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Office 2008 delayed until 2008
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2007-08-02, 09:39

Microsoft has announced that Office for Mac 2008 will be delayed until January.

TUAW Story

This is crazy that it's taken this long for them to even announce a delay. This should have been out months ago. Adobe beat them with all of their stuff making it Universal before Microsoft did.

They should have just waited and built it to take advantage of anything in Leopard that might have been helpful. Now, it's going to be released after Leopard but built for Tiger.

Another stupid move on Microsoft's part.
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-08-02, 09:52

Wasn't there a rumbling in few threads earlier suggesting that the strong interest in maintaing Microsoft's suite presence may be waning?

For example, they're saying they're going to scrap VBA support from Office 2008, effectively making it incompatible with any other Office 2007 applications that use a lot of macros. The article claims that there are *lot* of business that develop and use custom macros/coding to automate several of business function. For those that has a mixed computer shop, ones with Mac would simply be SOL (unless of coure they used Parallels).
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
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2007-08-02, 09:52

Well, I guess I would rather Microsoft delay it then ship it early and with tons of bugs.

I'll have to be super-impressed to buy Office 2008 at all, though. NeoOffice is just as capable, and, um, free.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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sirnick4
I was knighted
 
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2007-08-02, 09:53

Can't say I'm surprised..

iWork, where are you?
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Bryson
Rocket Surgeon
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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2007-08-02, 10:07

Well, at least the name won't be entirely ridiculous.

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JK47
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2007-08-02, 10:08

It's fascinating that companies with code far larger and more complex (Adobe, Apple, etc...) have managed to produce universal binary versions of their apps far before Microsoft has. I know Microsoft is typically plagued by delays, but this is ridiculous.

Here's hoping iWork '08 has a spreadsheet app so I can ditch office entirely.
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Windowsrookie
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2007-08-02, 10:15

Lets just skip Office 08 and release Office '10 early!
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2007-08-02, 10:16

That would probably be a better idea at this point.
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Kraetos
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Boston-ish
 
2007-08-02, 10:17

iWork + Tables FTW. I haven't used Office for months. I don't even have it installed anymore. Tables reads excel files perfectly, its a spectacular little app; I highly recommend it.

Apple could snarf up Tables and make iWork 08 a real office killer. They could even release a Windows version and see if they can pick up some converts.

Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.

Last edited by Kraetos : 2007-08-02 at 12:57.
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Banana
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Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-08-02, 10:18

Speaking of which- does anyone have an article or any link explaining why there was such excessive gap between the latest release and previous release; Microsoft used to put out release 1-2 years, but now it's 4 years... what happened?
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Moogs
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Join Date: May 2004
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2007-08-02, 10:43

The sad thing is, I can almost guarantee it will still be buggy as hell. MS is just sad. They always pay lip service about hiring the best and the brightest, yet every piece of software they release is a bug-ridden piece of swiss cheese. Pathetic.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Kraetos
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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2007-08-02, 13:01

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
Speaking of which- does anyone have an article or any link explaining why there was such excessive gap between the latest release and previous release; Microsoft used to put out release 1-2 years, but now it's 4 years... what happened?
The company line is that the Universal transition is killing them. Office is old. It isn't simply a matter of recompiling in Xcode like it is for a lot of Mac software, they've had to rewrite a lot of code and drop a lot of legacy code.

VBA is a perfect example. The VBA interpreter for Mac is fucking ancient. Like, 10+ years old. They can't just tinker with it and have it work, they would have to rewrite the whole damn thing. And since their already embarrassingly behind schedule, they just nixed it.

Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.
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Banana
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Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-08-02, 13:06

I probably wasn't clear; I wasn't talking specifically about Mac Office, but the whole line; Windows and Office.

Besides the article where I read about VBA being dropped, the author basically retorted that if they can continue to support VBA in Office 2007, there's no excuse for them to not do so for 2008.

To be frank, I was totally surprised that they'd *still* use VBA in 2007; I kinda had expected they'd move on to VB.NET or maybe at least modernize the scripting somehow.

As I understand it, they claimed it was too much work to move forward with the language used for scripting within Office so they kept the same language.

Now in Mac office, they're saying it's too much work to *keep* the language.

Hmmm... sensing something oddly circular about this, no?
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chucker
 
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2007-08-02, 13:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
To be frank, I was totally surprised that they'd *still* use VBA in 2007; I kinda had expected they'd move on to VB.NET or maybe at least modernize the scripting somehow.
They planned to.

It… (take a guess) fell behind schedule, so they canned it.

VBA was not originally intended to be supported in Office 2007.

It was meant to be deprecated in 2003 already, and 2007 was to introduce the .NET-based VSTA in its stead.

For Office:mac, things were indeed further complicated by the transition (it would have taken a lot more effort getting the VBA engine to build universally), but the general decision to VBA has never been Mac-specific, nor did it originate at MacBU.
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Banana
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Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-08-02, 13:30

Okay, I wasn't sure whether they did plan to deprecate VBA, (I'm too lazy to go and look for their roadmap, and after doing some searches on their website for unrelated things, I basically gave up on the website; it was horrible in terms of layout and site mapping/navigating.

Still, this doesn't quite 'explain' the reason why they fell behind in the schedule. What went so horribly wrong that they had to set everything back for 2 more years?

Typing this, I recall years ago someone told me that one main reason why Windows 98 and ME were so unstable was because they basically took a 16-bit OS (kernel? code base? not quite sure) and built a OS "capable" of performing 32-bit stuff "virtually" among other things. Could the general stink be due to similar reasons; MS doing excessive cowboy coding and cutting corners that they end pay a big price "later" (later as in 2007)?
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2007-08-02, 13:32

Seeing how one version of Office usually isn't *that* exciting compared to the previous, this really doesn't annoy me that much, if it wasn't because I wouldn't be able to get it for student pricing any more.

Oh well.

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rasmits
rams it
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
 
2007-08-02, 13:34

I don't know. Is anyone just dying to get their mits on a copy of Office 2008? Office 2004 works fine for me. Hell, Office '98 in classic mode works like a charm.

You had me at asl
.......
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2007-08-02, 13:57

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
Well, I guess I would rather Microsoft delay it then ship it early and with tons of bugs.
They'll just ship it late with tons of bugs. Either way, you get the same thing...you know this.

At least if they ship it early "with tons of bugs", they can work on some fixes so maybe by the first quarter of '08, it's solid and usable. Now, not even coming out until mid-January, it might be springtime before it's worth a rip.

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PB PM
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2007-08-02, 14:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by rasmits View Post
I don't know. Is anyone just dying to get their mits on a copy of Office 2008? Office 2004 works fine for me. Hell, Office '98 in classic mode works like a charm.
I know I'm not, I still use Office X (2001 for OSX).
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bassplayinMacFiend
Banging the Bottom End
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2007-08-02, 14:31

Quote:
Originally Posted by PB PM View Post
I know I'm not, I still use Office X (2001 for OSX).
I'm still using v.X at home too as well.
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shatteringglass
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2007-08-02, 14:31

Quote:
Originally Posted by rasmits View Post
I don't know. Is anyone just dying to get their mits on a copy of Office 2008? Office 2004 works fine for me. Hell, Office '98 in classic mode works like a charm.
I recently had to reformat the hard disk on my Mac and when it came time to reinstall third party applications, I realized that I had absolutely no need to install my copy of Office 2004. I haven't started up Word once since college graduation.

These days, I just share documents as PDFs and do light word processing with my copy of iWork '05.
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Kraetos
Lovable Bastard
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2007-08-02, 16:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by rasmits View Post
I don't know. Is anyone just dying to get their mits on a copy of Office 2008? Office 2004 works fine for me. Hell, Office '98 in classic mode works like a charm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PB PM View Post
I know I'm not, I still use Office X (2001 for OSX).
Quote:
Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend View Post
I'm still using v.X at home too as well.
Yep. Office's biggest competition is itself. Go find an Office ad. They aren't trying to get you to use Office instead of OpenOffice, WordPerfect, iWork, Claris, or whatever, they are are trying to get you use Office instead of older Office. This means one of two things: old versions rocked, or new versions suck.

It's a little bit of both. Office 98 was solid because it was light and fast. 2001, v.X, and 2004 are simply too heavy.

Unsurprisingly, given that Office hasn't really added any worthwhile new features in more than ten years, many people are content with 97! The more it stagnates, fewer new copies will sell. They have to break compatibility with older versions on their new operating systems just to get people to upgrade.

It's the age old Microsoft conundrum: their primary selling point is that they are the de-facto standard. But because of that, they can't throw the old stuff out and make new stuff because it would break compatibility, thereby negating their primary advantage. And if that happens, people will find other office suites, and other operating systems.

Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.

Last edited by Kraetos : 2007-08-02 at 16:52.
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
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2007-08-02, 16:23

PowerPoint sucks on my Intel iMac when switching to the slide sorter for presentations with lots of pictures (which I tend to have, doing work in visualization). So the main argument could be a speed-up on Mactels. Also, for people who are sending .docs back and forth with PC users, compatibility with the current PC Office doesn't hurt. But I agree in principle, the selling point won't be ten thousand new features. But then, what do you expect from a word processor and a spreadsheet?
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cosus
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2007-08-02, 17:56

I think I've completely switched over to Google Docs and Spreadsheet. I've found them both very capable and when it comes yo sharing documents, they can't be beat.

Retired 8 years ahead of schedule.
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PB PM
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2007-08-02, 18:30

Sure, those are nice, but try sending your teacher a paper; I've yet to meet one that will take anything other than an Office .doc file (or a printout... tree killer!). The Intel native feature of Office 08 would be the only thing that might cause me to think about upgrading.
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cosus
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2007-08-03, 03:50

I've actually sent in papers linked to google docs. No need to have any extension, they can read it in their web browser.
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bassplayinMacFiend
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Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2007-08-03, 08:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghoti View Post
[snip] But I agree in principle, the selling point won't be ten thousand new features. But then, what do you expect from a word processor and a spreadsheet?
I think the last "Cool!" moment I had with Excel was when I was upgraded to Excel 2000 at work. In 2000, MS added drop downs on Pivot Tables so I didn't have to click Wizard -> Back -> Layout, to alter which values to show/hide, then hit OK. This function is still there, but now you can alter show/hide right on the table.

I spend a bunch of time in pivot tables and this was a big time saver for me when I want to analyze a subset of data on the table. I currently have Office XP/2002 SP3 at work but no new features have stuck out at me like the one I just described.
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mattf
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Join Date: Feb 2005
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2007-08-03, 08:45

Quote:
Originally Posted by PB PM View Post
Sure, those are nice, but try sending your teacher a paper; I've yet to meet one that will take anything other than an Office .doc file
Am I missing something? Open Google Docs, Open Document, File, Save as Word, Save the document, Send to whomever

??
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Bryson
Rocket Surgeon
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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2007-08-03, 11:53

Does anyone else see the humour in the title here. Oh noes! Product 2008 is delayed until January 2008.

When else should it have come out?
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2007-08-03, 12:51

Typically the products come out the year before what their title says.

It's true with a lot of things, such as video games.
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