Microsoft Offers Behind-the-Scenes Look at Office for Mac 2011 Features

[Nzeanzo]

Support for Open Document Format

Anyone know if this update includes support for the Open Document Format (ODF)?

Not OOXML, but ODF.

If I remember, the latest Windows version of Office does (including Wordpad), but not the Mac 2008 version. A deal breaker for me if not (as if I was considering purchase of it at all).

 

[22Hertz]

I'll be buying it.

Its the standard for college (and business), and I need to have it.
Its got to better than 08

 

[JAT]

The team has a short video (above) and here is a quick look at the new feature they discuss:

- Starting off with the new Template Gallery in Office 2011, this feature allows you to quickly and easily pick a template from the built-in designs to the thousands of templates online – giving you a head start to create great looking, professional documents.

If you're a professional, you don't need templates. You get hired to make them.

- Core features in Outlook for Mac like the Conversation View help you sort emails easily to keep track of what you need to do. Additionally, the new file-based database is faster and provides more stability with Time Machine support.

Good.

- Tying all of the new features together is the Office for Mac ribbon, designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery while also utilizing the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar giving you the best of both worlds. We have put the most commonly used controls at your fingertips making it easier for you to find what you need. You can even minimize the ribbon and the Toolbar for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts.

So, still based on Office 2007, which was universally panned. Not based on Office 2010, which is vastly improved.

 

[NAG]

Another question: Will it be launching in 20 sec like Word 2008 does, as well?

The funny thing is that the intel native version of Office actually took longer to boot than the PPC version under rosetta for quite some time.

The MBU at Microsoft is a joke. What other company would talk about a great new feature being voice memos in Word instead of reaching feature parity with the windows version of Excel (think that was for v2004)?

If Apple would release a version of Numbers that is competitive with Excel for mac iWork would be a much more viable option (I already use Pages for almost everything and I haven't touched Powerpoint since vX).

 

[musorah]

One more thing

Now if they can just get it to run on a Mac network...

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Word just launched in 3 seconds for me.

Again a lot of chatter but how many of your are legitimate Beta testers?

Now if they can just get it to run on a Mac network...

What does that even mean?

 

[FoxyKaye]

2, freaking feature parity. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Yes, yes it is.

 

[ftf]

This is the first time I've heard anyone say they love Office 2008.



This is the first time I've heard anyone say they were fan of any office suite, let alone Word.

I'm not a fan at all of Office 2008 on the Mac but MS have really pulled it together with Office 2010 on Windows. I have been using word since word for Windows 2.0 - and now office 2010 many hours, every day. Word 2010 is, dare I say it, almost a pleasure to use. Both visually and functionally.

 

[JAT]

Word just launched in 3 seconds for me.

Most of what I see about Office 2011 suggests I will upgrade from 2004. Numbers just can't hold a candle to Excel, and that's what I need.

 

[RawBert]

LOL, that totally made me laugh. Where do you guys find these pics from?

Haha! Just Google Images>"yawn">icon(size). I love their new Images layout.

Haha...

 

[satcomer]

Well i hope this will be just as good as 2004 was. I was sorry to see 2008 and the huge step backwards it went, as I went the free/donationware route after 2008.

Hopefully this 2011 will bring it back on. 2004 ran very well on my old Dual G5 so 2011 better be on far for sped and reliability.

I can't believe I am actually thinking of going back to Office because of 2011. I will just wait for the initial reviews before I take the plunge.

 

[MartiNZ]

Any discussion of 'iWork is better' must be engaged in in pretty much total isolation - I would agree iWork is better IF you have no need for MS Office compatibility, because that side of iWork is really bad. I've tried using iWork for periods of several months before, and while I developed various tricks to improve compatibility, there were still so many issues sharing files with Windows Office users that I had to admit defeat.

Office:Mac 2008 is indeed pretty poor. And that video certainly makes the MBU's foci seem pretty shallow. Using words like 'improved compatibility with Office for Windows', 'now using the built-in OS X graphics engine', and such would fill me with more confidence ... but of course they are unlikely to be true .

If they could just make it so 'Paste as PDF' saved correctly to .docx it would make things a lot less hassle. If invisible characters in Word would stop corrupting graphically it would be an improvement. Just like with iWork, there are a lot of simple things that they could fix and improve the product greatly, rather than the usual approach of adding a lot of poorly implemented unnecessary features.

 

[skinEman23]

Many people believe that managers are or should be a little older.

Program managers (PMs) are not general managers. PMs don't manage people, they manage requirements for developing (part of) a product. I had a PM internship right out of college. While a PM does have developers "assigned" to him or her, the PM is not managing the developers in an authoritative sense. The PM aids developers in prioritizing their work, but does not write reviews or have any disciplinary authority over the devs.

So to those left with a feeling of inadequacy after watching this video, take heart. You have not been outdone by the wunderkind at Microsoft.

For more on the position, see this in depth description: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/techtalk/archive/2005/12/16/504872.aspx

 

[bmpwe]

Microsoft, please buy a tripod. Your video made me dizzy.

 

[NAG]

Microsoft, please buy a tripod. Your video made me dizzy.

They did have a tripod. It was powered with Windows Tripod 7 Series so that it will intelligently move the camera in an effort to find the best possible shot with a refresh rate of 0.5 seconds! At launch it will even have Bing integration so you can track where your Windows Tripod 7 Series is!

 

[fleshman03]

W.........................T..........................F!!!!!!!!!

haha. Tell me you saw that before.

BTW - Go Bulls!!

Class of 08' FTW.

 

[MissBigBad]

I'm 22 and even I think they look like babies. I would feel a lot more comfortable if these "managers" had a bit more age under them.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I'm 22 and even I think they look like babies. I would feel a lot more comfortable if these "managers" had a bit more age under them.

IT is getting younger. Im in a Supervisor position and have been for the last 5 years. I am 28 now. Doesn't matter how old you are. All that matters is that you know your trade and you can properly manage your staff.

The funny thing is all the Apple-Can-Do-No-Wrongers used to taut how young and cool Apple was.

They did have a tripod. It was powered with Windows Tripod 7 Series so that it will intelligently move the camera in an effort to find the best possible shot with a refresh rate of 0.5 seconds! At launch it will even have Bing integration so you can track where your Windows Tripod 7 Series is!

You're holding it wrong... whoops wrong company.

 

[cgc]

Looks like everyone MS hires has a "program manager" job title. I like Office '08 and am looking forward to '10 just for Outlook. Should be able to buy it for $19.99 through work

 

[John.B]

2) Scrapping the PPC support

It's pretty hard to hold Adobe's and Microsoft's feet to the fire over the PPC support issue when Apple was first to drop PPC support from their programs.

Just sayin'.

 

[mabaker]

In my earlier post I didn’t want to sound as ungrateful bastard cuzz I know the ppl from MacBU are reading our posts here. They’re 100% good ppl, and talented but evidently the resources MS is putting in Mac Office are misguided.

You can’t seriously tout Conversation View that’s been in Mac since ages as “new”.

How can it be that a 2008 version runs slower on Intel than a Rosetta version of the same app on the very same computer like NAG mentioned?

 

[macswitcha2]

Good to see some diversity of people

No, I'm not making this a "race" issue, just that it's good to see people other than European decents demonstrating that anyone can produce if given the opportunity, otherwise one will think that Whites were the only producers of high tech software or hardware which would be a load of crap.

 

[JAT]

No, I'm not making this a "race" issue,

Actually, that's the definition of the rest of your post. How about we just stop?

 

[fleshman03]

No, I'm not making this a "race" issue ....

blah blah blah.....

Whites were the only producers of high tech software or hardware which would be a load of crap....

How's not making this a "race" issue working for you?

Besides, I don't think anyone thinks only whites produce high tech. Have you seen some of the cool stuff coming from Japan and India?

 

[drewyboy]

Holy CRAP! I'm 25 and I think these guys are young! They look like freshmen interns to me. 2ndly, whoever edits those videos, the camera angles are nice, "hip and modern" but the sound is horrendous. They should have let me edit it, I'm a videographer. Sound editing would be... wait, they don't have that in Windows Movie Maker or whatever crap that is. On a serious note, the sound is way too boomy (bass) and the lapel mic's... yeah, not a good idea. Especially on junior there w/ the Abercromby and Fitch crap.