Office 11 for Mac Beta?

[MacRumors]

MacShrine posts (http://www.macshrine.com/) some unrevealing screenshots from a beta of Microsoft Office 11 for the Mac, which is expected to be announced at MacWorld Expo.

The shots simply reveal application sizes as well as the installer up to the Serial Number request (hmmm).

Of potentially more interest is the What's New in Office 11 (http://www.macshrine.com/OOBUE_Whats_New.html) document which provides some limited notes on "What's new in Office 11".

Microsoft is expected to announce (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/01/20040101213714.shtml) both Office 11 and Virtual PC 7 at MacWorld... though based on the most recent hints, shipment of the final product is not expected for a few months.

[SeaFox]

"unrevealing screenshots", I had to read that twice to make sure I had the meaning right. :D

[~Shard~]

Office 11, eh? MWSF is going to be just full of surprises, isn't it? :cool:

[Waluigi]

Damn, I just spent a few hundred bucks getting Mac Office v.X

If it runs faster (ie: optimized for the G5) I'll get an upgrade, but otherwise I won't.

--Waluigi

[FredAkbar]

Interesting that it's officially Office:Mac 11, but the Setup Assistant says 2004 in a tiny font underneath "Office:Mac" (and no "11") in the yellow thing at the top. Is this normal? I thought Office 2004 was just the Windows version.

[snahabed]

Honestly, what's the point?

Office X works perfectly fine, and 99% of us dont use 99% of the program as it is.

And even on my G4 867, the suite is quite fast enough. I am sure it is lightning fast on a G5 even without optimized code. It is Word, not Final Cut Pro here :)

No need to upgrade, as I see it.

[Powerbook G5]

Seems like Microsoft is kind of inconsistent with the actual name of this new version. I'd get it, but I just spent $150 of v.X only a few months ago and so far I have had in reinstall it twice and I still have errors when opening saved files with it so I am not sure if I want to buy another version anytime soon.

[warcraftmaster]

i want to see the new msn
i hope its like msn 6 for wintel
i wish i could use ichat but i know no one with it:rolleyes:

[Powerbook G5]

Why do you need to know people with iChat? Out of the 30 some people on my list, only two others actually use iChat.

[Awimoway]

Well, you may think the pics are unrevealing, but they're revealing to me. I see that at least the next version of Office for Macs will not simply be the Windows version, requiring VPC to run. But don't think it couldn't happen next time.


I know, I know. I'm too paranoid.

. . .Yeah, whatever. :p

[Stike]

Looks fake to me.
Office 11, Copyright Microsoft 2001 ???
Yeah, right! :D :p

[Powerbook G5]

If Microsoft did stop making a native Mac version of Office, I'd say that would definitely mean that Apple will be coming out with a new Office suite program of their own since they'd have lots of upset Mac users who just won't accept Appleworks 6 as is.

[Lancetx]

Notice in the screenshot where you put the Product Key that it refers to the "back of the DVD case." If this is for real I guess we can assume the Office will ship on DVD rather than CD this time around...

[Powerbook G5]

The current versions comes in a DVD case, though. It's just part of the packaging.

[mac15]

there could be several version Mac OS X nows ships on a DVD too aswell as a CD

[Stike]

What version of Mac OS or "Get Info" command are they using anyway?
I dont see the stripes, which are still visible in Panther...

[G5orbust]

looks fake to me. MSoft isnt that behind to not copy right the thing up to current date.

[bluedalmatian]

I suspect this is going to be another typical MS upgrade where they expect people to pay a huge upgrade fee for what amounts to just a handful of bug fixes and nothing else.

Nobdoby will buy it as a result, then they can claim sales are non -existent and it gives them a perfect excuse to discontinue it.

[simX]

NEWS FLASH to MacShrine: Post us something we will care about it, then we'll come back. I don't think anybody cares about how big the applications are. :rolleyes:

[WM.]

Originally posted by mac15
there could be several version Mac OS X nows ships on a DVD too aswell as a CD
No, it doesn't. Macs with DVD drives come with Restore DVDs, instead of a big stack of CDs, but (my copy of) Panther came with exactly four discs in the box: three OS install CDs and an "Xcode Tools" CD.

WM

[HasanDaddy]

How come all the pics of the INFO boxes only show the copyrights up to 2001?

wouldn't it say 2004?

[Awimoway]

Word v. X lists 1983-2001. I don't know why, but it seems to be normal.

[Sailfish]

MS Office?, no thanks.

Appleworks opens in about half a second, costs only $80, contains no macro viruses or exploits and won't call home all the time and require a phone call when I upgrade equipment and transfer the software.

Since version 6.2 now reads and writes Excel files, if by rare chance I get one there will be no problem.

Please Steve, give us Mac users a professional level iOffice suite.

[Stike]

Originally posted by Awimoway
Word v. X lists 1983-2001. I don't know why, but it seems to be normal.

It is normal in so far that the original Office X has been released in 2001.

[backspinner]

please give us long file name support!

[iJon]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Why do you need to know people with iChat? Out of the 30 some people on my list, only two others actually use iChat.
i have a feeling he meant that no one uses ichat as in AIM, which is probably why he used MSN.

iJon

[Garry]

More interestly, the "What's New" document contains the word 'Compatibly.' That seems a very odd word for an official Microsoft document to use.

[jjovy94]

Please look at and join the Different District to see more pictures. They were originally ours.

www.differentdistrict.com

P.S. We hope to get a serial code today so we can show you some more pictures. Now we just have program hacks from image files.

[djjon]

i also really want a mac version of msn 6 because I do not know one person that uses AIM.

[uv23]

I'd like to see a new ver. of Office that is not only faster on G5s but on G4s as well. Word runs reasonably well on my 1GHz 12" PowerBook but when working with large docs (200+ page with tables and formatting) it's a fair bit slower than it was on my 1GHz Athlon (the computer that I "switched" from).

[Powerbook G5]

Right now, the biggest paper I have done in Word has been about 55 pages and it still ran reasonably fast, but that was under OS 9 with Office 98. With Office v.X under OS X, the biggest document I've written has been 42 pages and it is fast to open and scroll, it just takes a few moments time to finish its word count and spelling/grammar check. The thing I want to see done is improved stability. So far, only two things have ever crashed or given me a kernal panic on OS X. AOL gave me two kernal panics when I signed on to cancel my account after getting .Mac and Office gave me one when I first installed it and opened Word for the first time. Since then, the only program that has ever given me errors has been Office. Everytime I open a saved document in Word or try opening Powerpoint or Entourage, I get an error trying to initialize "Framework X" and it quits with an error report box. The only way I can work on saved files is to actually open Word first and then clicking open and then navigating to my saved files for some reason. If Microsoft finally can improve that stability program, I'd be happy. I have about 22 gigs of programs and other stuff on my HD and so far it's the only thing to ever give me such a headache.

[jwhitnah]

Originally posted by Stike
Looks fake to me.
Office 11, Copyright Microsoft 2001 ???
Yeah, right! :D :p

Exactly. With each NEW version, the copyright reflects its release date. Not only that, for EVERY NEW version the icons for each application (eg powderpoint, werd) change. These icons look unchanged to me. Looks fake. Hopefully they will release a new update soon (1/5/04!). Office XP (don't have 2003) was a welcome improvement and in my opinion, it is easier to use than Office X.

[jjovy94]

We have an App. It looks real to us.

[blumie607]

Originally posted by FredAkbar
Interesting that it's officially Office:Mac 11, but the Setup Assistant says 2004 in a tiny font underneath "Office:Mac" (and no "11") in the yellow thing at the top. Is this normal? I thought Office 2004 was just the Windows version.

Actually, Office 2003 is the new version for Windows. The new version for Mac is usually some even number so it might be Office 2004 or it might be Office 11 (after Office 10 or X for Mac).

Also, it says unpublished work, so MS might decide to come out with a consistent naming scheme before the product ships.

[~Shard~]

Originally posted by blumie607
The new version for Mac is usually some even number so it might be Office 2004 or it might be Office 11

Thanks for the head's up, I didn't realize 11 was an even number. ;) :p

[kidA]

Originally posted by jwhitnah
Exactly. With each NEW version, the copyright reflects its release date. Not only that, for EVERY NEW version the icons for each application (eg powderpoint, werd) change. These icons look unchanged to me. Looks fake.
the icons change everytime? really? the icons for the windows version have looked the same for years. now that they've got nice icons, why not just keep them?

[tny]

Originally posted by snahabed
Honestly, what's the point?

Office X works perfectly fine, and 99% of us dont use 99% of the program as it is.

And even on my G4 867, the suite is quite fast enough. I am sure it is lightning fast on a G5 even without optimized code. It is Word, not Final Cut Pro here :)

No need to upgrade, as I see it.

For you, maybe. Personally, I can't live without *REAL* Unicode support in my word processor, and Nisus doesn't cut it as a word processor. (Haven't tried Mellel yet).

[tny]

Originally posted by kidA
the icons change everytime? really? the icons for the windows version have looked the same for years. now that they've got nice icons, why not just keep them?
Actually, that's wrong. The icons for Office on Windows change pretty much every time: I think the smallest change was from 2000 to XP; if you compare the 2003 icons with the XP ones, you'll see what I mean.

Personally, I see no evidence from anything on the site posted that I would consider reliable. Looks mostly like a lot of photoshopping to me.

[tny]

Originally posted by Garry
More interestly, the "What's New" document contains the word 'Compatibly.' That seems a very odd word for an official Microsoft document to use.
Look at the HTML of the document. Now compare that with the HTML of the Mactopia site. That should tell you all you need to know about the genuineness of this stuff.

[KingJobs]

:)

[~Shard~]

Originally posted by tny
Look at the HTML of the document. Now compare that with the HTML of the Mactopia site. That should tell you all you need to know about the genuineness of this stuff.

Followed your advice, and you're right - the HTML code speaks for itself. This is fake. Thank you very much. :cool:

[jwhitnah]

Originally posted by jjovy94
We have an App. It looks real to us.

Hey now I'm suddenly convinced.:rolleyes:

[SeaFox]

Originally posted by Stike
What version of Mac OS or "Get Info" command are they using anyway?
I dont see the stripes, which are still visible in Panther...

They could be using Unsanity's ShapeShifter.

[sleepy_dog]

I would like to know what "full Exchange support" means.

[nspeds]

These screens seem like the biggest load of crap I've ever seen.

MS better put some real improvements in this Office. Office 2003 is really good, the Outlook application is excellent. If they could just mimick that interface in Entourage I would be happy.

[bitfactory]

Originally posted by sleepy_dog
I would like to know what "full Exchange support" means.

no kidding... they should be stopped LEGALLY from saying "supports Exchange" for ANY version of Entourage. their support for exchange is PATHETIC and they know it. smtp to send mail? hahaha. morons.

if they get it right this time (nothing hints at that) - i'd surely buy 10 or so copies for our machines at work.

as it sits right now, we're using Outlook in OS9. i'd love to stop using Classic... we'll see what they have (if anything) up their sleeves. until then, beware the ole' "Exchange support" line -- they are most likely still lying through their teeth.