Microsoft to Release Office for Mac 2011 in Late October

[MacPossum]

Buy a qualifying Office 2008 for Mac product from an authorized reseller between Aug. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2010.

So I just bought a new MacBook Pro and I need MS Office for law school in the fall. Would Amazon be considered an authorized reseller of MS Office 2008? It's a lot cheaper there, but I wouldn't want to try to save $30 and end up paying another $100 for 2011.

 

[saifrc]

Excel + VBA = REAL WORK AGAIN!

People are looking at the prices listed, and talking about the marginal cost of Outlook, on one machine vs. three machines, etc. That's all well and good. However, when I see the price chart, I just see a lot of numbers that all equal one thing for me:

Excel with VBA support.

As long as the home/student version has that, I'm all over it. I love the interface that Numbers provides, but it seriously doesn't cut it for more advanced analysis. I'm really looking forward to using Excel with the ribbon, using the new themes, and most of all, using custom analysis scripts in Excel on a Mac again.

Funny thing is, I don't even like VBA as a language. If iWork let you code custom features in Pages or Numbers using, say, AppleScript, that would put it almost on par with MS Office. However, Apple's chosen to go the route of simplicity and good aesthetic design, which I respect. Just let me use the Analysis ToolPak again!

 

[logandzwon]

Yes Little Fanboy, I know. He said that "Office is OK is you only work with companies that are MS Fanboys"... That's a real intelligent statement, isn't it??

Actually the quote is "As far as your excel files opening correctly, well as long as you only do business with MS "Fanboys" you should be fine then. " Your cut and paste must not be working. The comment is poking fun at your rude demeanor and obvious lack of experience with MS office you proved here with your comment, "I'll be damned if I (and I doubt anyone who works for a living) would dare send off a spreadsheet to a client only to find that it doesn't open correctly." Followed by, "Sorry Fanboys, in the real world it's MS Office or nothing."

Whaaa Whaaa Yes Little Fanboy - I'm breaking corporate Law!!! That means a lot coming from a nutcase who thinks that companies who use MS Office are "MS Fanboy Companies"... Get lost and go pray in front of you 11 x 17 glossy of Steve Jobs.

Come back when you grow up kid...

Ahhh, really? Neither copyright nor the DMCA are corporate law. One is civil and one is federal. The EULA simply defines what your getting to if you choose to purchase the license. It's a contract, or more practically, a definition of a contract. IE, why I can't install my copy of Office 2008 on any machine I want, I can only install it on one machine. Failing to abide would put me at risk of violating copyright, which would me at risk a civil suit for damages. Breaking the DCMA, being federal law pertaining to breaking copyright control mechanisms, you know, the system you had to by-pass to commit copyright fraud when installing your hackntosh, is a complexity different matter. Now, as this comment is also being an obvious parody of a comment you made, (hell it's mostly verbatim your own words!) you really shouldn't have taken anything to it but to have rethought your own silliness. Second, my sanity or lack thereof is irrelevant to either the topic at hand, or the appropriateness of your public bragging about being a criminal. Third, and possibly issue with your closing statement, being a fanboy would require I be fanatically arguing FOR something, (like you are about MS Office,) where as I've been continuously pitching that different applications have different assets.

 

[JAT]

I wonder if they will ever come out with a version that includes Microsoft Access. Phooey!!!

Nope, it was dropped years ago.

 

[kernkraft]

I use both MS office (Windows) and iWork (since it started) at work.

Firstly (aside from numbers/excel) they work great together, Word and Pages from my experience are 90% compatible and the remaining 10% of issues are fixed with 5 minutes of tweaking.

If you keep Keynote boring it works great with Powerpoint, but in reality Keynote blows Powerpoint way out of the water. Everyone in my office is amazed at what I've done in Keynote really quickly, and we even pulled a dozen PPTs into it to run a full days AGM from one keynote presentation with embedded video, no hiccups.

Word has grown to add loads of features, but with little control and is a slow process if you do anything other than type. If you need any kind of graphics or any sense of design in you document then Pages is the way forward.

Excel, however, is still the industry leading in spreadsheets. Numbers is fun for a school soccer team (especially on an iPad!), but not for serious number crunching.

Outlook/Mail is an interesting debate, personally I hate Outlook and think it's a slow, bloated and cluttered, even more so since 2010.

But i'd love to know what on earth people are doing with their email that Mail can't hack it?
In my office I see people with all sorts of folders and rules in Outlook (which you could do with Mail), but mainly to store and find things because the search is rubbish. I just use Spotlight in Mail which is instant, and don't need folders.

I see why people need Office, but to be honest it's much about market share than whether it's really the best tool.

Keynote is nice (actually, I even got the iPhone version to 'power up' my presentations), but Word, Excel and the suite's support with MS Exchange makes the decision easy. After all, it's substance what you need, not just visuals. A nice 3D piechart doesn't add to the overall product as much as some advanced charting.

But in my garage, my Numbers scooter and Excel estate car are well maintained and used accordingly.

 

[PsudoPowerPoint]

The industry standard, unfortunately, happens to be crap, that has become totally entrenched thanks to MS' universal licensing of Windows racket. No wonder they've become the laughingstock of the tech world. With the cash coming in from Windows sales (which virtually guarantees Office sales) with nearly every PC, why bother to even make an effort?

Way back when MS had a small market share and viable competitors, MS really did innovate, and they really did make superior products. But after they crushed their competition, their business model changed. Version upgrades became more about "encouraging" users to upgrade with annoying but manageable backward compatibility issues.

 

[logandzwon]

I actually like the mail app, but I can't add my outlook to it since it is only outlook 2003, and the SL mail requires outlook 2008 or better.

Personally, I agree and have the same problem. Even if that wasn't an issue, (like your exhange admins turned on imap support,) you can't control server side rules with mail.app.

 

[JHankwitz]

Will it enable the use of macros?

Been using the beta of this and it's great. Can't wait for it to come out

Any word if Office apps will be able to use macros again?

 

[kyleh613]

I hope people aren't still caught up that this version doesn't support 64bit. You don't need it unless you are accessing files that are 4gb+ in size.

 

[NetScheduler]

Way back when MS had a small market share and viable competitors, MS really did innovate, and they really did make superior products. But after they crushed their competition, their business model changed. Version upgrades became more about "encouraging" users to upgrade with annoying but manageable backward compatibility issues.

I'm not sure how much innovation they were doing, but the rest of the world was certainly light years behind them on the DOS to Windows transition (no surprise here).

Almost overnight millions of Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Harvard Graphics, and dBASE IV users migrated of Office - including myself.

 

[LEStudios]

Who wants Office 2011?

I like iWork '09 a whole lot better!

 

[JAT]

Ahhh, really? Neither copyright nor the DMCA are corporate law. One is civil and one is federal. The EULA simply defines what your getting to if you choose to purchase the license. It's a contract, or more practically, a definition of a contract. IE, why I can't install my copy of Office 2008 on any machine I want, I can only install it on one machine. Failing to abide would put me at risk of violating copyright, which would me at risk a civil suit for damages. Breaking the DCMA, being federal law pertaining to breaking copyright control mechanisms, you know, the system you had to by-pass to commit copyright fraud when installing your hackntosh, is a complexity different matter. Now, as this comment is also being an obvious parody of a comment you made, (hell it's mostly verbatim your own words!) you really shouldn't have taken anything to it but to have rethought your own silliness. Second, my sanity or lack thereof is irrelevant to either the topic at hand, or the appropriateness of your public bragging about being a criminal. Third, and possibly issue with your closing statement, being a fanboy would require I be fanatically arguing FOR something, (like you are about MS Office,) where as I've been continuously pitching that different applications have different assets.

They are both broken when making a Hackintosh, but the DMCA is the least likely to be pursued (or at least, begin pursuing) in an individual case. And you've been arguing both sides of hating and liking MS Office, till nobody here can keep up. Maybe you should relax for 5 minutes and figure out what it is you mean.

 

[robbieduncan]

Any word if Office apps will be able to use macros again?

As I stated earlier in this thread: yes VBA is back.

 

[KirkL]

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but until OneNote is released for Mac, I think the Office suite for OSX is incomplete.

I really hope they get around to releasing it for Mac sometime in the future. Until then, it's Office 2010 in Windows 7 for this law student.

Have you tried Word's "Notebook View" in Mac? It seems similar to OneNote.

 

[logandzwon]

Then why isn't your company providing this for you? My company buys me the tools to do my job. And I don't have a choice on what they are.

When I'm on message boards talking about software I might or might not buy it's for my personal use. Is "finding SOPs" part of your personal life? Or does your company make you buy your work computer and fend for yourself?

I'm just trying to figure out where a lot of these comments are coming from in terms of "I'll buy this because my job requires Outlook." Ok, then why haven't they given it to you already?



I'm pretty sure that even Outlook Express for Windows is dead. Not sure...didn't I read that somewhere? I think it's not a thing anymore. Didn't they replace it with something else? If so, I can't imagine it coming to the Mac anytime soon.

Think about it like this, a mechanic brings his own tools to the garage he works at. Why? The mechanic is paid the same for the task no matter the time involved. The shop would buy the cheapest tool, where the mechanic is gonna buy the tools that work best for him and let him get the job done fastest. He decides if he wants the harbor fright set he'll damnage/drop/break/wear-out quickly, or the snapa-on that'll last forever if he takes the time to take care of it.

The place I'm at now issued me a basic business series dell with WinXP and office 2007. I'm a linux admin with 10 years experience in the field. I can afford my own tools and so I acquire the tools that I'm accustom to and work my best with. For some of my colleges the company dell is fine. One guy uses the Dell + an alien-ware with CentOS next to it. I just use virtual machines and a 15inch MBP.

This weekend two developers lost their machines for completely unrelated reasons, (one failed HD, one corrupted HD.) Code was lost. This lead to an interesting conversation about time machine...


MS marketed Outlook Express as an add for hotmail. Consumers started just using the webmail applet instead. Anyone who actually cared already moved onto a more feature rich mail client. No one attenuated the funeral.

So I just bought a new MacBook Pro and I need MS Office for law school in the fall. Would Amazon be considered an authorized reseller of MS Office 2008? It's a lot cheaper there, but I wouldn't want to try to save $30 and end up paying another $100 for 2011.

I think so, since I can't find a list of "authorized reseller" on MS's website and they directly link to amazon.com on the where to buy you'd think it would qualify.

 

[jlc1978]

Right on the money. iWork is toy, and Open Office is a bloated and semi-compatible pile of garbage.

As a free alternative, OO is not a bad choice.; especially if you are only going to do light writing and numeric calculations. For someone who needs such tools for a college or high school student OO is quite up to the task. Sure, most college kids can pick up Office:Mac for around $70 but, unless you really need a specific feature it's not really worth spending the money.

I'll be damned if I (and I doubt anyone who works for a living) would dare send off a spreadsheet to a client only to find that it doesn't open correctly.

Roger that. The cost of an industry standard program is minor compared to the cost of dealing with incompatibilities. "Close" or "Get a converter" doesn't hack it when you are getting paid to produce things. I even run Win7 and Office on a VM for those rare times when I have a file issue; plus I need Visio as well.

Sorry Fanboys, in the real world it's MS Office or nothing. All this said, I hope this will finally replace my copy of Office for Mac 2004.

If it looks more like the Win version I'll upgrade - the major pain I have is switching between the two. No, if they'd just add Visio...

 

[e-coli]

I wonder how many umpteen gigs of RAM this version will use? Man I wish this suite would just go away on both platforms.

 

[heisetax]

Excel 24/7 User

I love how everyone bashing the Apple apps doesn't give specifics and only says things like "it's a toy."

The only app that is behind is Numbers. Excel for Mac vs Excel for Windows doesn't favor Excel for Mac either if you want to get technical.

So with Numbers behind that leaves Keynote being far and away better (eg: you don't have to worry about your presentation exploding if you don't test it on the presentation computer first). Pages is also better when it comes to useful features as well as layout (Word can also throw a fit between versions but not as bad as Powerpoint). Mail works with Exchange 2007 well enough.

Therefore, might I suggest you be slightly more specific with your egotistical rant unless you think the real world uses Excel 24/7.

I am an Excel 24/7 User. No program comes even close to what Excel for the Mac does for me. So there is some of us out there.

We use Pages as much as Word. Word gives me bar codes on envelopes. If I had a replacement program to do this then Pages could handle most of what we do here, accounting & income tax prep.

We have very little use for a presentation program so anything I have to say is even worth less than my opinions on other programs.

Since everyone has different needs then everyone will have a different opinion as to what program are useful to them.

Sometimes an alternative program appears to work, but still not be compatible with the program that it is trying to replace. Because of heavy restrictions from Adobe Acrobat & other CS Suite programs I purchased PDFPen Pro. It does a great job. But I just noticed that a pdf that I have filed in with PDFPen Pro is not filed in with Adobe Acorbat 8 or 9.The same happens when we try to replace the different MS Office components with other programs, be it Apple iWork, OpenOffice or any of the free or paid for office suites. Sometimes only the original will do, for others many alternatives will work. Remember that we are all different.

 

[50548]

Right on the money. iWork is toy, and Open Office is a bloated and semi-compatible pile of garbage. I'll be damned if I (and I doubt anyone who works for a living) would dare send off a spreadsheet to a client only to find that it doesn't open correctly.

Sorry Fanboys, in the real world it's MS Office or nothing. All this said, I hope this will finally replace my copy of Office for Mac 2004.

So you've probably never used Keynote, which is MILES ahead of any competition...the first presentation software that actually makes creating slides a fun and enjoyable exercise...and YES, I have used it at work already.

 

[NetScheduler]

They are both broken when making a Hackintosh, but the DMCA is the least likely to be pursued (or at least, begin pursuing) in an individual case. And you've been arguing both sides of hating and liking MS Office, till nobody here can keep up. Maybe you should relax for 5 minutes and figure out what it is you mean.

I don't "love" or "hate" any companies, products, or inanimate objects.

I happen to enjoy Apple's Mac OS X OS and enjoy the ease of use the iLife suite for home use. I replaced my Blackberry with an iPhone in 2007 and am on my 3rd one. My wife and I both have an iPod touch. I bought my kids Macbooks when they went to college.

That said, I believe Microsoft makes some fine products as well. I use MS Mice on all my computers (Mac and Windows ) and don't believe the there is a need to reinvent the mouse (so I'm not interested in the Magic Mouse). The Pro Mouse was garbage, as was the Mighty Mouse. I have used MS office since 1990. I too believe that it is a fine product.

What I choose to buy and use should matter to only me, and are my personal preferences. There is no "Hate or Love" involved.

You guys have got to get out of this "I love Apple", I Hate Microsoft", "Apple is the best, everything else sucks" mentality. It's a big world out there, way too big to be blinded by brand loyalty.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

The issue is until Apple takes Exchange integration seriously Office will only get bigger.

 

[cmaier]

So you've probably never used Keynote, which is MILES ahead of any competition...the first presentation software that actually makes creating slides a fun and enjoyable exercise...and YES, I have used it at work already.

True. Pages is no substitute for Word, and Numbers is no substitute for Excel, though. At least not yet.

 

[NetScheduler]

So you've probably never used Keynote, which is MILES ahead of any competition...the first presentation software that actually makes creating slides a fun and enjoyable exercise...and YES, I have used it at work already.

Actually I have tried it - ONCE... I created a really nice presentation, emailed it off, and was notified by my client that they couldn't open the file.

All the fun in the world and enjoyable exercises don't matter if no one can see them.

 

[50548]

True. Pages is no substitute for Word, and Numbers is no substitute for Excel, though. At least not yet.

Yep, Keynote is WAY better for both novice and experienced users of any level...its intelligent alignment tools are simply second to none.

But for the moment I agree with you on both counts (Word and Excel), as far as it concerns heavy, traditional users.

However, even my PC-using wife asked for my Mac and Pages when we had to create wedding brochures for our guests...page layout in Word is close to nonexistent.

Excel stll has some edge in terms of formulae and overall depth, but Numbers has been QUICKLY chipping away at these advantages.

Not to mention that NeoOffice is a more than capable free alternative; the reasons for owning and using Office are disappearing fast.

 

[50548]

Actually I have tried it - ONCE... I created a really nice presentation, emailed it off, and was notified by my client that they couldn't open the file.

All the fun in the world and enjoyable exercises don't matter if no one can see them.

Well, exporting DOES work in Keynote, not to mention PDF capabilities...

But yeah, what can we say if PP is technically inferior and incapable of dealing with the same presentation features of Keynote? Time to switch to Macs perhaps? Also, not everyone needs to "email" presentations around - if we ourselves create and present them, pure compatibility is after all irrelevant.