Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Office 2008 Delayed Until January 2008
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I would not be surprised if office did not actually ship until late 2008. Remember the longhorn/ vista timeline. Microsoft is not exactly punctual. 
Thanks for nothing, Microsoft. As far as I know, this is the *last* major app that hasn't gone universal, and frankly, Microsoft should have the most experience with coding Intel software. I can't believe this, but I guess I should have seen it coming.
I'd like to use NeoOffice out of principle, but I can't. Excel's not there yet. Weird syntax, too slow, and doesn't support my plug-ins. So I guess I'm stuck with Office v.X until January, but its good enough I suppose.
I'd like to use NeoOffice out of principle, but I can't. Excel's not there yet. Weird syntax, too slow, and doesn't support my plug-ins. So I guess I'm stuck with Office v.X until January, but its good enough I suppose.
Yes it is. Glad I don't have to deal with it for a few years, but I just convinced a friend to buy a Macbook and he did a few weeks ago and loves it but he has his first semester later this month and I told him to get by with NeoOffice until Office for Mac came out sometime soon and now Microsoft pulls this. Damn it.. I'm looking around for alternatives already in an effort to convince him to just skip Office for Mac entirely. So far there's Nisus Writer Pro (or Express), Mellel, I think there are a few spreadsheet apps out there and he's planning to buy iWork 06 and then buy the newer version with upgrade pricing when it comes out so at least there's Keynote.
Sebastian
Intuit still hasn't released a UB of Quicken, or given any indication that it will.
Oh that's a shame, you need to start posting en masse on the Intuit site. They do listen. Maybe there was too much piracy on the Mac Version to make it worthwhile.
To familiarize yourself and better educate yourself regarding Apple's history of product delays and such, I suggest you follow Aiden Shaw's advice and look up Copland, Rhapsody and the like. Good reading.
ugh. I forgot about those days. Please don't remind me!
Yeppers
I tried NeoOffice and I had to say it wasn't terrible. What made me re-install office 2004 was Calc. Terrible. Terrible. And now that I used Neo for close to a month alone.. for some reason Word is not so bad. So, I like to get away from MS too, but really since I already own Office 2004, it is better than anything else out there.
Note: Mariner -Calc is a horrible replacement. There is a very simple spreadsheet that is nice called Tables. It is nice, but $65, when I already own Excel didn't make sense.
Final: If I didn't own Office, I would settle for substandard (slightly) OO / Neo. But I do own it, and though I have tried not to use it (spite I guess), but there is really no getting around the champ of office applications, at least now anyway. Not until iWork starts to walk upright.
I tried NeoOffice and I had to say it wasn't terrible. What made me re-install office 2004 was Calc. Terrible. Terrible. And now that I used Neo for close to a month alone.. for some reason Word is not so bad. So, I like to get away from MS too, but really since I already own Office 2004, it is better than anything else out there.
Note: Mariner -Calc is a horrible replacement. There is a very simple spreadsheet that is nice called Tables. It is nice, but $65, when I already own Excel didn't make sense.
Final: If I didn't own Office, I would settle for substandard (slightly) OO / Neo. But I do own it, and though I have tried not to use it (spite I guess), but there is really no getting around the champ of office applications, at least now anyway. Not until iWork starts to walk upright.
Newflash: nobody programs "for a processor".
You program for a platform. Said platform gets changed. Big difference.
Your logic makes it sound as if Apple can trivially produce a version of iTunes for Linux, because guess what? Linux runs on the same processors as Windows and OS X too!
It runs fine for me, but remember that Microsoft bashing is the "in" thing right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland...ting_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsod...ting_system)
From the Copland article:
"In August 1996, 'Developer Release 0' was sent to a small number of selected partners. Far from demonstrating improved stability, it often crashed after doing nothing at all, and was completely unusable for development. In October, Apple moved the target delivery date to 'sometime,' hinting that it might be 1997.
One of the groups most surprised by the announcement was Apple's own hardware team, who had been waiting for Copland to allow the PowerPC to truly shine. Members of Apple's software QA team suggested, jokingly, that given current resources and the number of bugs in the system they could clear the program for shipping some time around 2030.
Later that summer the situation was no better, and Amelio realized something serious had to be done. He hired Ellen Hancock away from National Semiconductor to take over engineering and get Copland development back on track.
After a few months on the job, Hancock realized the situation was hopeless; given current development and engineering, Copland would never ship at all. Additionally she discovered that while developers in the company were aware that Gershwin was to be the "fully modern" follow-on, no one was quite sure what "fully modern" meant exactly, at least in comparison to Copland, nor was anyone assigned to actually work on it.
She suggested that development continue on the existing Mac OS to improve its stability, while looking outside the company for a new operating system. In August 1996, just as 'Developer Release 1' was being prepared, Apple officially canceled Copland. Among the reasons given were the slow pace of development and the many technical problems remaining to be solved.
Following Hancock's plan, development of System 7.5 continued with a number of technologies originally slated for Copland being incorporated into the base OS. Stability and performance was improved by Mac OS 7.6, which dropped the "System" moniker.
Eventually many features developed for Copland, including support for "themes" (the default Platinum was the only theme included) were rolled into Mac OS 7.7, which was rebranded as "Mac OS 8". With the return of Steve Jobs, this rebranding also allowed Apple to exploit a legal loophole to terminate third-party manufacturers' licenses to System 7 and effectively shut down the Macintosh clone market."
One of the groups most surprised by the announcement was Apple's own hardware team, who had been waiting for Copland to allow the PowerPC to truly shine. Members of Apple's software QA team suggested, jokingly, that given current resources and the number of bugs in the system they could clear the program for shipping some time around 2030.
Later that summer the situation was no better, and Amelio realized something serious had to be done. He hired Ellen Hancock away from National Semiconductor to take over engineering and get Copland development back on track.
After a few months on the job, Hancock realized the situation was hopeless; given current development and engineering, Copland would never ship at all. Additionally she discovered that while developers in the company were aware that Gershwin was to be the "fully modern" follow-on, no one was quite sure what "fully modern" meant exactly, at least in comparison to Copland, nor was anyone assigned to actually work on it.
She suggested that development continue on the existing Mac OS to improve its stability, while looking outside the company for a new operating system. In August 1996, just as 'Developer Release 1' was being prepared, Apple officially canceled Copland. Among the reasons given were the slow pace of development and the many technical problems remaining to be solved.
Following Hancock's plan, development of System 7.5 continued with a number of technologies originally slated for Copland being incorporated into the base OS. Stability and performance was improved by Mac OS 7.6, which dropped the "System" moniker.
Eventually many features developed for Copland, including support for "themes" (the default Platinum was the only theme included) were rolled into Mac OS 7.7, which was rebranded as "Mac OS 8". With the return of Steve Jobs, this rebranding also allowed Apple to exploit a legal loophole to terminate third-party manufacturers' licenses to System 7 and effectively shut down the Macintosh clone market."
-edit Oops, sorry - you said *not* to remind you
And just think Intuit's CEO is on Apple's Board of Directors.
This only reflects bad on Apple.
Microsoft has Apple by the "balls" with Office. Balmer, Gates and Jobs all know it. Do you?
ARG!!! All my Mac's fans just went into overdrive, fuming with rage! Michael Spindler, Apple's CEO from that era of crap, really should be hung up by his nut sack. He did such a terrible job that it's hard to fathom. And the most credit you can give Gil Amelio is that he was smart enough to buy NeXT inc. which brought Steve Jobs back into the company.
Sorry for the off-topic reply here, but...
I guess I have known this for a while, too.. So why does Intuits Mac stuff suck so bad... and yes I have Quicken 2007.
Actually, I've recently come to the realization that I may not need Office afterall. Since I have to send files to professors in PDF anyways (mostly), whether or not it's Word doesn't make a difference right? The one concern I have is with long documents that may not format well if I ever have to work with others.
NeoOffice is ok for me, but I've noticed that with one of my documents (25 pages long) it lost a few pages (down to 23 in NeoOffice). I too find that the docs don't look as "pretty" but I can get over that, since OS X as a whole is a lot prettier.
Yes, the financial argument is a good one. No need to spend $200 on a product that can be replaced with several free or $40 ones.
Noticed this too huh? When Microsoft gets ready for a fight, it fights dirty.
Just college papers mostly. The longest of which will probably be my thesis (50 pages).
Ah, I feel for you. I'm an Engineering major. Ten pages is the most I have ever written in my life, and I doubt I will ever get a masters degree because it really won't help me that much in the real world, as much as being professionally licensed will.
Well I don't know if I should even mention it but I'm still using windows office 2000 and am happy enough. So my question is do you think I should be examined? Still waiting for my iMac with leopard.
Thanks for the advice. I think the simplest thing in the end will be to buy Macs but run Parallels or similar to give access to Access. We've got 12 main databases - each with about 20,000 records doing different things. 5 are used on websites, so it would be a major pain to change all those as well.
Just out of curiosity, how do you handle writes from multiple users? Microsoft Access didn't really handle that well last time I checked. If that isn't a problem, you probably shouldn't touch the databases, but if it is, that would be a case for migrating to a "proper" database. SQL server won't give you platform independence and it costs money. Oracle is painful to configure (at least from what I've heard) and it costs money. However, MySQL or (even better) PostgreSQL should suit your needs just fine, with regards to multiple write-access and scalability.
Access has its strengths when it comes to making fairly nice GUI interfaces reasonably fast, but platform independence, transaction safety, and scalability is the price you pay.
... in which case you would have used LaTeX for your thesis, anyway.
C'mon, all the cool engineering/science/math people use it...