Well MS want to make it harder for people to switch from Windows+Office. The real reason of Office:mac is to act as a starting point so you switch to Windows..
Office for Mac 2011 Previewed Ahead of Launch Scheduled for Later This Year
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Well MS want to make it harder for people to switch from Windows+Office. The real reason of Office:mac is to act as a starting point so you switch to Windows..
Word 2011 ribbon uses half screen in the 13' gizmodo screenshot.
This is the reason why I'm working from home today.
I'm using Office on windows, editing documents but I need that large screen which work doesn't have. So Ribbon, although seeming good for starters, makes it harder for the average Joe to get the work done.
Sometimes a Thinkpad T500's widescreen or a normal 4:3 external monitor just don't compete with vertical realestate that a 1680x1050 gives.
appleseed76
macrumors regular
I work with compatibility issues everyday. iWork does not do a good job of converting MS Office formats. First of all the fonts don't match. Secondly, the overall formatting always leads to extra pages when I don't need them. Thirdly, features on one presentation software don't exist on the other, so they don't display right. And finally, Pages doesn't have the craptastic clip art gallery that Word does, and people at my school looooooooooove to use.
I just wish that iWork would become a web-based software suite and offer some real competition to MS Office. Maybe Google will eventually.
appleseed76
macrumors regular
No it's not. The MS Office for Mac project was started to make Apple computers more viable for the business world. People wouldn't switch to Windows just to use MS Office when it exists on the Mac as well. Although honestly these productivity suites are losing ground to more web-based solutions that are compatible with all computers, not just PCs or Macs.
organerito
macrumors 6502
Apple should create iWork for Windows 7.
WHY? --To make a bigger dent at lessening the world's perceived dependability on Office (and to wow customers with the superiority of Keynote. --and to make a few more people consider Mac experience for their next computer: If an Apple office suite can be this easy and fun to use, imagine what you can experience with and Apple computer...)
With Apple's brand name now seen as a viable player by corporate and consumers, such a venture would have a good chance of bearing fruit, especially with an ad campaign showing compatibility with word of all types. PC-guy would show his creation on Word, Mac-guy would then open the exact same Word document in iWork, and then Mac-guy would show what else you could do in iWork WITH EASE! --in ways that are way LESS SRTESSFUL! PC-gy would claim he could accomplish the same things with good old Word, but then he gets lost in ribbons and such, and gets confused and frustrated...
Ask PC people to give iWork-for-Windows a try; 90-day free trial.
A better experience, seamless compatibility, 25%- 75% cheaper than Office, cheaper for big business, happier employees, and people consider the Mac in the future.
No thanks.
We don't need another POS program like iTunes. We don't need more crappy programs that are slow, buggy and can do a lot less than what we already have.
FranCarstens
macrumors newbie
Not without XML data
There is no way M$ can get me to upgrade without support for XML data in Excel. Office for Mac seriously lacks in functionality. And what ever happened to Macros? For goodness sake the stuff's called "mac"ros and Office for "mac" doesn't support it!?!
Forget the toolbar, give me full functionality first.
There is no way M$ can get me to upgrade without support for XML data in Excel. Office for Mac seriously lacks in functionality. And what ever happened to Macros? For goodness sake the stuff's called "mac"ros and Office for "mac" doesn't support it!?!
Forget the toolbar, give me full functionality first.
Bafflefish
macrumors 6502
Sorry, where I am we generally shorthand Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition as "Entourage 2008 EWS", simply because it more clearly refers to what the Web Services Edition is. You're right though, EWS is simply an API. I should have referred to it more clearly as Web Services Edition.
Now, that having been said, Web Services Edition is fundamentally different from Entourage 2008 12.2.3 and earlier. Microsoft themselves even states it:
Notice the rebuilt part? If it wasn't, you wouldn't see some of the functionality previously available now missing (such as the ability to access Exchange 2003 public folders, for example).
You can't "rebuild" EWS in Cocoa, yes. You can "rebuild" Web Services Edition in Cocoa, and that's what people are afraid that Microsoft is doing.
At the moment this is true, although apparently there is some discussion about possibly allowing WebDAV support back in so as to ease the transition (Exchange 2010 has no WebDAV support, so as you mentioned Outlook for Mac would currently only allow Exchange 2007+ accounts to connect, but there is still a considerably large install base for Exchange 2003).
Not that I've heard or seen, although I thought with the objective of moving to Cocoa that they were going to implement 64-bit as well. I'll ask the MS rep the next time they're in whether they're updating it for 64-bit (we still have a huge install base of 32-bit machines anyway).
Ok, what you meant to say that people are afraid that MS is going to simply "port" Entourage to Cocoa which is not same thing as rebuilding since Entourage 2008 WSE was rebuilt to include EWS protocol support.
MacBU clearly stated a few time in their blog that Outlook is brand new from the ground up starting with Cocoa. We'll see over the next several months.
They are not going to bring WebDAV back, they spent several years rebuilding Entourage with EWS just to get away from WebDAV. They'll just use IMAP or some other protocols for pre-Exchange 2007 support or actually suggest people to use older clients.
Cocoa for Outlook, we have no idea if Office itself is going to be Cocoa. Initial screenshots suggest still carbon. So if Office 2011 is still carbon, no chance of 64bit.
PsyD4Me
macrumors 6502a
Hope it's not another crap that takes a minute to launch
My Office 2008 with SSD launches lighting fast.....
Maserati7200
macrumors 6502a
They already have iWork.com, launched January 6, 2009.
Anything would load fast with an SSD. Most people do not have SSD's yet, and will not be standard for quite sometime.
Yep....
Although I'm not a huge proponent of the "cloud computing" thing, it does offer some powerful features that traditional office suites don't really do.
For example, Google Apps offers the ability to create a custom form that when filled in, auto-populates specific cells of a linked spreadsheet. A friend of mine started converting people at his workplace to using Google Apps for some of their work, and he was able to make life much easier for them by constructing some of these customized forms. They can literally pull one up and fill in the blanks, and know that an appropriate spreadsheet has been updated where it needs to be with their data.
Although I'm not a huge proponent of the "cloud computing" thing, it does offer some powerful features that traditional office suites don't really do.
For example, Google Apps offers the ability to create a custom form that when filled in, auto-populates specific cells of a linked spreadsheet. A friend of mine started converting people at his workplace to using Google Apps for some of their work, and he was able to make life much easier for them by constructing some of these customized forms. They can literally pull one up and fill in the blanks, and know that an appropriate spreadsheet has been updated where it needs to be with their data.
Why, Ribbon, tell me why!
The Ribbon is brilliant.
Office 2003 for Windows had a relatively efficient and stable interface. Poorly designed to be sure, but functional. Given that Microsoft lacked the design expertise to improve on that scenario, they had no way to create a compelling upgrade.
Enter Office 2007 and the Ribbon, which banished command menus and rendered the interface unstable and inefficient. But it was new and it looked cool, so everybody bought it.
And now, after some years of suffering through buried commands that hide or disguise themselves when you least expect it, people are ready for an improvement... and Microsoft will be ready to deliver! That is, they'll clean up the train wreck by removing some of the Ribbon's more egregious features--and perhaps they'll even throw in a menu or two! And everybody will line up to buy it. Again. Brilliant.
The Ribbon was probably not inflicted on Office 2008 because MS figured the strategy wouldn't work so well on mac users. But given how, uh, compelling that update (maintenance release?) was, perhaps Microsoft is feeling a little desperate. They do like to test out new features in their mac versions... perhaps the feature will be a Ribbon that can be disabled!
The Ribbon is brilliant.
Office 2003 for Windows had a relatively efficient and stable interface. Poorly designed to be sure, but functional. Given that Microsoft lacked the design expertise to improve on that scenario, they had no way to create a compelling upgrade.
Enter Office 2007 and the Ribbon, which banished command menus and rendered the interface unstable and inefficient. But it was new and it looked cool, so everybody bought it.
And now, after some years of suffering through buried commands that hide or disguise themselves when you least expect it, people are ready for an improvement... and Microsoft will be ready to deliver! That is, they'll clean up the train wreck by removing some of the Ribbon's more egregious features--and perhaps they'll even throw in a menu or two! And everybody will line up to buy it. Again. Brilliant.
The Ribbon was probably not inflicted on Office 2008 because MS figured the strategy wouldn't work so well on mac users. But given how, uh, compelling that update (maintenance release?) was, perhaps Microsoft is feeling a little desperate. They do like to test out new features in their mac versions... perhaps the feature will be a Ribbon that can be disabled!
Thunderbird
macrumors 6502a
Thanks for posting your response to LTD. This needed to be said. iWork definitely has compatibility issues.
Hopefully Office 2011...
..will finally bring bidirectional text (left to right and right to left). It's been something missing for ages in all of the Office versions for Macintosh and the iWork suite. The only native mac application I can think of that supports that is my copy of the Adobe Creative Suite (Middle East Edition)
While the OS itself supports languages that go from right to left (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, Dari, etc.), the productivity packages don't. That's pretty much one of the few reasons why I still keep a PC laptop at work -- because when I need to work in a Right to Left document, I can.
*sighs* Just tired of the fanboys trying to tell me that left justification is the answer. It's not. The text is still going from left to right when you left justify something.
..will finally bring bidirectional text (left to right and right to left). It's been something missing for ages in all of the Office versions for Macintosh and the iWork suite. The only native mac application I can think of that supports that is my copy of the Adobe Creative Suite (Middle East Edition)
While the OS itself supports languages that go from right to left (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, Dari, etc.), the productivity packages don't. That's pretty much one of the few reasons why I still keep a PC laptop at work -- because when I need to work in a Right to Left document, I can.
*sighs* Just tired of the fanboys trying to tell me that left justification is the answer. It's not. The text is still going from left to right when you left justify something.
MorphingDragon
macrumors 603
Umm, Office 07/08 is slow and buggy and a POS.
frjonah said:
We announced in May 2008 that VBA is returning to Office:Mac. That's still on track.
talkingfuture said:
Yes. We will support the Office Web Apps from within the desktop client. You'll still be able to save locally, of course; for those who want the cloud element, it's there..
Analog Kid said:
Entourage 2008 and earlier connected to Exchange 2007 and earlier using WebDAV. Exchange 2007 introduced a new protocol called Exchange Web Services (EWS). In Exchange 2007, WebDAV and EWS sit side-by-side. In Exchange 2010, EWS replaces WebDAV. Furthermore, in Exchange 2010, MAPI (which is how Outlook for Windows communicates with Exchange) is de-emphasised, with the long-term plan of Outlook for Windows also moving over to use EWS. The goal is to have only two methods for communicating with Exchange: Exchange ActiveSync for mobile devices, and Exchange Web Services for desktop clients.
We issued an update to Entourage 2008 called Entourage for Web Services that uses EWS to communicate with Exchange. EWS brings us features that we couldn't get via WebDAV, such as syncing of tasks, notes, and categories. There's other goodness in there, such as support of auto-discovery, not to mention attachments on calendar events.
So yes, Outlook:Mac will use the same method for communicating to Exchange as Entourage for Web Services does today. We've worked closely with the Exchange team to ensure that EWS gives us the features that we need, and if you watch the Service Packs and Roll-up Updates from Exchange, you'll see that there have been continual improvements to EWS to expose more and more features.
My team didn't just take the Windows Office Ribbon and push it onto the Mac. First and foremost, the OS X menu is still there, as is the standard toolbar. You can turn the Ribbon off if you don't want it.
Our goal is to expose commands that people want to use but have a hard time finding. If you already know where it's located in a menu, then you'll still find it in the same place. If you didn't know where it's located, then the Ribbon will give you a better way to find it now. We've conducted lots upon lots of user testing with it, and we've made improvements to it throughout our development cycle (which started before Office 2008 was released). We have some more studies scheduled in the upcoming weeks, so if you're in the Puget Sound area or the San Francisco Bay Area, please sign up to participate if you'd like to get a sneak peak (beyond the screenshot that we posted to our blog).
(And I do hope that y'all will forgive me for not poking my head in earlier. I was at Macworld last week, including giving a talk in the IT track.
)Regards,
Nadyne.
danielwsmithee
macrumors 65816
Office for Mac was always better then Office for Windows until Office 2007 for Windows came out. Hopefully this update will bring the Mac version back on top. I second the comment about speed. It is kind of sad that I currently can run Windows and Office 2007 in a Virtual Machine and get a faster and more stable experience then I can get by running either Office 2008 or Office 2004 directly on my Mac without a virtual machine running.
So, your solution to most users being dense enough not to learn anything in 15 years of the menu/toolbar...is to give them a new interface that they won't bother to learn anything about.
You can't fix stupid.
There is only one useful improvement to make. And that is apparently in Office 2010 (I need to test the beta), so please add it to Office 2011. This is user customizability. If I can't change what is in the Ribbon, it is pointless.
Turning it off will be nice, I guess, but please don't tell me that is what "customize" means. Real users simply make the computer do what they need. And what I need is different than my coworker, different than you. The sentence I made bold is incorrect because better is in the eye of the user. Button/command customizability is the only feature worth talking about.
jacg
macrumors 6502a
Thanks for posting. Glad to hear the conventions that have upset my Windows friends will be optional. Please can you tell me if it will also be possible to turn off the 2008 button bar which brings up the clip art, charts, etc. Any chance these items will be relocated to a vertical location, for all the same screen dimension reasons given by the many other posters in this thread?
Looking forward to using native Excel with macros!
jacg
macrumors 6502a
Just in case there's any doubt, 2011 will have to be amazing to win me back as an active user of anything but Excel. Amazingly OS X.
2008 was such a non-step forward with it's non speed boost, compatibility issues and continued interface inefficiency. Since then I have soldiered on with Excel 2004 when necessary and switched all other document creation to iWork (which is just so much easier and effective to use for someone used to well designed Apple and 3rd party Cocoa apps). I do occasionally use Word to open documents that don't look right in Textedit or Pages but I can't see any reason why I would ever go back to a non-OS X interface again - Pages does everything I want easier. Numbers may never match the features of Excel even though in terms of usability it is miles ahead.
If Numbers ever matches Excel in the way that Keynote surpasses Powerpoint in every useful way (for me), Office will only ever be required for compatibility with less fortunate computer users.
I realise these are just my opinions, born out of my extended use of many well designed OS X apps. Now that I use non-standard interfaces from the likes of Microsoft and Adobe as infrequently as possible, every visit is often tiresome and slow. I don't see why Windows/OS X compatible functionality can't just exist purely through OS X conventions when using the software on a Mac.
2008 was such a non-step forward with it's non speed boost, compatibility issues and continued interface inefficiency. Since then I have soldiered on with Excel 2004 when necessary and switched all other document creation to iWork (which is just so much easier and effective to use for someone used to well designed Apple and 3rd party Cocoa apps). I do occasionally use Word to open documents that don't look right in Textedit or Pages but I can't see any reason why I would ever go back to a non-OS X interface again - Pages does everything I want easier. Numbers may never match the features of Excel even though in terms of usability it is miles ahead.
If Numbers ever matches Excel in the way that Keynote surpasses Powerpoint in every useful way (for me), Office will only ever be required for compatibility with less fortunate computer users.
I realise these are just my opinions, born out of my extended use of many well designed OS X apps. Now that I use non-standard interfaces from the likes of Microsoft and Adobe as infrequently as possible, every visit is often tiresome and slow. I don't see why Windows/OS X compatible functionality can't just exist purely through OS X conventions when using the software on a Mac.
Thanks for your additional comments.
I was wondering if you could share any info on any status on the possibility of bringing OneNote to the Mac?
Terminal.app
macrumors 6502
Am I to understand that Outlook is the only Cocoa app of the Office Suite? I would have thought it was all getting a 64-bit overhaul.
Anyway I'll still be getting it regardless. For those complaining about the ribbon, I hate it too but I have it figured out anyway. Thankfully I don't use Office on Windows much these days.
Anyway I'll still be getting it regardless. For those complaining about the ribbon, I hate it too but I have it figured out anyway.
Thankfully I don't use Office on Windows much these days.