Hey, hasn't it been a while sine Office v.X came out? What ever happened to their every-other-year update they were doing up until now? I hope they won't just deep freeze it like IE. I'd love to hear if anyone has heard anything about a new version.
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Next version of MS Office?
- Thread starter CMillerERAU
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Yes, my wife just recently purchased the Office: Mac which is excusively for Mac OS X. It includes Virtual PC with Windows XP professional. They also have one for students and teachers that doesn't include Virtual PC. Microsoft still need to come out with a fis so that Virtual PC will work on the G5.
Why on earth do you want another version of Office? It's just an invitation to hand over hundreds of dollars to M$ for a bunch of ridiculous features you'll never use.
But don't take my word for it, here's what the November 2, 2003 edition of TIME says about the latest Office update "The latest version of Microsoft Office ... has surprisingly few improvements designed for individuals. It targets the corporate market -- teams of office workers sharing documents, accessing corporate databases and filling out electronic forms. If you do most of you computing work on your own, save your cash."
And as the Exchange Server fiasco proves, M$ rarely puts its enterprise features into their Mac versions anyway ... so what exactly are you so eager to waste your money on?
But don't take my word for it, here's what the November 2, 2003 edition of TIME says about the latest Office update "The latest version of Microsoft Office ... has surprisingly few improvements designed for individuals. It targets the corporate market -- teams of office workers sharing documents, accessing corporate databases and filling out electronic forms. If you do most of you computing work on your own, save your cash."
And as the Exchange Server fiasco proves, M$ rarely puts its enterprise features into their Mac versions anyway ... so what exactly are you so eager to waste your money on?
Well I can't say I'd really want to buy whatever they come out with, just seems like the current version has been sitting a while and could take advantage of some features in Panther (remember, Office X came out for 10.1!) However, I like how they at least are making updates and am very happy with the latest update. I just question whether our version will be able to keep up with all the new "features" (read, security and bloatware) that's in the newwest versions of Office for Windows.
Every day there are fewer reasons to waste money on MS Office. In Panther you can open, edit and save Word files in Text Edit. Mail is now Exchange server compatible. Keynote is a vastly superior product to PowerPoint and you can save in PP format (sure, they still need to work out some kinks, but its 99% there.) Excel is all that's left. Odds are pretty good that the next AppleWorks will fill in all remaining gaps.
So given that there's little compelling reason for most Mac users to buy Office v.X, why on earth would we need Office 11 for Mac or whatever else they might call it?
Do you know that the vast majority of Windows users are still on Office 98? Businesses rarely upgrade their Office installations -- they have no reason to do so. So why should we?
So given that there's little compelling reason for most Mac users to buy Office v.X, why on earth would we need Office 11 for Mac or whatever else they might call it?
Do you know that the vast majority of Windows users are still on Office 98? Businesses rarely upgrade their Office installations -- they have no reason to do so. So why should we?
Usually I don't like flaming or being uncivil, but do you know what the hell you're talking about? Are you honestly so deluded and hypnotized in your blind hatred of all things Microsoft that you actually, honestly believe that TEXTEDIT can replace WORD? I won't even waste time addressing that. Keynote is a very sweet program, but it honestly lacks the maturity and widespread usage of PowerPoint (and everyone who's used Keynote knows that its PP translation filters are sorely lacking.) iCal is horribly inadequate and slow, making Entourage the only truly viable data management program on the Mac. And yes, there is absolutely no Excel replacement, which is a really big deal.
You're right about one thing, everyday that passes Microsoft loses a little of its edge on the Mac, but it's still a HUGE EDGE. No productivity application available on the Mac has the maturity, compatibility, and richness of Office v.X and, as of now, there is no adequate substitute. Someone will probably respond right back with a list of thirty shareware programs which, combined, perform all the functions of Office, but to believe that the average user will go to those lengths is ridiculous. That being said, there're many things Microsoft could improve which I would pay money for--speed for one big thing, greater reviewing features, and support for more international languages, just to name a few. Those alone justify a new release.
I love my Mac to no end and I'll never switch back to Windows, but this is the one thing that sickens me about the Mac community--its blind hatred toward Microsoft. Sure, we hate Windows, we hate that they stole the idea from us, we hate the ubiquity of that monstrosity they call a GUI, but some people go too far. Get off your high horse and sound rational, for once.
Well, I'll ignore the personal side of the argument because it's all pretty silly.
Look, I own Office v.X and I'd be the first to admit that I need it. All I'm saying is a point you readily concede -- that the MS strangehold is weakening. No, I don't recommend using TextEdit, but the fact that it is there means it is coming to AppleWorks, not RTF compatibility, real Word format compatibility.
I hate PowerPoint and the introduction of Keynote was a major victory for Apple in my book. Like I said originally, there are problems in the conversion, but they are fixable.
I agree that iCal is still lagging and I do use Entourage, but that gap will close pretty quickly.
Microsoft Office is the most overpriced piece of software every made, it accounts for about 40% of Microsoft's profit because it is mostly legacy code repackaged in new ways every couple of years. I don't think that makes me insane with Microsoft rage, it makes me rational -- I don't need 90% of what MS Office gives me already and I'd be ecstatic if the next software suite I bought did all I need it to do for half the price.
Look, I own Office v.X and I'd be the first to admit that I need it. All I'm saying is a point you readily concede -- that the MS strangehold is weakening. No, I don't recommend using TextEdit, but the fact that it is there means it is coming to AppleWorks, not RTF compatibility, real Word format compatibility.
I hate PowerPoint and the introduction of Keynote was a major victory for Apple in my book. Like I said originally, there are problems in the conversion, but they are fixable.
I agree that iCal is still lagging and I do use Entourage, but that gap will close pretty quickly.
Microsoft Office is the most overpriced piece of software every made, it accounts for about 40% of Microsoft's profit because it is mostly legacy code repackaged in new ways every couple of years. I don't think that makes me insane with Microsoft rage, it makes me rational -- I don't need 90% of what MS Office gives me already and I'd be ecstatic if the next software suite I bought did all I need it to do for half the price.
Okay, maybe I went a little overboard with the rhetoric of my post, so to chicagdan, I apologize for the personal attack. That was messed up of me.
But I still do stand by my belief that Office merits an upgrade. It really is lagging horribly behind the Windows version and the performance could use a lot of tweaking. Actually, what would probably make me happiest is if a powerful, fast, cheap, viable alternative to Office were to be released. I don't think AppleWorks is anywhere close yet, but hopefully one day...
Anyway, once again, sorry for the flame, chicag, didn't mean to go that overboard.
But I still do stand by my belief that Office merits an upgrade. It really is lagging horribly behind the Windows version and the performance could use a lot of tweaking. Actually, what would probably make me happiest is if a powerful, fast, cheap, viable alternative to Office were to be released. I don't think AppleWorks is anywhere close yet, but hopefully one day...
Anyway, once again, sorry for the flame, chicag, didn't mean to go that overboard.
Talk about a program grossly out of date, AppleWorks looks like a 1989 program. It's really quite embarassing that Apple can't put out a productivity suite that matches in look-and-feel the programs it gives away for free, never mind the bare bones nature of the product.
By the way, what are the features from Windows versions of MS Office that you want? I keep hearing about how far behind the Mac version has fallen, but I never hear of anything remotely useful to me. I do agree v.X needs to to be optimized, but I want them to do that in a service release. I just spent $300 on this program last year, I'm in no mood to shell out any more.
By the way, what are the features from Windows versions of MS Office that you want? I keep hearing about how far behind the Mac version has fallen, but I never hear of anything remotely useful to me. I do agree v.X needs to to be optimized, but I want them to do that in a service release. I just spent $300 on this program last year, I'm in no mood to shell out any more.
I named a few of the big ones in my earlier post, but off the top of my head, here're just a few:
- performance: even on my dad's 300MHz PII, Word seems to run so much faster. Outlook also runs so much snappier than Entourage. I guess it might be foolish to think that Microsoft cares at all about the performace of their products on a Mac, but I would consider shelling out $$ for that.
- international language support: Office XP supports a whole slew of international languages, but last I checked, Office v.X only supported 10 or 12. I have to type documents in Chinese often, and the fact that Word doesn't support Simplified Chinese input is a big drawback (Entourage, however, does...curiously enough.)
- Reviewing features: Office XP allows for multiple different formats for examining reviews, not just in the in-text format of Office v.X. The ability to show reviews as balloons on the side of the documents would be nice.
Those are the only I can think of off the top of my head. There're many more, I'm sure.
- performance: even on my dad's 300MHz PII, Word seems to run so much faster. Outlook also runs so much snappier than Entourage. I guess it might be foolish to think that Microsoft cares at all about the performace of their products on a Mac, but I would consider shelling out $$ for that.
- international language support: Office XP supports a whole slew of international languages, but last I checked, Office v.X only supported 10 or 12. I have to type documents in Chinese often, and the fact that Word doesn't support Simplified Chinese input is a big drawback (Entourage, however, does...curiously enough.)
- Reviewing features: Office XP allows for multiple different formats for examining reviews, not just in the in-text format of Office v.X. The ability to show reviews as balloons on the side of the documents would be nice.
Those are the only I can think of off the top of my head. There're many more, I'm sure.
But there's absolutely no reason why those three improvements can't come in v.X ... do you honestly think those three upgrades are worth the $200 upgrade price? Do they need a massive re-code to make the bloatware run better in Panther?
For what it's worth, I loathe the MS Office reviewing features. I think it's a ridiculous, counterintuitive system almost as bad as their comical grammar and spell check system. Most of the times, the proper response to a suggested edit is neither to accept nor reject the suggestion, but to rewrite. But MS makes that as difficult as possible. It actually encourages bad writing.
But that's just the bias of someone who writes for a living and resents the way MS has zero respect for writers. Office is still geared towards office assistants, not people who have to crank out 10,000 words a day to make a living.
What I would be willing to pay more money for is a word processing program built for writers that is 100% Word compatible.
For what it's worth, I loathe the MS Office reviewing features. I think it's a ridiculous, counterintuitive system almost as bad as their comical grammar and spell check system. Most of the times, the proper response to a suggested edit is neither to accept nor reject the suggestion, but to rewrite. But MS makes that as difficult as possible. It actually encourages bad writing.
But that's just the bias of someone who writes for a living and resents the way MS has zero respect for writers. Office is still geared towards office assistants, not people who have to crank out 10,000 words a day to make a living.
What I would be willing to pay more money for is a word processing program built for writers that is 100% Word compatible.