Mac Office and Exchange Support

[MacRumors]

Microsoft-Watch.com (http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1204874,00.asp) reports that the upcoming summer release of Office for OS X will bring Exchange client support:

The update, Version 10.1.4 of Office X, will add Exchange client functions to Office's e-mail and PIM component, Entourage. It will also incorporate bug fixes to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft provided the update to beta testers in July.

Other improvements, including more compatability with Windows Outlook and stability enhancements are detailed.

[sacrilicious]

"The Redmond, Wash., company confirmed that the update to Version 10.1.4 will be available free to current Mac Office users, who will be able to download it from the Microsoft MacTopia Web site. Entourage is also available as a stand-alone product for $99.

Earlier in the month, Microsoft Watch reported that Microsoft plans to revise its Office for Mac product line with across-the-board price cuts and two new editions of Office: a "Student and Teacher" version as well as a Professional release that includes Virtual PC."

Hurray.

Is there a free opensource quality alternative, by the way?

[jaedreth]

Alternative to?

Which features do you need and not need?

I use mutt, imo it's far superior to pine. You can use Fink to install it. Fink is available linked from the mac os x website under downloads, then under the unix section.

If you want something with a gui, and don't want entourage, use Mail.app. Or go search versiontracker.com.

Jaedreth

[dswoodley]

Thank God!!! it's about time!! One more reason, my local IT folks can longer say "Macs aren't compatible"

[srobert]

I'm pretty sure there is no alternative if you want to receive your mail form your company's exchange server. I still have to use outlook 2001 in classic to get my mail from work.

I prefer mail.app but it can't interract with an exchange server. So for me, this announcement is a big plus. It's the last app I need (entourage with exchange) to completely drop classic.

[impierced]

SHIP IT!!!

[a_kim]

Originally posted by sacrilicious
"The Redmond, Wash., company confirmed that the update to Version 10.1.4 will be available free to current Mac Office users, who will be able to download it from the Microsoft MacTopia Web site. Entourage is also available as a stand-alone product for $99.

Earlier in the month, Microsoft Watch reported that Microsoft plans to revise its Office for Mac product line with across-the-board price cuts and two new editions of Office: a "Student and Teacher" version as well as a Professional release that includes Virtual PC."

Hurray.

Is there a free opensource quality alternative, by the way?

If you mean an alternative for reading/writing Word docs... have you heard about Panther's TextEdit? My friend confirmed that the upcoming version of OSX reads/writes MS Word documents. I'm sure it has problems with complex layouts and what have you, but at least we'll be able to read/write Word docs without having to shell out hundreds of dollars.

Definitely good news with better Outlook support. That's an obviously big plus for Mac users in an MS Office work environment (like me).

-Alex

[whawho]

Right now I use Apple's Mail.app to connect to our company's exchange server using IMAP and it's ok. Some things I like better on Mail.app than Entourage one being Mail.app seems faster to me than Entourage.

It'll be cool to finally be able to use the shared calendar that everyone else is using with out having to pop open a browser window and Open up the Exchange server web access everytime I want to see what's on the calendar.

[whawho]

Originally posted by srobert
I'm pretty sure there is no alternative if you want to receive your mail form your company's exchange server. I still have to use outlook 2001 in classic to get my mail from work.

I prefer mail.app but it can't interract with an exchange server. So for me, this announcement is a big plus. It's the last app I need (entourage with exchange) to completely drop classic.

I use Mail.app using IMAP to check my mail on our server and our company uses Exchange. It should be possible as long as the settings are correct.

[srobert]

Originally posted by whawho
It'll be cool to finally be able to use the shared calendar that everyone else is using with out having to pop open a browser window and Open up the Exchange server web access everytime I want to see what's on the calendar.

Our IT department won't even turn on webmail on the server so no imap option for me. The Outlook with exchange update is definitly a life saver... and I love the upgrade price $0.00!!!

[Mudbug]

Originally posted by srobert
Our IT department won't even turn on webmail on the server so no imap option for me. The Outlook with exchange update is definitly a life saver... and I love the upgrade price $0.00!!!

I'm sure this means they'll gouge you on the price of something else, so I wouldn't be too happy about it...

<edit> Seriously tho, this is good news. Support for exchange server has been a sticking point for many businesses I know of (3 in my building alone) as a reason for not supporting macs in thier network setup. </edit>

[tazo]

Originally posted by sacrilicious
"The Redmond, Wash., company confirmed that the update to Version 10.1.4 will be available free to current Mac Office users, who will be able to download it from the Microsoft MacTopia Web site. Entourage is also available as a stand-alone product for $99.

Earlier in the month, Microsoft Watch reported that Microsoft plans to revise its Office for Mac product line with across-the-board price cuts and two new editions of Office: a "Student and Teacher" version as well as a Professional release that includes Virtual PC."

Hurray.


i wonder if professional office will be priced like it already is, if its any more expensive they may not get any sales
Is there a free opensource quality alternative, by the way? [/B][/QUOTE] :o

[whawho]

Originally posted by srobert
and I love the upgrade price $0.00!!!

Me too!.. I was so suprised to hear that Microsoft wasn't charging for it.

[psxndc]

Wow. Microsoft will do something that a) is beneficial for everyone and b) doesn't cost anything.

And it's not even April 1st. Somebody pinch me.

This is great. For once, I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Dumbstruck,
-p

[JW Pepper]

Well I happen to think the people at the MBU are really Maccies like the rest of us. It must be a pretty thankless job working for MS and working in the MBU. They have given us some great programmes under difficult circumstances, the rest of MS probably resents the job they do too!

I don't own any bug free software other that I know of.

[iLilana]

Hurray.

Is there a free opensource quality alternative, by the way? [/B]

I use entourage for mail only because mail.app has a couple bugs when using the junkmail feature. Like duplicating and bouncing back mail onto my server that's supposed to be auto deleting. Macmall mail would replicate and bounce itself back and slowly fill up the server. Entourage doesn't... otherwise I wouldn't need bill gates at all.

As far as office tools... openoffice.org is wonderful...and free free free free!!!

[AppleMatt]

Yeah the MacBU are Mac-nuts. Some even come from Apple.

They desperately need to get performance up though, IMO. Bug fixes are obviously nice, but Word is a dog.

AppleMatt

[mstecker]

Originally posted by srobert
I'm pretty sure there is no alternative if you want to receive your mail form your company's exchange server. I still have to use outlook 2001 in classic to get my mail from work.

I prefer mail.app but it can't interract with an exchange server. So for me, this announcement is a big plus. It's the last app I need (entourage with exchange) to completely drop classic.

How about just using Mail.app and talking to your Exchange Server using the IMAP protocol? Does your site not support IMAP? Older (pre-2003) versions of Exchange turn it on by default, so more often than not, your exchange server runs it.

This works unless you really need the collaborative calandering stuff.

[jaedreth]

Just because exchange servers support imap doesn't mean that Mail can support exchange servers.

Entourage supporting Exchange servers is brand new. Mail isn't anywhere near supporting Exchange servers.

Jaedreth

[kcmac]

Long file support? I can only hope.

[mstecker]

Originally posted by jaedreth
Just because exchange servers support imap doesn't mean that Mail can support exchange servers.

Entourage supporting Exchange servers is brand new. Mail isn't anywhere near supporting Exchange servers.

Jaedreth

Okay, I'll bite. Two facts and a conclusion. Tell me where my logic is wrong.

1) Microsoft Exchange supports several ways of getting at its data, including a proprietary protocol and IMAP.

2) Mail.app supports retrieving mail from an IMAP server.

1+2= Mail.app supports working with mail from Exchange Servers.

It might not have the KIND of support you want, but I think that the two statements above taken together cast your claim of "Mail isn't anywhere near supporting Exchange servers." into some doubt.

M.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by mstecker
Okay, I'll bite. Two facts and a conclusion. Tell me where my logic is wrong.

1) Microsoft Exchange supports several ways of getting at its data, including a proprietary protocol and IMAP.

2) Mail.app supports retrieving mail from an IMAP server.

1+2= Mail.app supports working with mail from Exchange Servers.

It might not have the KIND of support you want, but I think that the two statements above taken together cast your claim of "Mail isn't anywhere near supporting Exchange servers." into some doubt.

M.

One word: calendar

I can't book a freakin' conference room without exchange support.

I can't believe how long it took for MS Entourage to interface with MS Exchange! You know that was intentional-- for exactly the reasons you see listed in this forum: enterprise penetration. Macs are fine for people at home who IMAP to their ISP, but don't make it easy to move them into business.

Make IT departments think they're difficult to support.

So why support it now? I don't know, but I'm worried... Was it because they couldn't hold out any longer without being dragged into court again, or is there something more sinister behind it.

Free? Why do they want us to download it so badly?

Sorry to be such a paranoid freak, but I've learned it with time....

[jaedreth]

It's simple.

If Microsoft didn't do it, Apple would have. With or without their permission.

If you noticed in Panther features, according to a ThinkSecret article (can't find it, can't reach their site right now), thinksecret allegedly reported that both Mail and Address Book will have features that allow it to interact with MX servers.

This has not been confirmed by Apple, and as I said, I can't reach the thinksecret page right now to show you where it said it.

However, if Apple was developing this for Panther, MS would want to beat them to the punch.

And they did.

Jaedreth

[srobert]

Originally posted by mstecker
1) Microsoft Exchange supports several ways of getting at its data, including a proprietary protocol and IMAP.

Exchange server "CAN" support imap but our network administrator won't turn on that feature. They don't want to hear about it. There must be a reason even though I can't figure it out. So, for many of us, an exchange compatible entourage is a big deal. There's also that calendar feature which I need to book a meeting room or be informed of many other things.

I still love mail.app better but I need both if I want my world to be all OS X.

[psxndc]

Originally posted by AppleMatt

They desperately need to get performance up though, IMO. Bug fixes are obviously nice, but Word is a dog.


Whew. I thought I was the only one that felt that way. I'm running Office on a 700 MHz iBook and it is pretty slow. Word and Excel. Sounds like it's not just my 'puter after all.

-p

[gregorypierce]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
One word: calendar

I can't book a freakin' conference room without exchange support.

I can't believe how long it took for MS Entourage to interface with MS Exchange! You know that was intentional-- for exactly the reasons you see listed in this forum: enterprise penetration. Macs are fine for people at home who IMAP to their ISP, but don't make it easy to move them into business.

Make IT departments think they're difficult to support.

So why support it now? I don't know, but I'm worried... Was it because they couldn't hold out any longer without being dragged into court again, or is there something more sinister behind it.

Free? Why do they want us to download it so badly?

Sorry to be such a paranoid freak, but I've learned it with time....

Dude not everyone at Microsoft is trying to eat your brain or rape your dog :) There are plenty of people who work at Microsoft and have pride in what they do and actually want to ship quality products on the OSX platform - please don't trivialize them because of the actions of other groups of people.

------------------------------------------------
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[kcn3s]

So I take this as there won't be a major update for office:mac this year? I was kinda hoping to get a new version of office this year. maybe something like office XI...

[locovaca]

Originally posted by srobert
Exchange server "CAN" support imap but our network administrator won't turn on that feature. They don't want to hear about it. There must be a reason even though I can't figure it out. So, for many of us, an exchange compatible entourage is a big deal. There's also that calendar feature which I need to book a meeting room or be informed of many other things.

I still love mail.app better but I need both if I want my world to be all OS X.

As a general rule, if you have a good security model in place, you don't leave ports open for no good reason. If your administrator has said exchange only, there's no point in leaving IMAP and/or POP3 open when it won't really be used! Just because there aren't any exploits known now doesn't mean there won't be any found in the future...

It's the same reason you don't run an echo server on your mac. It's pointless to have it running and could possibly be a security risk.

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by locovaca
As a general rule, if you have a good security model in place, you don't leave ports open for no good reason. If your administrator has said exchange only, there's no point in leaving IMAP and/or POP3 open when it won't really be used! Just because there aren't any exploits known now doesn't mean there won't be any found in the future...

It's the same reason you don't run an echo server on your mac. It's pointless to have it running and could possibly be a security risk.


What bugs me is those same 'experts in IS' who claim to not want to turn on 'whatever' or open 'insert some port number' all in the name of security have NO problem turning on server after server running Windows... An OS that we all know isn't even close (and I'm being really kind here) to being secure in any way shape or form. Tantamount to demanding you lock the front doors to a house when the side walls have a hole big enough to drive a truck into...

D

[Foocha]

This is really great news - although I can't believe it will be free.

I've been frustrated for some time since I have a Mac & a PC on my desk. I've needed the PC for Outlook & Exchange, I've needed the Mac... well, for obvious reasons. I also use a Palm and a Sony Erriscson T68i - syncing it all together is currently impossible.

The combination of Exchange Support in Address Book and Entourage gives me new hope, although I still believe that Apple should enable you to swap out one of their apps for a 3rd party one in iSync (i.e. what if you want to use iSync for your phone but you still want to use Entourage because iCal sucks?)

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by jaedreth
It's simple.

If Microsoft didn't do it, Apple would have. With or without their permission.

If you noticed in Panther features, according to a ThinkSecret article (can't find it, can't reach their site right now), thinksecret allegedly reported that both Mail and Address Book will have features that allow it to interact with MX servers.

This has not been confirmed by Apple, and as I said, I can't reach the thinksecret page right now to show you where it said it.

However, if Apple was developing this for Panther, MS would want to beat them to the punch.

And they did.

Jaedreth

Yeah, I know this is a more likely reason than the fear of lawsuits... I've seen the article too.

And M$ complains that Office doesn't sell...

Office has a few nice Macish features (the warping toolbars, and color transparency, for example), but Entourage is a piece of crap. Almost as bad as Outlook for Windows. Almost. I don't think I've come across a more poorly written, hacked together, professionally developed program than Outlook (It's like they gave each module-- calendar, email, tasklist-- to a different intern and then glued them together.)

If I could get iCal to integrate with exchange, and Mail to handle the volume of my buisness mail, I'd go with that hands down.

Ok, time to check out of this thread-- I can tell I'm about to cut loose if I'm not careful...

Ohhhh... One more. Why can't I drag Entourage attachments like normal files?!

Gotta go, before the dam breaks...

[rdowns]

Originally posted by whawho
Right now I use Apple's Mail.app to connect to our company's exchange server using IMAP and it's ok. Some things I like better on Mail.app than Entourage one being Mail.app seems faster to me than Entourage.

It'll be cool to finally be able to use the shared calendar that everyone else is using with out having to pop open a browser window and Open up the Exchange server web access everytime I want to see what's on the calendar.

Care to share with us how you do that? I have been unable to do it and my IT folks are clueless about Macs. Well, no more clueless than they are on PCs.

[encro]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Office has a few nice Macish features (the warping toolbars, and color transparency, for example), but Entourage is a piece of crap. Almost as bad as Outlook for Windows. Almost. I don't think I've come across a more poorly written, hacked together, professionally developed program than Outlook (It's like they gave each module-- calendar, email, tasklist-- to a different intern and then glued them together.)

Ohhhh... One more. Why can't I drag Entourage attachments like normal files?!


Ummm you can drag attachment in and out of mail windows like normal files. I do it quite frequently.

Entourage is a great mail program just very sluggish and a few incosistencies in the interface. Perhaps if it wasn't suffering from an old codebase it might be better.

Hopefully the new update will make it quite faster then it will not matter if we don't have a new Office:Mac until late 2004.

[encro]

Originally posted by locovaca
As a general rule, if you have a good security model in place, you don't leave ports open for no good reason. If your administrator has said exchange only, there's no point in leaving IMAP and/or POP3 open when it won't really be used! Just because there aren't any exploits known now doesn't mean there won't be any found in the future...

It's the same reason you don't run an echo server on your mac. It's pointless to have it running and could possibly be a security risk.

I think the main reason for an ISP to refuse an IMAP connection would be that the would then have to handle your mail in the same way as hotmail rather than POP where all you mail is passed onto you and cleared from their system. That would account for a lot of extra storage required by the ISP which they may not be willing to provide.

[PGant]

I'm really pleased to hear that MS is issuing another patch for Office v.X. This time, let's hope they finally fix the dreaded lock-up bug that continues to plague Word. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it has something to do with autosave which has a habit of failing without warning and then won't let you even manually save your document.

Who knows? Maybe they'll even properly finish Entourage so that it can fully import and export calendar files. Nah...that's probably too much to hope for...

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by PGant
I'm really pleased to hear that MS is issuing another patch for Office v.X.

Me too, as a program I use every day, it's good news. As I've already said, although I want bug fixes, I've worked my way around them now so I can't even remember what they are. What I really want is a performance increase, Office v.X is in dire need of it.

Who knows? Maybe they'll even properly finish Entourage so that it can fully import and export calendar files.

Don't go getting all crazy on us PGant! I think one bug fix per 6 month interval is quite enough in Microsofts eyes!

AppleMatt

[PGant]

You're right. What was I thinking? :)

-------

quote: >>Don't go getting all crazy on us PGant! I think one bug fix per 6 month interval is quite enough in Microsofts eyes!

[K12MacTech]

MS doesn't give away applications for free. Any organization using Exchange has to pay licensing fees per user. They even have to pay if the users are using Outlook Web Access. Outlook 2001 was also a free download. The Mac Outlook/Exchange client is just as 'free' as the Outlook client for Windows. No restrictions on installing, but the Exchange server itself is where the licensing is paid. So it may not cost you as an individual, but since the Exchange features are useless without an Exchange server, that is where MS will collect its fees for using their software.

[andrewh]

Originally posted by Analog Kid

Office has a few nice Macish features (the warping toolbars, and color transparency, for example), but Entourage is a piece of crap. Almost as bad as Outlook for Windows. Almost. I don't think I've come across a more poorly written, hacked together, professionally developed program than Outlook (It's like they gave each module-- calendar, email, tasklist-- to a different intern and then glued them together.)


Dude you must be on drugs. Entourage is an excellent program. Very polished and robust. Apple's Mail and Address Book are a joke in comparison.

Mac users will bash Microsoft no matter what software they put out. It's so childish. If any other company released Office X, (like Apple) you would hail it as amazing.

[PGant]

Agreed. There's no point in blindly criticizing Microsoft strictly on the point that they are the makers of this software. Having said that, Office is a very expensive piece of software, so people have every right to expect that it live up to a high standard. I really like Entourage, it suits my needs far better than Mail, but it still has room for improvement for reasons I mentioned in an earlier post. Then there's Word, an application that's been in development for almost a decade, yet still suffers from a bug that occasionally cripples the application. As a consumer, I think it's reasonable to expect a software maker to identify bugs and fix them asap, rather than releasing a bundle of fixes all at once on an annual basis.

[andrewh]

Originally posted by PGant
Agreed. There's no point in blindly criticizing Microsoft strictly on the point that they are the makers of this software. Having said that, Office is a very expensive piece of software, so people have every right to expect that it live up to a high standard. I really like Entourage, it suits my needs far better than Mail, but it still has room for improvement for reasons I mentioned in an earlier post. Then there's Word, an application that's been in development for almost a decade, yet still suffers from a bug that occasionally cripples the application. As a consumer, I think it's reasonable to expect a software maker to identify bugs and fix them asap, rather than releasing a bundle of fixes all at once on an annual basis.

Yes, all good points. I suppose Office seems expensive but I don't think it is excessive, as you're getting four apps for that price. I've also bought Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash MX, Dreamweaver, and more. I agree that some applications seem a little more solid (photoshop 7) but I also have others like Flash MX that have numerous bugs and crash frequently. I don't see anything like that in Word, Entourage or Excel (which has incredible functionality). I unfortunately had to use Powerpoint a couple of times and it was better than the Windows version.

As a long time Mac user, I couldn't be happier on OSX and a dual 1.25 machine and all this great software. I just hope companies like Microsoft keep supporting the platform, despite all the ungrateful people who will glady pirate it, use it, and then complaign about how bad it is. It's more applications for us and our platform just gets better and better.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by andrewh
Dude you must be on drugs. Entourage is an excellent program. Very polished and robust. Apple's Mail and Address Book are a joke in comparison.

Mac users will bash Microsoft no matter what software they put out. It's so childish. If any other company released Office X, (like Apple) you would hail it as amazing.

No, if Apple released software like this I would hail it as the end of Apple's reputation for having an eye for detail.

Mail isn't meant as an industrial app-- at least not yet. It's meant for the same folk that use Outlook Express. And Address Book just isn't well integrated yet.

They're free features of OS X. As applications though, they're well done. Saying they're "jokes" because they don't handle all your enterprise needs is like calling Preview a joke because it doesn't have all the features of Photoshop.

As for Entourage, it's a professional application written by the largest software company in the world and they want to charge $100 for it.

I started to justify myself but it just made for a huge message no one would read, so forget it...

I'm glad people like Entourage. I don't consider "better than the freebee that comes with the OS" to be a high enough standard for a business application as critical as an email client and PIM.

Whatever you think of Mail et al, it seems to be forcing changes in Entourage so they can't be complete jokes.

Exchange support is the very least they could do to make it appear like part of an "Office" suite.

[zamyatin]

I'm the one who always likes to bring up OpenOffice, so here I go again:

OpenOffice.org has joined forces with a very recently Open Sourced groupware server (what MS Exchange is) named "OpenGroupware.org." OpenOffice.org is developing a client for that server system and it will be called Glow. I believe I read that the complete groupware package will be in a very usable state by next summer.

Meanwhile, drop by www.openoffice.org and check out the fastest-growing office suite. After WWDC, apparently 70,000 downloads of the Mac version happened in just a few days.

[andrewh]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
No, if Apple released software like this I would hail it as the end of Apple's reputation for having an eye for detail.

Mail isn't meant as an industrial app-- at least not yet. It's meant for the same folk that use Outlook Express. And Address Book just isn't well integrated yet.

They're free features of OS X. As applications though, they're well done. Saying they're "jokes" because they don't handle all your enterprise needs is like calling Preview a joke because it doesn't have all the features of Photoshop.

As for Entourage, it's a professional application written by the largest software company in the world and they want to charge $100 for it.

I started to justify myself but it just made for a huge message no one would read, so forget it...

I'm glad people like Entourage. I don't consider "better than the freebee that comes with the OS" to be a high enough standard for a business application as critical as an email client and PIM.

Whatever you think of Mail et al, it seems to be forcing changes in Entourage so they can't be complete jokes.

Exchange support is the very least they could do to make it appear like part of an "Office" suite.

Hey Analog Kid -- I think my comments were a little extreme, and it was actually someone else here that was saying Mail was better and faster than Entourage, not you. You're totally right, Mail and address book are free apps with the OS and you can't really compare them. I just don't think Entourage is a piece of crap either. But everyone has their own opinion I suppose.

At least we have some choices now so everyone should be happy.

[PGant]

At the risk of going way off topic, I couldn't resist adding one more post on this matter. Even though I use Entourage, I've always admired Mail and the simplicity behind its design. It's nice to imagine what it would be like to take an application like that, to preserve its aesthetic core, and turn it into a heavy-duty app that could interop with Exchange and Outlook. I just doubt that the market would support two similar apps, so I guess Mail and Entourage will remain in their respective corners. Ditto for AppleWorks and Word.

BTW, as a fan of all things Canadian, I think it's really neat that there's a user whose handle is named after an old Rush song (assuming that's the inspiration, right, Analog Kid?). :)

[gadg]

Right now I use an iBook, which I borrowed from a friend to get to know 'Apple computers and Mac OS X' ... nice eh :-) ... I'm waiting for the release of the new Powerbooks till I buy my own. I've been converted though, I'm really impressed with it.

Anyway, I've looked at both Mail/iCal/Address Book and Entourage. As I've been an Outlook user for as long as the application has been around (1995 I think), Entourage seems more 'natural' to me. But I also like the integration the 'native' apps enjoy with other applications.

For me, really it all comes down to one thing though: iSync/P800 support. I love my new phone and use it all day long for changing contact info, appointments, etc. Absolutely *love* it. So whatever it's going to be, it *has* to support iSync/P800 ... and right now, neither of them do.

So how about it Microsoft ... I'll buy your app if you make it work for me!