Microsoft Launches Office 365 Subscriptions Alongside Office 2013, But Macs Still Stuck on Office 2011

[Daalseth]

At home I'm on OpenOffice. My wife is on MS Office.X. It still works and does everything she needs so why bother upgrading. Eventually OS-X won't support it any more. Her old MacBook is on Snow Leopard just so she can keep using the old Office and a few other things. Eventually she'll get a new system and then I'll likely move her over to OpenOffice.,

Where I work we are all on Office 2010 and Win 7 with no plans to change. I'll likely lay in a few extra copies of each while I can still get them as spares. I'm running OpenOffice on my system and nobody has noticed.

We have two users on Office365, salespeople that need mobile access to docs and e-mail. Having gone through the setup I'm pushing heavily toward NOT deploying it any further. I see no advantages, significant drawbacks, and ongoing cost.

[princigalli]

Why use office? I use Apple Pages, it's cheaper and does everything I need it to do. Probably better too.

[MacRumorUser]

Sadly folks Office 365 is likely the inevitable future for the Mac and Office on the mac platform.



Been using Office 13 for a long while, it is pretty much Office 2010 with small face lift and tweaks.

[camnchar]

Originally Posted by Jetson

Microsoft's behavior here is really quite poor.

Consider the fact that Microsoft cut its teeth on point and click, object oriented computing on the Macintosh back in the early days when Bill and Steve were best friends.

Now this is the way they treat paying customers? Yes, if you use a Mac.

It would be easier for me to get worked up about this if I ever used Office. As it is, I'm not a power user, Keynote works great for my needs and I actually prefer Pages to Word. I never have any reason to go within 100 feet of Excel or Numbers.

[Marjamrob1]

Originally Posted by BornAgainMac

Open Office is Open Ugly though.

And it doesn't work very well with excel files.

[DoNoHarm]

I wonder if it's an issue of patents. I find it incredible how the back end of Numbers hasn't been updated to be better than Excell in 20 years. I say back end, because I think the UI and usability of Numbers is much better than excell. as far as pages and keynote go, they are way better than microsoft office IMO.

[The Phazer]

Originally Posted by Stella

You still get the option to buy Office outright, but you don't get any of the extras such as extra Skydrive space, skype minutes, or future updates ( only point updates ).

If you use Office on a regular basis then the $99 subscription fee could be good value. Otherwise you'll probably better off using something else, or buy the software outright as before.

The biggest advantage is that it’s a five machine licence and covers the PC and Mac versions.

If you have a mixed economy of machines at home (which is very common) or dual booted (which is also very common) you’d only need one 365 licence to cover them all, whereas you’d need several to cover them previously.

However, it’s just too expensive for a yearly rate IMO. As a home user I’d maybe pay £25 a year, but if I’m paying £70 I want a permanent licence. It’s just not worth more than that.

[mslide]

Who cares? I mean, why would someone upgrade their version of Office assuming it's from the past 10 years or so?

I'm surprised Microsoft even bothers.

[Stella]

Originally Posted by DoNoHarm

I wonder if it's an issue of patents. I find it incredible how the back end of Numbers hasn't been updated to be better than Excell in 20 years. I say back end, because I think the UI and usability of Numbers is much better than excell. as far as pages and keynote go, they are way better than microsoft office IMO.

Its not just Numbers..

Apple have stopped major updates to the majority of their consumer software products. When was the last time iLife was updated (iPhoto, garage band, iMovie, iWeb ( discontinued ) and iWork? Years. Its just bug fixes, updates to support iCloud and smaller functionality updates here and there.

[1Alec1]

Originally Posted by HarryKNN21

Who needs to keep their Office updated anyway? They will just have the same functions, just an different UI

The Office at my workplace's PC is still 2003

Yeah, I'm still at '04, but I also have '08 installed. Also, after '08 I think, they really screwed up the interface and made it just way more annoying.

[nefan65]

Originally Posted by mslide

Who cares? I mean, why would someone upgrade their version of Office assuming it's from the past 10 years or so?

I'm surprised Microsoft even bothers.

They bother because of $$$. Office is their cash cow; along with Windows. If Office dried up on them, they'd go broke.

[hayesk]

Originally Posted by spazzcat

A bigger issue is people use Excel as a database. Its not a database!

Thank you! I can't stand it when people try to use Excel for a database.

Originally Posted by Badandy

Anyone who thinks iWork or any other office replacement is a viable alternative to MS Office simply isn't a power user of excel. That doesn't absolve MS of responsibility though, since the Mac version of Excel is awful.

MS is smart in this case. They know Excel is essentially required in business and keep the Mac version bad enough that people won't switch.

Have some perspective. Most users don't even use 10% of Word or Excel's features. Yes Excel (even the Mac version) has many more features than iWork, but that doesn't mean that iWork doesn't meet the needs of a large amount of Office users.

And I don't think the Excel version is bad enough that people won't switch. Most don't even know if it's that bad. I don't find it particularly worse than the Windows versions - at least I can turn off the ribbon. But I'm not an Excel power user like many.

Originally Posted by Cynicalone

To me it feels like Microsoft is throwing away money by not offering an iPad version.

I wouldn't need it, but I'm sure there are plenty of business customers who would pay for a native version.

I agree. They could be making millions.

[1Alec1]

Originally Posted by princigalli

Why use office? I use Apple Pages, it's cheaper and does everything I need it to do. Probably better too.

Yes it does, but Numbers does not. I use iWork and Excel.

----------

$99/year was the price of MobileMe, and what you got was definitely better than what you get from this. Office '04 or iWork + Dropbox FTW.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by tlinford

The fact is that Office is a mature product; the only advantage I see in paying a subscription is for the cloud storage and there are already plenty of other options.

There is an advantage if are in a home with 3 or more computers.

Individual Office is $139 ( according to article and not including Outlook. ). Even if street price is $109 then:

3 * $109 = $327

Over a 3 year span till the next Office upgrade.

3 * $99 = $297


That is potentially using no Cloud storage. That is more of a value-add if don't have a household with multiple computers.

The last upgrade to 2011, was justifiable on the basis that Microsoft had put back Visual Basic work-flows, something that should never have been taken away from the pervious version!

That the VB basic implementation was grounded on some PPC specific hackery ... they probably did make the right move with the resources they had. You can wave your hands about how Microsoft should have hired lots more folks to port Office Mac over to the x86 while at the same time going Cocoa, insert all the new Windows Office features, and replace the hackery VB is grounded on.

[Anonymous Freak]

What's funny is that it used to be that the Mac versions of office were 12-18 months ahead of the Windows versions. Office for Mac v.X was way ahead of Office 2003 for Windows, Office 2004 for Mac was ahead of Office 2007 for Windows in every way except XML-based documents.

It wasn't until Office 2007 for Windows that the Mac fell behind. It took Apple a year to release XML-compatibility for the Mac, and Office 2008 for Mac was barely an upgrade. Office 2011? Yeah.

[HarryKNN21]

Originally Posted by 1Alec1

Yeah, I'm still at '04, but I also have '08 installed. Also, after '08 I think, they really screwed up the interface and made it just way more annoying.

Yeah, Office 08 is like Windows 8, wasting users' time to learn the UI all over again.

[jonnysods]

Can't wait for the latest version of Office for Mac. I love it, and live and die by it.

[HenryDJP]

Originally Posted by Dr McKay

At least Office 2011 isnt an eye-sore like 2013.




Don't ever open Office 2013 in a darkened room...

That's Office 2010 you're showing, not 2011.

[sevimli]

Got mine for $9.95 weeks ago through my school. I thought it was released already.

[Berserker-UK]

Originally Posted by Dr McKay

Don't ever open Office 2013 in a darkened room...

That's Microsoft's new 'style'. Visual Studio 2012 got there first. If you want to use Office 2013 in a darkened room, use dark theme.

[zoetmb]

Originally Posted by SpiderDude

The Mac Version of Excel is a nightmare...

What!!??? Why? It's virtually the same as the Windows version (except for Macro support). I've used both completely interchangably for many years. Even when I've had an older version on the Mac vs. the PC (or vice-versa), I've had no problems.

There are only two issues I've ever found:
- the differences in the date system sometimes doesn't work out if you move the file back and forth and edit in both systems.
- because of the difference between most Mac resolutions and PC resolutions, I usually have to bump up the zoom on the Mac when looking at a spreadsheet created on the PC.

The Mac version also has always had one strange advantage: On the PC version, if you're entering a formula and click on different cells, one cell replaces another in the formula. But on the Mac, it defaults to adding those cells together so you don't have to hit the "+" key between each one. Much more efficient.

On the other hand, the PC version lets you add a line break within a cell by using the Alt key. On the Mac, it requires three keys (Ctrl-Alt-Apple I think) to accomplish the same thing (for years I thought the Mac didn't have that feature at all.)

Other than that, I see no substantive differences. The menus may be a little different, but the same overall functionality.

[HarryKNN21]

Originally Posted by hayesk

Thank you! I can't stand it when people try to use Excel for a database.



Have some perspective. Most users don't even use 10% of Word or Excel's features. Yes Excel (even the Mac version) has many more features than iWork, but that doesn't mean that iWork doesn't meet the needs of a large amount of Office users.

And I don't think the Excel version is bad enough that people won't switch. Most don't even know if it's that bad. I don't find it particularly worse than the Windows versions - at least I can turn off the ribbon. But I'm not an Excel power user like many.



I agree. They could be making millions.

iWork isn't really unusable, the only trouble is that over 80% of computer on earth is running M$ Office. Thus no matter what when you have to work on Office, you have to export your iWork file to Excel format, and that's very annoying because the file exported will be ruined by iWork.

That's why I somehow leave iWork behind.

[paulsdenton]

It's been all downhill from Office 2003 anyway. No loss.

[Dr McKay]

Originally Posted by paulsdenton

It's been all downhill from Office 2003 anyway. No loss.

I feel 2010 was absolutely fantastic, 2007 was a major improvement over 2003 but 2010 was a major refinement.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by Anonymous Freak

What's funny is that it used to be that the Mac versions of office were 12-18 months ahead of the Windows versions. ..... It took Apple a year to release XML-compatibility for the Mac, and Office 2008 for Mac was barely an upgrade....

It took Apple? Microsoft delivers Office for the Mac. Actually Apple's hand in the matter was part of the substantive delay. Dead ending Carbon (no 64 bit option) and switching to x86 made the Microsoft Office team have to port the application to a new framework and , because of assembly language core elements (like VB support), switch to a new scripting solution as well. All of that time and effort means not keeping up with the features added to the Windows version.

Apple pouring lots of resources at the time into matching Office with their own applications also lessened the incentive for Microsoft to pour even larger resources into the Mac solution. So the resources roughly remained the same and hard resource allocation choices had to be made. The Windows versions had no such allocation issues. The OS strategy was not at odds with the Office strategy. So progress went faster.