Ok, Office for Windows 2011 for Mac, compared to Office for Windows 2010.
A few people have said that Office for Mac 'Sucks' or 'Has More Features, or is more Compatible'. In general all these comments have not been specific about why it sucks or what features it lacks, or why they feel it is less compatible.
Now I can only assume their experience of Office for Mac is for a version before 2011, and if that was the case I would agree with them. It might be because Office for Windows can include other applications outside of the three core Applications of Word, Powerpoint and Excel - in which case I agree with them - Office for Mac does not have equivalent Applications for Access, OneNote, Project, Publisher or Visio.
I would also agree that the version of Outlook for Mac in Office 2011 is not as good as the version in Office 2010.
I can't comment on Office 2013, as I have never used it, and to be honest most large corporations are unlikely to adopt it for a least a year, a lot of companies are still running 2007 and earlier.
However Office for Mac 2011 as far as Word, Powerpoint and Excel are concerned is almost 100% feature compatible for most users. One of the big issues with Office for Mac 2008 was Microsoft dropped VBA support, and then reintroduced it back for Office 2011.
I am a long time Office user and have been using Office since the first initial release for Windows, and I use Office for both Windows and Mac in a business that is Windows based. The only shortcoming I have had is Office for Mac can be a little sluggish when dealing with large documents, particularly large spreadsheets.
I actually prefer Office 2011, because I personally hated it when Microsoft dropped the menu bar for the ribbon in Office for Windows.
So it would be helpful if those people who just make one word statements of 'it sucks' actually explain why they feel that way.
Office 2011 for Mac is indeed a much better product than Office 2008 (which was dreadful), but it is still inferior to its Windows counterpart.
I can give you some examples.
Office 2010 for Windows has much better performance. Word 2010 consumes about 50 MB of RAM (at most) while running. Word 2011 for Mac is a memory hog: it consumes 150-200 MB and is much slower. And Powerpoint is even worse; I can barely use the 2011 version.
There are only Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook available for Mac. You can't have One Note, Publisher or Access, for instance. They're just available for Windows.
The ribbon in the Windows version has much more customization options. That may boost your productivity. Plus, the ribbon in the Windows version provides a better interface (in the sense that commands are easier and faster to be found).
Office 2011 does not support Open Document files, neither Active X controls or right-to-left languages. And the installation of supplements may be more cumbersome than under Windows.
Office for Mac is always a pace behind. Office 2013 for Windows, with new features, is about to be released. No signs of the Mac counterpart (if it is ever going to exist), though.
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A MacBook Pro can do all you mentioned, it's just a computer, not a spaceship.
A MacBook Pro is not expensive if you compare it to computer that are actually in the same class, not at cheap, plasticky $300 laptops with half-hour batteries.
The switch is quick and painless. Go into a store and give one a try.
A MacBook Pro is expensive, although you may find value in that. Perhaps you don't care about the aluminium parts and just prefer a plasticky PC for getting your job done. Or perhaps you want the premium feel of the Mac, which certainly costs money.
One thing that lots of people see differences is in font rendering technology. Windows uses ClearType, which makes fonts sharper on the screen, and that may be useful for Office productivity. Mac uses Quartz, which makes fonts less sharp on the screen, but more similar to its printed versions (and that is better for desktop publishing). Two different approaches, but for spending countless hours reading and writing text in front of the computer, ClearType is better.
The only way to get the best of both worlds is with a MacBook Pro with a retina display. The retina display has a resolution so high that fonts look very clear and sharp, but it costs a lot of money.
