Office for Mac 2011 to Be 32-Bit Only

[jettredmont]

Can't wait to watch the chorus of "OMG this is 2010... why can't I type my essay in 64-bit????" make themselves look foolish.

They buried the lede. The problem is NOT that Word won't access more than 2GB of memory. The problem is that Word will not be a Cocoa app. It won't support services. It won't "fit in" with the rest of the system. It will continue to use the ugly segregated and inconsistent Microsoft Office Dictionary instead of the system-wide Dictionary app, etc.

Of all the consequences for dropping Cocoa development, 64-bit is about the least impactful. It's an odd one to choose as the lede in an article about this.

 

[jettredmont]

First of all: 64-bit is useless for Office. So no biggie.

But on second thought: it's pretty pathetic after eight years of OSX, MS still can't make the jump to 64 bit. I mean come on! It's been soooooo many years already! Put a little effort in it. Stuff like this isn't hard.

I am left wondering if Office 2011 is 100% Cocoa, but from the post I reckon it's still a Carbon monstrosity with all kinds of UI approximations. For me, that means no sale still.

True. But, I believe Microsoft said the reason they are not going 64-bit is because of the time needed to move to Cocoa (and just what have they been doing the last 2 years???).

Same here: No Cocoa, No Sale.

Which just might mean no more Office for me, ever. Every year iWork takes more of my Office use cases away; I am expecting Office to be a once-a-month need at best by 2013, and at that point I can live with firing up the aging monstrosity that is Office 2004. I think Microsoft may have just given away their last shot at keeping me as a customer!

 

[Goaliegeek]

Way to go M$. How about improving Office for Mac 2008? The slowest program I've ever used.

 

[SlowTuna]

Oh my sweet God noooooooo!!!! Those bastards at M$!!! Wait...how does this effect me again?

Seems a nonissue.

 

[tmuller]

"Excel files with data in millions of cells..."


Ummmm last time I looked, Microsoft produced a SQL database, isn't that were this should be?

Retarded.

 

[HLdan]

Hahaha you guys cannot seriously complain about this. Refusing to upgrade because it is 32-bit and not 64 is like college kisd waiting for the new i7 so they can watch porn... lightning fast!

Very few people need that capacity, and the ones that do would have access to the resources (a PC) that they need.

That's not the issue, the issue is (at least with me) that Microsoft will keep on doing more for Windows and less for the Mac while stealing money of the Mac community's pockets. They try and package what's being called "Microsoft Office", sell it for the same price as the Windows version and when the poor customer gets home they realize they got a dumbed down version.
The Windows version once again is better than the Mac. Why can't MS just stop with this crap about trying to make Apple lose out so they can win. This is BS, we as customers have to pay for this crap. Their last excuse was that Apple changed over to Intel right before the end of MS's product cycle and didn't have time to make a full native version of Office. Now they've had plenty of time, even Adobe's new creative suite is full 64bit on Mac.

 

[wankey]

Well!

There goes one of the biggest reasons to upgrade down the drain.

Not a big MS Word user, but would have considered getting it for the school teacher wife.

p.s. The current version is a hog.

And 64-bit will fix that LOL. You have no idea about software.

 

[ThomasJL]

No incentive for Micro$oft to create 64-bit version

The reason Microsoft can be lazy by offering no 64-bit version is because people who need Office don't have any alternative software to choose from. Plus, there are a large number of people who are required to buy it. For example, every college student needs office.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

And 64-bit will fix that LOL. You have no idea about software.

64bit won't fix that. Office 2008 was just trash. Office 2011 has been revamped. Also some history that MS told us at the Office Roadshow was that Office 2008 SP2/Web Services was the main focus of the Mac BU until this project started. MS is now taking the Mac BU seriously because they know what the impact really is, Macs in the business world.

BTW: Adobe's Creative Suite is not fully 64 bit.

 

[Kristenn]

Is it really that big of a deal?

Last time I checked, iWork '09 isn't 64-bit either.

I think Office 2008 runs so slow because it runs in Rosetta. I mean seriously, what was Microsoft thinking? MacIntel had been out for like 2 years when Office 2008 hit the market. It's no wonder I hate the slowness of Office 2008 on a MacIntel. As long as it's coded to work on Intel Processors I might use Office on my computer and iWork on the iPad.

 

[tom5304]

Or Apple's cancerous godfather CEO Steve as he lies onstage...

Okay, that's just weird.

 

[dru`]

32bit only is a little bit annoying.

I hope-but doubt 2011 will be any faster than both 2008 AND 2004.
Both are shamefully slow.

If you look in the 2011 Beta 3 "Office" subfolder you'll find "WinAPIUI.framework", and "PowerPlant.framework", "PowerPlantCore.framework"

What's that tell you?



For those who say not moving to 64-bit for Office doesn't matter you can get some huge files and data sets but the app being able to move 64 bits at a time instead of 32 bits is a win for performance. Just compare how Safari benchmarks in 64 bit vs 32 bit and that's "just" a browser.

The only reason I keep Office around is because it has very smart Clipboard support and can Find/Replace text attributes. Otherwise my needs are met by other software.

 

[jettredmont]

You don't actually need a 64-bit app to do 64-bit calculations. "double" precision calculations have been around for some time, explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_precision_floating-point_format

I believe the internal representation used by 32-bit Excel for numeric types is a 64-bit value.

I believe his point was not that doing an FFT in 64 bits on a 32-bit app was impossible (or even hard). It was that drawing in a large set of data from a database can quickly overcome the 32-bit memory limitation. Why would you want to do that? Example: to run FFT processing on it, something which database apps tend to not do very well.

Translated for you.

 

[darkplanets]

It seems the same, sane, rational responses by many intelligent forum members are falling on deaf ears.

So, ill repeat it, once more, for all of you who don't get it.

32 bit WORD IS NOT HELPFUL/USEFUL FOR THE AVERAGE USER

With that said; yes, it seems like Microsoft is giving corporate (at least on the mac side) a giant middle finger, but then again, who really uses macs at a corporate level (not many proportionally). It would however be nice for that one user who posted about a giant excel sheet, or for my father, or for me, when I have to look/read through something that's giant ala patents, school, etc. However, regardless of how nice it would be for us random (and in my case inconsistent) high-end users, MS is doing the right thing here by having a 64-bit version available for PC (corporate) and keeping to 32 for compatibility reasons on the mac side. It makes sense. The chances are that you, yes you, random forum poster reading this, do NOT need 64-bit word, ppt, etc.

And if its really that big of a deal, switch to iWork. Oh wait, that's not 64-bit yet either.

 

[gamerw00t]

meh, it shouldnt really matter at all unless you have a high-resolution ppt

 

[Frobozz]

I use iWork instead of Office. However, there are times when you need to view or edit an Office document anyway. I actually think the Mac version of Office is better than the Windows version. Yeah, they're both overly complicated for the vast majority of users, but it's the devil you know.

The real news in this post is that Office's UI is not fully Cocoa. That means a speed hit. The fact that it is not 64 bit is a side effect, not the topic of discussion. Office doesn't need 64 bit memory addressing. And, I could be wrong, but I don't think a Mac Pro running in (default) 64bit mode will be adversely affected by a 32bit app. Lots of apps are still 32bit.

It's time for major software vendors to port code to Cocoa. The problem is that project managers can't seem to justify the time drain for a bullet point that says "10%" faster. At least not on a huge suite of apps like Office. Look at how long it took Adobe with the Creative Suite. I don't like it, but I understand why.

 

[dru`]

Is it really that big of a deal?

Last time I checked, iWork '09 isn't 64-bit either.

I think Office 2008 runs so slow because it runs in Rosetta.

You clearly don't think because Office 2008 is Universal. 2004 runs in Rosetta.

iWord '09 isn't 64-bit but was released within a couple weeks of Snow Leopard last September and runs on a 500MHz G4 or later Mac running Tiger or later OS.

 

[jettredmont]

"Excel files with data in millions of cells..."


Ummmm last time I looked, Microsoft produced a SQL database, isn't that were this should be?

Retarded.

For OS X?

Yeah, right.

But, to the point of Excel/Spreadsheet versus a real database, see arguments upthread. Primarily, it's because the folks needing to drive these calculations tend to be deathly afraid of databases and "real" programming languages to do complex calculations based on query results.

 

[milo]

Do that many people really not realize that 64 bit isn't just about memory space? That it generally gives a performance boost as well?

 

[Kristenn]

You clearly don't think because Office 2008 is Universal. 2004 runs in Rosetta.

iWord '09 isn't 64-bit but was released within a couple weeks of Snow Leopard last September and runs on a 500MHz G4 or later Mac running Tiger or later OS.

And your point is?

Did I also mention Office 2008 is dog slow on PPC and gains no speed bumps while running on Intel?

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Microsoft corp. needs to drop PPC completely as I hope Apple inc. will do with the next version of iWork.

 

[Queso]

For OS X?

Yeah, right.

You don't need Microsoft SQL to have a SQL database. MySQL runs on OSX just fine.

 

[JAT]

Can't wait to watch the chorus of "OMG this is 2010... why can't I type my essay in 64-bit????" make themselves look foolish.

Well!

There goes one of the biggest reasons to upgrade down the drain.

Not a big MS Word user, but would have considered getting it for the school teacher wife.

p.s. The current version is a hog.

Wow!! It only took a minute for miles' prohpecy to come true!

 

[RebootD]

All I care about is that it doesn't take forever and a day to open/use/quit like 2008. I really, really hate Office 2008. (and very glad the floating palates will go away)

 

[milo]

Can we clear something up here?

64 bit does not make a program faster!

Maybe it doesn't always make a program faster (I have no doubt that there are programmers who can botch a 64 bit update such that it has no advantage), but there are plenty of examples where it does.

Sorry, but there are plenty of apps where benchmarking running it in 64 bit versus 32 gives a speed boost (in some cases 10% or more).

 

[dru`]

And your point is?

Did I also mention Office 2008 is dog slow on PPC and gains no speed bumps while running on Intel?

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Microsoft corp. needs to drop PPC completely as I hope Apple inc. will do with the next version of iWork.

You really aren't paying attention then because Office 2011 is Intel ONLY.

There is no rationality to a pathological hatred for including PPC support in iWork. It shouldn't slow a well written app at all since there are two binaries and no emulation.

Office 2008 is "dog slow" because it's not "well written."