming much looser, one would expect Apple to be coming up with an improved Office suite over Appleworks very soon ...

I read it in magazine, but it basically said the same thing as this quote that I got off of ThinkSecret.com:

"If you're waiting for AppleWorks 7, look instead for iWorks, coming from Apple later this year. Sources said that iWorks will consist of a word processing application tentatively called "Document," Apple's Keynote presentation software, a spreadsheet application, and a database app. Unlike AppleWorks 6's integrated format, iWorks' apps will be separate programs but connected, much like Apple's iLife. Look for more details on iWorks from Think Secret in the near future."

Jeff

[2stupid2knowit]

Does anyone know if there is an upgrade path for current Office X owners? The only one I saw was for Office 2001 owners? I would like VPC, but not for $250 or $350.

[GregA]

Originally posted by pbooktebo
What I think Microsoft may be doing is trying to simply sell more copies of XP. I sometimes have a reason to want a Windows program on my powerbook, but never enough to buy a copy of Virtual PC and XP. However, if I got Virtual PC "free" with office, it would be much more tempting to get XP.OR... this could be all about getting developers locked into Windows.

If they make a seamless windows experience much like our "Classic environment", with high performance (via a good chunk of Windows-on-VPC running native PowerPC code), and maybe even let developers use fat binaries - developers might just say it's not worth continuing with their Mac version.

Apple could hit back with Cocoa on Windows & Linux, AppleWorks on Windows, and so on. Maybe both sides are preparing their arsenals but holding off till the other side fires.

Just thoughts!
Greg
edit: sorry - AND they can make the same money selling this as a Windows license. They retain their revenue from lost Windows on x86 sales.

[AidenShaw]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
My girlfriend and I are going to split the cost of the Education version.

Will you install it on her Mac or yours? Can't put it on both....

[daveL]

Originally posted by AidenShaw
Will you install it on her Mac or yours? Can't put it on both....
Well, if you had read the posts, you'd know that the Ed deal allows for installation on more than one machine. What, are you the MS software license auditor?

[Nermal]

Is it just me, or is microsoft.com unusably slow at the moment?

Edit: Of course, the exact instant I posted the question, it went and sped itself up.

[AidenShaw]

Originally posted by daveL
Well, if you had read the posts, you'd know that the Ed deal allows for installation on more than one machine.

Yes - where "more than one machine" means that I, as an individual user, can install it on both my desktop and my laptop system.

Please quote the paragraph that says that two people, unrelated by law or genetics, can buy one copy and use it on two primary machines.

[daveL]

Originally posted by AidenShaw
Yes - where "more than one machine" means that I, as an individual user, can install it on both my desktop and my laptop system.

Please quote the paragraph that says that two people, unrelated by law or genetics, can buy one copy and use it on two primary machines.
They're significant others; close enough. If you want to get picky, she could give her machine to him. Now he has two machines, with the SW installed on both of *his* machines. Having done so, he decides what a nice gesture it would to lend her a laptop, since she doesn't have one, anymore. OK?

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by arn
People are so quick to judge:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=howtobuy



People need to stop making assumptions and crying out that the sky is falling... when it is not.

arn

I stand corrected. However, it would have been nice if M$ had been a little more clear that VPC could be purchased separately instead of being bundled.

But does the Stand Alone version mean DOS, or something else? But I did see no Linux version.

Someone else asked, why bother having Redhat or Linux on a Mac? Occasionally, if I wanted to do PC development with Linux, I might use VPC...if the emulation wasn't so slow on my machine. If the emulation was fast enough and worked correctly, then it would be worth it to me, then I could do cross-platform development on one machine. But since my machine is several years old, Redhat is very sluggish, so it would be best for me to compile together a cheap PC and use that for Linux development.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Office v.X is the biggest selling software package for Mac, and it significantly helped drive the switch to OS X. People who work in dual-format environment and switchers use and need Office.

Really? If so, that's kind of sad. From what I've read (this info might be somewhat dated, however), that Office X "only" sold around 300,000 copies, and M$ was irked at Apple for not pushing OS X enough, which was supposedly stagnating Office X sales.

Does anyone have more accurate sales totals of Office X (or any other major app, for that matter)?

[SeaFox]

Originally posted by edenwaith
Really? If so, that's kind of sad. From what I've read (this info might be somewhat dated, however), that Office X "only" sold around 300,000 copies, and M$ was irked at Apple for not pushing OS X enough, which was supposedly stagnating Office X sales.

Call me crazy, but maybe the reason OSX adoption was so slow was until Jaguar, many people couldn't get their scanners/printers to work. And if you can't scan and print, it's kinda worthless to have MS Office on your machine.

Or perhaps they were waiting for Apple to create an upgrade path so they didn't have to buy the OS over and over and over again at full price, like, like, a really lousy Microsoft licensing scheme.

[billyboy]

Originally posted by SeaFox
Call me crazy...

Or perhaps they were waiting for Apple to create an upgrade path so they didn't have to buy the OS over and over and over again at full price, like, like, a really lousy Microsoft licensing scheme.

10.2.1 is miles behind 10.2.6 IMO and it hasnt cost me a dime to get there. Jaguar is what many many people quote here and in the press, as the main reason for owning a Mac. If your version is working well, as is mine, there is no need and definitely no obligation to go out and buy the latest greatest version.

So yes, you are crazy ;)

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by edenwaith
Really? If so, that's kind of sad. From what I've read (this info might be somewhat dated, however), that Office X "only" sold around 300,000 copies, and M$ was irked at Apple for not pushing OS X enough, which was supposedly stagnating Office X sales.

Does anyone have more accurate sales totals of Office X (or any other major app, for that matter)?

I've read that too, I have no idea of it's validity, but it wouldn't surprise me. I suspect once the 300,000 copies were sold people got it off the internet, because they wanted to use Office but not give Microsoft more money.

Call me traditionalist, but I think it's up to a software company to promote their own products if they can't shift them, not blame it on someone else :wink:

AppleMatt

[iPC]

Originally posted by e-coli
Nothing new in the apps. Just product pricing and packaging differences.

Lame
Powerpoint is new....? And of course you get VPC with it also.

Seems ok to me.

OOo is always out there for those of us who don't want to spend the money on something like v.X Problem is that v.X is compatible, and OOo is not 100% there yet. And MS keeps moving the target...

What I want to see is a nice comparison between Keynote and PowerPoint. Prepare the same presentation, and see which is faster to do, which is easier to do, and what are the differences in interface design.

[sockgap]

Originally posted by pagemap
I think the reason people are reacting negatively is because MS basically repackaged the same old product and are selling it to us again in a new box. Who cares if it has VPC. I for one am not going to pay for the same product twice. It would be like Apple re-releasing Jaguar in a pretty new box and asking us all to pay $129 for it. Not gonna happen.

That makes no sense. Microsoft are not claiming that this is Office XI or anything and they are definitely not aiming this at people who already own Office X.
They are just cutting the price by $100 and introducing a new Pro version that adds VPC and XP Pro at the original $499 price. Looks like a sensible way to pull in new customers to me.
Jeez - the lengths some people go to to bash Microsoft when all they are doing is making Office a better deal.

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by iPC
Powerpoint is new....? And of course you get VPC with it also.


Nope...PowerPoints' always been in there. I used to use it quite frequently.

AppleMatt

[thedoc1111]

VPC 6.1 is absolute poison for my iBook - It worked beautifully, without the slightest hitch when Connectix supported it, but as soon as I put on 6.1 I got kernel panics when I started up my OS (WIn 98 SE) and no matter how often I tried to uninstall and reinstall the program, it completely fails to work, panic every damn time. I don't know how M$ do it. I really wouldn't install it if I were you.

Its so disappointing

[daveL]

Originally posted by thedoc1111
VPC 6.1 is absolute poison for my iBook - It worked beautifully, without the slightest hitch when Connectix supported it, but as soon as I put on 6.1 I got kernel panics when I started up my OS (WIn 98 SE) and no matter how often I tried to uninstall and reinstall the program, it completely fails to work, panic every damn time. I don't know how M$ do it. I really wouldn't install it if I were you.

Its so disappointing
I upgraded to 6.1 on my TiBook, 10.2.7, win2k and it works fine. I didn't notice any improvement, but it didn't become unstable.

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by omnivector
you do realize there is a free, open source, cross platform, non-proprietary file format, office suite right?

http://www.openoffice.org

I've tried both Open Office and Think Free Office. In my opinion, they suck. Even though it comes from Microsoft, Office 10 is the best suite of its type on the Mac. If Apple were to create its own office suite that would be 100% compatible with Office for Windows, I'd buy it. I'm not going to buy a grossly inferior product just so I don't have to buy from Microsoft though.

[LegionCSUF]

What exactly "sucks" about OpenOffice? I even use OO on Windows instead of MS Office, and I have a legal MS Office copy.

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by LegionCSUF
What exactly "sucks" about OpenOffice? I even use OO on Windows instead of MS Office, and I have a legal MS Office copy.


I agree. OOo is a remarkable program, considering that it's free. There are only a few things that it can't do that MS Office can. It will be nice when they get the Aqua graphics installed, so that it has more of the look and feel of a Mac product.

An interesting point, now that X11 is going to be integrated into the Mac OS, is there any real reason why the folks at OOo should write all the new routines to get it running under Aqua? Wouldn't it be a better use of their time to implement a Mac look and feel that would still run under X11? Just a thought...


P.S. I agree that Think Free Office sucks. Being a Java app it is rediculously slow at even the most simple of tasks...

[iPC]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Nope...PowerPoints' always been in there. I used to use it quite frequently.

AppleMatt
Ahh ok. I was not sure.

What is the point of Keynote? Is PowerPoint for Mac that bad?

[jaedreth]

No, Keynote is that good. You know *why* Keynote was created?

Steve Jobs had it created to make his MacWorld keynote presentations.

He loved the app so much, he decided to sell it.

That's how it got the name.

Jaedreth

[bcsimac]

If they really wanted to drop the price....drop it down to $299 or 199 for the basic standard edition.....that is a real price drop! Ok, they dropped it down $100 and I suppose that is really something for Microsoft who is money hungry to do.......but man really drop the price to something affordable and humane! Now that Microsoft owns Virtual PC the price should have dropped because $100 of VPC price went to Microsoft's licensing royalty fees. Now this is pure profit for Microsoft to keep the price the same. It is nice to see they included VPC with Office Pro....but $499 is too much.....try more like $349 or 329....that would be better. The teacher and student edition for $149 is a good price. I just wish I was either of them! I still believe the regular standard edition should be like $199-$249....basically 50 to 100 bucks more than students.....not 250 bucks more like it is now.

[Doctor Q]

How 'bout if they charge $1 for Office, but all the features are disabled, and you pay $1 extra to enable each feature you want to use. $1 for spellcheck, $1 for styles, $1 for print preview, etc. Since it has 1000 features, but an average person only needs 50-100 of them, almost all of us would pay less. You could just give Bill your credit card number and the hidden code in Office that monitors your every keystroke would simply charge you when it saw you use a feature you didn't pay for yet!

;) ;) ;) ;)

[leicaman]

Originally posted by sebimeyer
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..

Funny thing those thieves are going to find out is that only one copy can run on the network at a time. Hope they don't find out on finals night.

Where I went to school, such theft was considered equal to plaigiarism. And they got the boot from school.

Contrary to popular opinion, stealing from Microsoft is still stealing.:rolleyes:

[leicaman]

.

Someone else asked, why bother having Redhat or Linux on a Mac? Occasionally, if I wanted to do PC development with Linux, I might use VPC...if the emulation wasn't so slow on my machine. If the emulation was fast enough and worked correctly, then it would be worth it to me, then I could do cross-platform development on one machine. But since my machine is several years old, Redhat is very sluggish, so it would be best for me to compile together a cheap PC and use that for Linux development.

Why not use Yellow Dog Linux? It only runs on Macs.

[Mudbug]

I've stayed away from this thread for a while now... I can't say I'm a big propenent of M$ products, but for the most part until another mac software comes along and can open/save/reopen/distribute M$ office product file formats, then we'll have to continue using what's existing. You can't switch the world - you have to join them on a certain level. I know, that's blasphemy. But reality blasphemy.

Here's what Dr. Mac Bob Levitus (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2048979) had to say about it.

Bob's a great friend to the mac (hence the title) and is using the power of the Houston cronicle to preach the good gospel of the mac to the non-believers/users as much as he can. This almost got it's own story on www.macbytes.com but I thought the thread would just point back here, and you'd all read it anyway :rolleyes:
Let's give ol' Bob the site traffic he deserves ;)

[Squire]

Originally posted by xtekdiver
How does VPC give MS leverage? I am not sure I understand that. VPC has really lost a lot of its value and usefullness to the terminal client for OS X. Why run virtual when you can interact with an app running native on another box? As a recent "switcher", I have found OS X to be very capable of doing everything I need without Windows, and for the odd app or developing ASP.Net, using the terminal client works better than VPC. In fact, apart from Office, Apple has an extremely versatile platform. I think it's in their best interest to offer a competing product. Will Microsoft quit developing Office if Apple does? One can hope.

I agree. It would probably be in Apple's best (financial) interests to make a complete office suite. In fact, there were rumors floating around about a word processing program called "Document." Make that and a spreadsheet app, throw Keynote in there, and voila! They have one hot-selling product.

Worst-case scenario: Apple develops their own Windows emulator. Actually, that would probably never happen, would it?

Squire

[Squire]

Originally posted by leicaman
Where I went to school, such theft was considered equal to plaigiarism. And they got the boot from school.

Contrary to popular opinion, stealing from Microsoft is still stealing.:rolleyes:

plagiarism

n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own

(Not my own words, by the way. Taken from dictionary.com. ;))

Wait a minute. Your school kicked people out for copyright infringement? What about downloading mp3 files? Underage drinking? Hitchhiking? (BTW, I don't know if all of the above are illegal in your area.) That has "appeal" written all over it.

For 7 dollars, though, you'd think the students would be willing to pay.

I wouldn't mind having the student/teacher pack. But, again, I wouldn't want to fork over the cash for it and then have Apple release a superior product.

Squire

[applekid]

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

What I want to see: a souped up version of AppleWorks that would be comparable to the Office suite packaged with a cheap under $600 G4 or G5 mini-tower with minimal upgradability (a little more than an iMac) plus a very low end processor speed. You have a cheap office machine that will blow all of the office PCs out of the water.

[leicaman]

Originally posted by Squire
Wait a minute. Your school kicked people out for copyright infringement? What about downloading mp3 files? Underage drinking? Hitchhiking? (BTW, I don't know if all of the above are illegal in your area.) That has "appeal" written all over it.

No, they kicked them out for pliagiarism. There was no such thing as MP3s back then. They were still stealing music with Reel to Reel and cassette tapes. :rolleyes:

Dishonest behavior of any kind was hard on the grades if you got caught. And yes, underage driking and hijacking a railroad hand-car once got three students at my school federal charges and probation. It's amazing half the teen population isn't in jail for the things they do.

And our culture keeps telling teens to do more outrageous things than their parents did. I shudder to think what teens will be like 50 years hence. Maybe a backlash to the 1950s? Leave it to Beaver!:D

[AppleMatt]

Goto www.apple.com, hopefully Microsoft won't get on Apple's case about poor advertising being the cause of poor Office v.X sales.

LOL.

AppleMatt

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by applekid
What I want to see: a souped up version of AppleWorks that would be comparable to the Office suite packaged with a cheap under $600 G4 or G5 mini-tower with minimal upgradability (a little more than an iMac) plus a very low end processor speed. You have a cheap office machine that will blow all of the office PCs out of the water.

G5 for <$600? You're seriously dreaming. The hardware alone costs more than that. Apple would loose money on every sale. I know, but they'd make it up with volume!


Honestly, though, I think that this is a great thing to hope for, but until we see something like an IBM made G4, I doubt we'll see such a thing. The old iMac was starting to decend into this range, so I could see them pulling it off if they were to use a cheap enough chip that would still draw the right attention (i.e. not a G3).

[BrandonRP0123]

Installed the VPC 6.1 update.

Windows XP wants to cry home to mama because I've changed the underlying hardware, for one.

For two, my serial number didn't work
after I installed it. (no, it's not a Juarez copy). I went to fill out the chingus when I first started it up, entered my serial and it still wouldn't let me click the right arrow. After e-mailing back n forth to M$ AND faxing them a copy of the receipt, serial number and all that crap, I got issued a new serial number.

All of this for a .1 update too. Hello, Microsoft.

[Snowy_River]

You know, Apple has always liked rearranging the order of the letters for the components of Office. Normally, they're presented as 'W X P E' for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage, respectively. Some time back Apple arranged them in a way that seemed to be commenting on Apple's opinion of Windows XP, as they used the order 'E W X P', or 'Ew, XP'.

Now, it seems that they've changed the order again, and I'm wondering if there's a hidden message in this one:

http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/c75cc20fc92524/www.apple.com/macosx/applications/office/images/icons11162001.jpg

So far, I've been unable to detect it...

[BrandonRP0123]

Originally posted by pagemap
I think the reason people are reacting negatively is because MS basically repackaged the same old product and are selling it to us again in a new box. Who cares if it has VPC. I for one am not going to pay for the same product twice. It would be like Apple re-releasing Jaguar in a pretty new box and asking us all to pay $129 for it. Not gonna happen.

Goto the Apple Store right now and buy Jaguar.

It's 10.2.6.

[Squire]

Originally posted by leicaman
No, they kicked them out for pliagiarism. There was no such thing as MP3s back then. They were still stealing music with Reel to Reel and cassette tapes. :rolleyes:


Copying MS Office isn't plagiarism. It's illegal, yes, but I believe it would fall under the category of copyright infringement, NOT plagiarism.

Squire

[GregA]

Originally posted by Squire
Worst-case scenario: Apple develops their own Windows emulator. Actually, that would probably never happen, would it?Would there be a reason to? MS has their source code and hardware emulator - it would be hard to do a better job than they do (assuming MS put any effort into it).

Maybe Apple could make it really easy for people to port MS apps to the Mac - kind of like porting "Classic" apps to "Carbon". When developers write in Carbon now, it runs on the classic OS as well as MacOS X. So create an API on the Mac so that developers can port Windows apps to Mac and still run on Windows (just compile for the processor?).

edit: just clarified "Apple"

[xtekdiver]

Originally posted by applekid
What I want to see: a souped up version of AppleWorks that would be comparable to the Office suite packaged with a cheap under $600 G4 or G5 mini-tower with minimal upgradability (a little more than an iMac) plus a very low end processor speed. You have a cheap office machine that will blow all of the office PCs out of the water.

Admittedly, anything offered by Apple will be compared to Appleworks, but I think for marketing reasons Apple should distance itself from Appleworks and create something new. I agree that a sub $600 office machine makes sense, but Apple still has a lot of work to do to give corporate buyers a reason to try it. Not that I want to get off on this tangent, but, the key to getting Apples into the office space is porting OS X to intel. Let people use it on their Dell first, once they discover how good it is, buying macs all around won't seem too extreme. Very few companies will buy all new systems accross the board, especially if it is an entirely new platform. One might argue why buy Apple if I can buy Dell, and I would counter why not? Cube your cube! It is better, more stable, price pointed the same, ect. Our company buys Dell because Dell is the best and cheapest for what we do. It is really just a matter of price, stability, an support. The real hang up for a lot of companies is can it run on the hardware we have and work with MS Office documents? If I could answer yes to those two questions I could get my company to go with Apple's OS X tomorrow with one simple argument: it is more secure! Agree with me or not, one thing is certain, port OS X to Intel with an Office suite and Apple will send shockwaves through this industry. OS X was not ready two years ago, but it is now. The issue should not be Intel vrs G5, but Microsoft vrs Apple. As Gimli says, "Oooh, we can take em!"

[GregA]

Originally posted by xtekdiver
Admittedly, anything offered by Apple will be compared to Appleworks, but I think for marketing reasons Apple should distance itself from Appleworks and create something new.At the moment Microsofts ".doc" is almost a standard... except that other applications can't read it perfectly.

Forgetting the argument of whether Apple should improve Appleworks, develop on OpenOffice, or co-develop Lotus-WordPro - is there a good quality, open format that ALL the other office suites out there could share, good enough that it could be the preferred format for them all? (Or is XML far enough along to fully achieve that?)

[xtekdiver]

Originally posted by GregAussie
At the moment Microsofts ".doc" is almost a standard... except that other applications can't read it perfectly.

Forgetting the argument of whether Apple should improve Appleworks, develop on OpenOffice, or co-develop Lotus-WordPro - is there a good quality, open format that ALL the other office suites out there could share, good enough that it could be the preferred format for them all? (Or is XML far enough along to fully achieve that?)

I don't know the answer to your question, but I doubt that, even if there were a standard, Microsoft would adopt it. I mean, why would they? They arguably own the market as far as office apps go. Every time MS touches some "open" standard they try to change it and make it their own. (do we say Java or J#) It goes without saying that any office suite put out by Apple or anyone else needs to be compatible with MS Office. For example, if my company were to adopt some other office suite, be it OpenOffice, Lotus, AppleWorks, ect, we still recieve documents from our business partners that are using MS Office; we must have the ability to exchange and work with those documents. At the moment, the easiest solution is to use MS Office too, but it's not like my company hasn't asked me about other products. MS Office is expensive! They would love nothing more than to dump it for something cheaper and even better. But back to your question, I think that XML will help other suites to be much more compatible with less work. So for now, MS call the shots. This is why I religiously beleive in the need for someone to take on MS and reduce their market share. It is bad for one company to dominate like this; of course, I believe Apple to be the best company for this.

[leicaman]

Originally posted by Snowy_River

Now, it seems that they've changed the order again, and I'm wondering if there's a hidden message in this one:

http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/c75cc20fc92524/www.apple.com/macosx/applications/office/images/icons11162001.jpg

So far, I've been unable to detect it... [/B]

EX Window People

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by xtekdiver
... the key to getting Apples into the office space is porting OS X to intel....

Oh no, here we go again...

... one thing is certain, port OS X to Intel with an Office suite and Apple will send shockwaves through this industry...

And probably put a nail in their own coffin...

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by GregAussie
At the moment Microsofts ".doc" is almost a standard... except that other applications can't read it perfectly.

Forgetting the argument of whether Apple should improve Appleworks, develop on OpenOffice, or co-develop Lotus-WordPro - is there a good quality, open format that ALL the other office suites out there could share, good enough that it could be the preferred format for them all? (Or is XML far enough along to fully achieve that?) What I'd like to see:

1. Everyone but Microsoft agrees on an office-document document-format standard. XML would be fine, with an agreed-upon schema, but something else would be fine too - the format doesn't matter as long as everyone agrees.

2. An open standards group develops and maintains source code to convert MS Office documents to/from the new standard. With Microsoft increasingly using HTML and XML document formats, I imagine that this will be possible.

3. All non-Microsoft vendors use these conversion routines to allow their products to open and save MS Office documents.

The advantage would be that the open source community would take care of all the details that would lead to conversion quirks if each vendor had written its own conversion routines. Open source coders work 24/7 and don't worry about when the next version of a commercial product will come out. Instead, they will make it work and keep it up to date across all versions of MS Office, at least from now on. I'd depend on that code more than I would the import/export facilities of a single vendor.

[BrandonRP0123]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
G5 for <$600? You're seriously dreaming. The hardware alone costs more than that. Apple would loose money on every sale. I know, but they'd make it up with volume!

[/Edit]

Honestly, if they did this with the current G4 that wouldn't be such a bad idea.
(think celeron versus pentium inteland)

Then of course, the argument could be the ``i'' line versus the ``Power'' line. An iBook could be had for 799 right now - and I remember the original iMac went for $999. The current high-end Power-series machines can be had for around $3000. Dell has the same setup with their notebooks - but there's a happy medium (a decently equipped Inspiron has similar features as their Latitude line, for example). This could also be said between Dell's Dimension line and their (Optoplex?) line of machines. While, perhaps, storage is an exception (as you can get the same drives in both the powerbooks and ibooks), the fact that the iBook is still on a 100Mhz bus (66Mhz on my model - the rev A snowbook), and lacks a super drive really sucks.

The problem in the past was the limited upgrade potential of the i series. This is also attributed to the fact that Apple makes the i-line of products visually stimulating to your ``average'' user.

The eMac, however, offers a 1Ghz G4, 60GB drive and combo drive for $999.

Yet, the eMac is arguably the old iMac on steroids (or would the iMac would have looked like if they didn't go with the half watermelon screen on a stick setup as they have now). While the educational market is a prime target for this machine (mainly cost) - why is Apple stopping there? It IS their lowest price desktop machine (starting at $799).

The 12" powerbook appears to be an attempt to bridge the feature gap, but there's still work to be done on it. Within a revision or two, it should be fully-featured but still significantly less ($) than the flagship (now 17") PowerBook.

It appears Apple is in transition in the Power-series notebooks (a 12" with not enough feature, a 15" with yesterday's feature, and a 17" that has everything the user wants in the smaller PowerBooks (to quote from Full Metal Jacket, the 17" is ``too boku'' for some of us). Trickle, trickle, trickle those features down.

[BrandonRP0123]

Originally posted by BrandonRP0123
Honestly, if they did this with the current G4 that wouldn't be such a bad idea.
(think celeron versus pentium inteland).

This would also help the education market greatly with the transition to OS X. The eMac today is the iMac of yesterday, is the Macintosh LC of yesteryear. It's an affordable Mac, sure, but, as always it lacks some of the features of the other available Macs (LCD screen, blue tooth, mainly expandability).

Apple also is a bit ahead of the game. The PC makers that offer a $599 machine offer it with a CRT. Dell's cheapest PC comes with a 5400RPM ``value'' hard drive. Barf. It's arguable that Apple went right where they should have went left when phasing out their line of CRTs, as they cost NOTHING to make nowadays, and could be offered with a Power Mac G4 for next to nothing. Instead, the CRT is in the eMac, and as I said before, not the lower-cost fully-functional/expandable machine we're used to with the Power Mac. Sigh.

[GregA]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
What I'd like to see:
1. Everyone but Microsoft agrees on an office-document document-format standard.
2. An open standards group develops and maintains source code to convert MS Office documents to/from the new standard.
3. All non-Microsoft vendors use these conversion routines to allow their products to open and save MS Office documents.Ahh.. worded better than my attempt, and some better ideas!

If every Office competitor uses one standard it makes it possible to offer an alternative. An open-source "standard" format, AND standard conversions for Office would be great.

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by GregAussie
If every Office competitor uses one standard it makes it possible to offer an alternative. An open-source "standard" format, AND standard conversions for Office would be great. And the coup de grâce would be when, eventually, widespread use of and demand for the standard causes Microsoft to add direct support for it!

[Capt Underpants]

I am excited about this.... When I get my first mac, I wouldn't want to pay 400.00 for an office suite when I am a student and can get the same thing on the PC side for 150.00. I think the prices are very reasonable.

[QCassidy352]

Originally posted by leicaman
Funny thing those thieves are going to find out is that only one copy can run on the network at a time. Hope they don't find out on finals night.

Where I went to school, such theft was considered equal to plaigiarism. And they got the boot from school.

Contrary to popular opinion, stealing from Microsoft is still stealing.:rolleyes:

also contrary to popular opinion, one copy of MS office can in fact run on several computers on the same network at the same time. I've tried it, just to see if it worked, and it did.

[leicaman]

Originally posted by QCassidy352
also contrary to popular opinion, one copy of MS office can in fact run on several computers on the same network at the same time. I've tried it, just to see if it worked, and it did.

Every time I try it, it says there is already a copy with that serial number on the network, and then it shuts down. Are you using the same serial number? (i.e. legal?) ;)

The new education verison lets you legally install 3 copies at home.