Mac for business?

[Shackler]

Hi, im goin into a business program in university and everyone say yeah Macs are great for school, but eveyone is like a engineer or a Graphic designer or stuff like that.

But what about business?

All the Mac ads boast about how its great for fun stuff and PC's are great for business stuff.
So is there any business students out there who use Macs, and how is it.

Im also gunna use this thread to ask about Pages compatiblity with Word if any at all?

 

[mattscott306]

Hi, im goin into a business program in university and everyone say yeah Macs are great for school, but eveyone is like a engineer or a Graphic designer or stuff like that.

But what about business?

All the Mac ads boast about how its great for fun stuff and PC's are great for business stuff.
So is there any business students out there who use Macs, and how is it.

Im also gunna use this thread to ask about Pages compatiblity with Word if any at all?

Macs will work fine in a business program, now more then ever due to boot camp. You'll be able to run windows (you'll have to purchase it) on your mac, in case you have to run any programs non-mac compatable. Word run's just fine on mac, as does the rest of MS Office Suite, so thats not a problem. I'm not to familiar with pages, so I can't help you out there.

 

[cwedl]

What do you mean by business?

spreadsheets -Microsoft Excel for mac 2004
letters - Pages or Microsoft Word for Mac 2004
Presentations - Have the best presentations ever - with keynote - scrap powerpoint!
E-mails - Apple Mail or Entourage
Sage? sorry! but still get a mac, if you have to use bootcamp install windows xp on your mac! or use parallels!

for basic pages docs including lists bullets etc (not sure about tables) it will work fine! I converted it to word files loads of times.

 

[Nitromaster]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Symbian OS; Nokia N70/2.0539.1.2; 6366) Opera 8.01 [en])

A mac is basically a really cool pc with the best operating system. You can run windows on it if you want. I cant answer your question about pages but neo office(open office) should open any ms office documents as long as they are not created with office07.

 

[drewyboy]

first of all..if us engineers can use it...us electrical anyways... there should be no problem running whatever business programs you need. and second of all...if i was you, dont bother using boot camp or parallels...those require you to BUY windows...use Crossover. This program lets u use windows programs w/o the windows!

 

[candyapple8]

What do you mean by business?

spreadsheets -Microsoft Excel for mac 2004
letters - Pages or Microsoft Word for Mac 2004
Presentations - Have the best presentations ever - with keynote - scrap powerpoint!
E-mails - Apple Mail or Entourage
Sage? sorry! but still get a mac, if you have to use bootcamp install windows xp on your mac! or use parallels!

for basic pages docs including lists bullets etc (not sure about tables) it will work fine! I converted it to word files loads of times.

Is it possible to open a windows Microsoft Excel file on a Mac? I've been wanting to transfer over some files to my macbook and was wondering if iWork could open them?

 

[tipdrill407]

^^

LOL yes u can, microsoft office for Mac is exactly the same or almost exactly the same as the windows counterpart

 

[epochblue]

Is it possible to open a windows Microsoft Excel file on a Mac? I've been wanting to transfer over some files to my macbook and was wondering if iWork could open them?

iWork does not contain a spreadsheet app, but there are rumors that we should be expecting one for an upcoming version of iWork....

...and as TPAM mentioned, Office 2004 for Mac will open everything MS Office for Windows will open (except .docx, currently).

 

[synth3tik]

I read this from a link off the MR main page. It's talks about how Macs started in the graphics and engineering fields, but that now because of all the issues with PC that people are starting to move their businesses to Macs..

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012644

 

[BlackDan]

first of all..if us engineers can use it...us electrical anyways... there should be no problem running whatever business programs you need. and second of all...if i was you, dont bother using boot camp or parallels...those require you to BUY windows...use Crossover. This program lets u use windows programs w/o the windows!

I agree, I tested crossover at work. Very good... Parallels is even better, but just too expensive if it's only for that one app you really need. (1 XP license + Parallels= lots of money you won't be spending on beers) One problem I had in crossover was printing though, didn't look further into it, so there may be a solution, I just didn't bother...

On another note, if you want to use the mac for "business" I guess you mean mainly MS Office. I did find some odd compatibility issues between Powerpoint for mac and powerpoint for windows. Just so you know. Also, I would prefer Outlook to Entourage any day, but that's just my opinion.

I honestly - and I think I'm being very objective here as I use both Win and Mac very intensively at work and at home and like them both for different reasons - cannot think of a reason NOT to buy a mac, especially if you're "only" a "normal business user". Actually the only job I can think of that would require a windows-machine is if you're a windows developer... all other people will have all they need on the mac.

We all have some mac-whines, at least I do, but I will never go back to "Windows-only".
Things I miss on the mac: PuTTy, compatibility with my sony NetMD, my ViaMichelin GPS software,
Things I miss on the PC: iPhoto, twitterific, Geektool

 

[livingfortoday]

I deal with a lot of files coming from PC's on my Mac, and I have never had a problem. Sometimes I have some formatting issues with PowerPoint, but usually it's just because they used some weird font that I don't have. There are a lot of people on these forums who use Macs in business settings, and I can't really think of a scenario where you'd definitely need a PC (especially now with Intel Macs running Windows).

I'd recommend going in to an Apple Store and playing around with Office on a Mac there if you're concerned. You'll quickly see that there's nothing to worry about!