MSFT: Lion Features Coming to Office "In Months, Not Days"

[Telomar]

I fail to see what the fuss is about. Word has had support for versions of files for quite some time, although it isn't automatic. As to full screen...meh. I don't see this as something that breaks the app.

The reality is Office 2011 is still quite a nice piece of software.

To be honest I'm rather apprehensive about versioning given I've seen the waste that time machine has for hard drives. Truly I don't need a never ending supply of versions, give me an ability to limit it...

 

[fat jez]

I thought I read somewhere that Office 2008 doesn't work under Lion either. Is this true?

It works fine. I clean installed Lion and then installed Office 2008 from the install DVD. So the installer being a Power PC app doesn't seem to be the case, unless it's a universal binary?

 

[*LTD*]

apple should buy Microsoft

Apple doesn't need bloated OSes and Office retreads.

They are looking for dynamism, efficiency, and progressive thinking, not waste, redundancy, and uncultured products.

 

[Slurpy2k8]

I have yet to upgrade to Lion and I'm just curious; what are the features everyone's yearning for? This thread mentions Resume along with auto-save and Versions.

What are the other features?

I can't really see how they'll improve on the Full Screen view....but that was available without Lion.

Why the hell don't you just go to apple.com and see for yourself, instead of asking people to waste their time here to relist them to you? I never understand these idiotic requests.

 

[walnuts]

I'm glad to here this, though skeptical. I'm tied to office's compatibility so iWork was never a consideration for me. File versioning sounds like something that I would love to use, say for word or excel, but I wonder how that would affect compatibility.

 

[dosboy]

It's a business decision as well...

Apart from the development effort and prioritization, Microsoft also has to consider the business/competition aspect. Why rush to market with new features that could make a MacOS + MSOffice package (even) more attractive than a Windows+MSOffice package?

 

[sergey19]

Come on Microsoft!

Come on Microsoft! I mean you've had access to this since June! Only starting now?! At some point you must have realized that kids are gonna be going back to school in late August/early September... It didn't cross your mind that it would be good to get the feature worked out by then?!

 

[sergey19]

Apart from the development effort and prioritization, Microsoft also has to consider the business/competition aspect. Why rush to market with new features that could make a MacOS + MSOffice package (even) more attractive than a Windows+MSOffice package?

To try to make at least some money from people that have switched to a Mac and make sure they don't ALSO switch to iWork.

 

[justinfreid]

Big, massive, complex apps with long histories, massive developer teams, and massive testing programs, are slow to change. Maybe all these features are easy to do for Office, as they have been easy with (some) other apps; and maybe no consequences or bugs will result from the changes. Maybe. Or maybe this really is something that needs to be done right, albeit slower than we’d like. An update which has to happen in parallel with whatever other updates/projects they are also working on. Two sets of changes at cross-purposes are not always simple to pull off.

So I give Microsoft credit in this case: at least they’re not waiting for the next big paid version, nor playing “wait and see.” I wonder how Adobe’s handling these features....

(And there’s a difference between a compatibility/fix update, which should get the maximum rush, vs. a feature update. It sounds like Office is already compatible with Lion, but if there are serious bugs, I’d expect them squashed sooner than “months.”)



How do we know that work on these features isn’t partly done, and has long since been in progress? Yes, it’s amazing to think that changing one part of a software program could impact other parts, and that it could take months and months. But that is in fact the case sometimes. Is it the case here, or is the Mac BU just being slow and not caring? The latter might be true, I won’t deny--but I don’t think we have the evidence to accuse them yet.

P.S. I’m not biased: I use OpenOffice

You're right, and I acknowledge that they could have been working on the Lion-centric features since February, but the tenor of the post gave me the feeling that, at the least, they were making it seem like work had just gotten underway to buy time.
I have a bigger issue with the backbone of Office 2011, though. The document saving APIs aren't open as they are with the Windows version so Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office doesn't work on OS X.

 

[Sensamic]

I guess the developers working on Office for Mac are not as many as the ones working for windows, so its normal they take so long to release updates and fixes.

I hope, at least, that this new update will be available before the end of the year, even if its in december.

Meanwhile, they should release another update just to fix possible bugs in Lion. Then the next update should add these new features.

 

[johnhw]

I actually thought it was "Lion features coming to Windows 8"..

 

[benthewraith]

Fullscreen is so simple to implement, it's stupid, they could have at the very least thrown that in. I don't know too much about autosave or versions though, but I know they're not hard either.

Word already has a full screen function.

 

[osxhero]

I was given a free version of this software, and I'm yet to install it. Bye bye Office you bunch of lazy programmers. $79 and you were GONE!!!!!!

• Outlook -> Mail
• Word -> Pages

Don't need an $500 grid tool you call Excel.

 

[John.B]

Word already has a full screen function.

But the current full screen function isn't integrated into Lion with Mission Control and the swipe gestures. That's what they are adding. And versions, which is what really matters to me.

Don't need an $500 grid tool you call Excel.

Who pays $500 for Excel?

Office:mac for home and students is $110, the family pack is $123 and you can keep using Mail.

Office:mac for home and business includes Outlook for $163, or $220 for a two-pack.

 

[Blue Fox]

I've been using iWork 08 for a good long time now. No problems with it at the University, no problems with it at work or sending it to PC's either.

 

[MBP13]

This is kinda off-topic, but has Microsoft begun to require a product key to activate Microsoft Office for Mac? I know that you can take Microsoft Office for Mac 2007 (for example), copy it to a flash drive, and put it on as many computers as your heart desires without entering a product key.

 

[Winni]

I thought I read somewhere that Office 2008 doesn't work under Lion either. Is this true?

No. Office 2008 works just fine on my Lion machine, and unlike some said, even the installer of Office 2008 runs flawlessly on Lion.

Besides, nobody said that Office 2011 does not run on Lion, it just has not integrated some of Lion's new features yet. There's a big difference between "not working" and "not supporting new features".

 

[Winni]

To try to make at least some money from people that have switched to a Mac and make sure they don't ALSO switch to iWork.

You will not find one demanding user that would ever do that. I own both suites, and while iWork is cute for home users, it is not even remotely a match for Microsoft Office. And when you need something professional for actual work and not just writing private letters, we all know that there are ZERO alternatives to Microsoft Office on the market.

Deservedly so or not - it doesn't matter: Microsoft OWNS the Office suite market and if you want to stay compatible with the rest of the world, you have to use the real thing.

Apple knows that and let's all be honest here: Apple does not even really try to ship a product that can compete with Microsoft Office. Their iWork suite is a half-hearted effort at best with a glacial development pace, and they are certainly NOT targeting their applications at business/professional users.

 

[KnightWRX]

And when you need something professional for actual work and not just writing private letters, we all know that there are ZERO alternatives to Microsoft Office on the market.

Depends what you're trying to do. People writing thesis and scientific papers in Word should be lined up and killed. There's a reason TeX was made.

Office is good for secretaries and other office workers. There are a lot of better suited alternatives out there for a lot of other fields.

Anyway, as for this article, anyone here saying "They should have the support for new features done in days!" is just ridiculous. First, why support new OS features on the current release ? You paid for Office 2011, and it's still Office 2011 on Lion. If you want new features, it wouldn't be so far fetched for them to include them in the next release.

If they do include them this release, with a Service Pack, then why do you think this takes mere days ? The guy who said "full screen support is easy!" geez, why don't you show us ? Writting and connecting a whole new interface on top of the software is easy ? Yeah right. While the support may actually take a few days to make, it will take a while to go through various regression and Q&A tests, usability tests, packaging, deployment, etc.. This can easily stretch to months.

It's obvious most of you have never worked on a software program more than 100 lines long.

 

[SoftDel]

I fail to see why MSFT is getting such a hard time for this.

I seriously doubt that their mac development team is large and well funded.

I also seem to recall that the office:mac dev team is separate from the windows.(I think I may be wrong).

Yes office:mac isn't great and its a PITA that the update is going to take forever, but there is probably more to it than adding the features, because office:mac had its own version of full screen and auto save, which will have to be rewritten.

 

[ssk2]

Office:mac still remains the only viable solution for myself (and thousands of others), who rely on a productivity suite that is more than pretty effects. I'm hugely encouraged by the fact that MSFT have bothered to update Office '11, rather than wait for the yearly upgrade cycle.

 

[Clive At Five]

I truly pity the Mac Business Unit. Trying to stradle supporting MS's legacy crap whilst developing for Apple - who is practically famous for abandoning their own legacy crap - must be absolutely maddening.

They deserve some serious props - their job is not an easy one.

-Clive

 

[xUKHCx]

Depends what you're trying to do. People writing thesis and scientific papers in Word should be lined up and killed. There's a reason TeX was made.

I suppose this is just the word processing version of "you're not a pro unless you use x". Total rubbish. I used Word to write a 250 page engineering design. Totally fine no issues at all. I would've wasted a lot of time teaching everyone else how to use TeX and messing around on their computers rather than just running a program that people know how to use.


In regards to the actual topic I have no real reason to run the latest verison of Office at home with my current job so '08 is good enough for me. I'm glad they are adding it as when I come round to buying the next version it should be nailed down.

 

[7thMac]

Microsoft has known about these changes for some months. In the software world everything needs to be tested endlessly. There's no way around that. Let's hope they work hard and deliver these minor enhancements in a couple of months rather than a year.

 

[bartzilla]

I fail to see why MSFT is getting such a hard time for this.

Because many people are both foolish and ignorant about major software development.

I seriously doubt that their mac development team is large and well funded.

I also seem to recall that the office:mac dev team is separate from the windows.(I think I may be wrong).

They certainly used to be separate.