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In a blog post yesterday describing the Microsoft team's attendance at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Microsoft MacBU's Jake Hoelter reveals that the company's forthcoming Office for Mac 2011 will be a 32-bit only release. Hoelter blames the lack of a 64-bit version of the next-generation productivity suite on the need for his team to focus on compatibility between Windows and Mac versions of Office, a focus that has prevented Microsoft from fully transitioning Office to the Cocoa API required for 64-bit.
In Office 2011, we've made investments in better compatibility between Office for Mac and Windows Office, which is the largest request we receive from customers. We think we have some outstanding improvements to show you in this area, and we'll continue to share details in coming weeks. Our work to increase compatibility means we haven't completed the transition of moving the entire user interface over to Cocoa yet. And because Apple's frameworks require us to complete the move to Cocoa before we can build a 64-bit version, Office 2011 will be 32-bit only.
Hoelter notes that the primary difference between a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Office would be memory availability, but that the vast majority of users do not work with large enough documents and files for performance to be an issue on 32-bit versions. Those users working with very large files, such as "Excel files with data in millions of cells, or PowerPoint presentations with thousands of high resolution images", would, however, experience a performance hit working in 32-bit.

Office for Mac 2011 is scheduled to ship by the end of this year. The company has released several beta versions, with the most recent one issued a few weeks ago revealing that the company is beginning to finalize the look of the release with new icons and graphics.

Article Link: Office for Mac 2011 to Be 32-Bit Only
 

Digital Skunk

macrumors G3
Dec 23, 2006
8,096
916
In my imagination
Well!

There goes one of the biggest reasons to upgrade down the drain.

Not a big MS Word user, but would have considered getting it for the school teacher wife.

p.s. The current version is a hog.
 

617arg

macrumors 6502
Mar 3, 2008
298
22
Glad to hear they are focusing more on compatibility between the Windows and Mac versions. It would be nice to share files without any glitches......
 

aristokrat

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2007
184
7
Not a huge deal, but I expect the whiners to come out in full force. Since most people I deal with can't even read .docx files, I might as well still have Office 2004.
 

koach

macrumors member
Oct 16, 2007
86
0
I just hope its faster. I swear Office 2008 runs just as slow as Office 2004 under Rosetta. Especially the slow load times.

I was hoping a full transition to Cocoa which would speed it up, but it sounds like they haven't done that. So more than likely more slow bloated junk as usual.
 

vant

macrumors 65816
Jul 1, 2009
1,231
1
In other words, MS was too lazy to hire more SDE for this project.
 

frimple

macrumors 6502
Nov 18, 2008
333
0
Denver, CO
Wonder how this affects large datasets in Excel. Well I suppose anyone who has a > 3Gb spreadsheet open in Excel has what's coming to them anyways ;)
 

PAC88

macrumors 6502
Apr 23, 2009
457
0
I have Office 2010 64bit on my Thinkpad and it's awesome.. loads in about 0.5 seconds. The icons look a lot better too
 

Thunderbird

macrumors 6502a
Dec 25, 2005
951
789
Is Office for the PC 32-bit ?

I believe Microsoft Office 2010 will be available in both 32 and 64-bit.

It would have been nice to have Mac: Office in 64-bit, but no big deal. It's not really necessary yet.
 

DylanLikesPorn

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2010
314
1
This post is reserved for my obligatory rage at Office for Mac being 32-bit only. I demand a 64-bit version for word processing.
 

Dae

macrumors regular
Apr 30, 2009
146
13
I think it has to be mentioned that 32bit apps run fine on Snow Leopard running 64 bit kernel. (While the vast majority of Mac users don't run 64 bit kernel anyway).

So it's not much of a "fail".

iWork is a joke. I can't wait for Office for Mac. I hope they bring out good localization with grammar / spell check and hyphenation.
 

TuffLuffJimmy

macrumors G3
Apr 6, 2007
9,022
136
Portland, OR

Tyre

macrumors regular
May 23, 2010
143
0
Baltimore, MD
Hahaha you guys cannot seriously complain about this. Refusing to upgrade because it is 32-bit and not 64 is like college kisd waiting for the new i7 so they can watch porn... lightning fast!

Very few people need that capacity, and the ones that do would have access to the resources (a PC) that they need.
 

Lord Vader

macrumors 6502a
Apr 26, 2010
518
0
Death Star
I was formatting a 50 page document of 2008 Office for Mac and it's almost impossible to work. It lags while scrolling (badly) and eats 400 MB RAM (yep) only 3 charts and everything else text only. Finished on Pages in no time.
 

joost538

macrumors member
Nov 14, 2002
34
0
Spain
First of all: 64-bit is useless for Office. So no biggie.

But on second thought: it's pretty pathetic after eight years of OSX, MS still can't make the jump to 64 bit. I mean come on! It's been soooooo many years already! Put a little effort in it. Stuff like this isn't hard.

I am left wondering if Office 2011 is 100% Cocoa, but from the post I reckon it's still a Carbon monstrosity with all kinds of UI approximations. For me, that means no sale still.
 

Digital Skunk

macrumors G3
Dec 23, 2006
8,096
916
In my imagination
I think it has to be mentioned that 32bit apps run fine on Snow Leopard running 64 bit kernel. (While the vast majority of Mac users don't run 64 bit kernel anyway).

So it's not much of a "fail".

iWork is a joke. I can't wait for Office for Mac. I hope they bring out good localization with grammar / spell check and hyphenation.

iWork is a joke to you sure, but to many it's a lot lighter than Word.

Again, if Word didn't take 2 minutes to load and 4 minutes to quit then I'd be using it.

Oh, and it wasn't a bastard child when it comes to graphics, images and media as well.

Oh, and if it didn't suck at handling margins and bleeds . . . that too.

Oh, and text wraps and opacity changes and alpha channels, those too.

p.s. Not that I am an uber iWork fan boy or anything. :D
 
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