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Respect my ho: Office 2008 for Mac
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Fahrenheit
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2007-01-10, 04:54

Quote:
Intel-based Mac owners will have a Universal version of Microsoft’s Office to call their own later this year. Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit revealed some details about Office 2008 for Mac Tuesday—namely that the suite of office productivity tools would ship in the second half of 2007.

Office 2008 adds plenty of new features, but the one sure to grab Mac users’ attention is its ability to run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based machines. Office had been one of the last remaining marquee Mac applications that had yet to add native support for Apple’s latest hardware.

“I’m really impressed with the speed [of the Intel version], especially with graphics intensive tasks,’ Sheridan Jones, group marketing manager for the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit, told Macworld.

Office 2008 for Mac will share some technologies with its Windows counterpart, Office 2007, making for seamless compatibility between the different versions, according to Microsoft. Both Office releases will use the Office Open XML Formats, which will enable users to easily save files and open files in either platform.

Office 2004 users are not being left out of the new file formats, either—in February, Microsoft will release a free beta of the file format converters for the current version, so users can read and write the new Office Open XML Formats. Six to eight weeks after Office 2008 for Mac is launched, Microsoft intends to ship final versions of the converters.

Office 2007 for Windows includes a new user interface feature called the Ribbon that gives users quick access to specific tools. The Mac version will include a similar feature dubbed the Elements Gallery and Document Parts that can automate some of the most common document tasks, such as adding a table of contents or headers and footers to documents.

“We want things to be more discoverable,” Jones said. “We really worked hard on the user interface of Office 2008 for Mac, but we worked just as hard on enhancing the usability.”

Other new features of Office 2008 for Mac include a Publishing Layout View that lets users create layout-rich documents in Word and Ledger Sheets that enables Excel to handle common financial management tasks such as budgets, invoices, and registers, without requiring users to whip up complex formulas on their own.

“It really opens up specialized management tasks, so that you don’t have to be an Excel guru to do sophisticated financial management,” Jones said.

Another smaller application that will be included with Office 2008 is My Day. The stand-alone application allows users to track priorities and stay on top of daily tasks no matter what application they’re currently working in and without launching Office’s Entourage personal information manager. My Day lets users color-code everything for visualizing daily priorities.

Microsoft did not announce pricing for Office 2008; that will come as the software’s second half of 2007 ship date draws closer, Microsoft said.
Story

The most exciting application to come out of Microsoft in years.
Although the free converter for 2004 users sounds handy, this doesn't sound like an app that will be worth shedding out for - I mean, how hard is Rosetta having to work to run Office on Intel? Lets just hope iWork 07 can offer something to compete with it
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turbulentfurball
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2007-01-10, 05:09

I know it doesn't actually mean anything, but I like that the Mac version is Office 2008, where the Windows version is Office 2007. It makes the Mac version sound better.

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Luca
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2007-01-10, 06:03

Just like how the previous Mac version was 2004 and the previous Windows version was 2003.

If you're more of a "glass half empty" kind of guy, you could say that the Mac version was one year late in both instances.
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Brave Ulysses
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2007-01-11, 00:53

The screenshot of Powerpoint i saw makes it seem as if Office 2008 may very well kill iWork.

It looks very nice... and it is finally adopting OS X technologies
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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 00:57

Not at all. iWork is a consumer suite.

The screenshot of PowerPoint and those of Word indicate, rather, one thing: in addition to being a Mac version of Office, MacBU has recognized Office:mac needs to be a Pro version of iWork. Simple as that. They don't compete. They complement.
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Brave Ulysses
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2007-01-11, 01:24

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Not at all. iWork is a consumer suite.

The screenshot of PowerPoint and those of Word indicate, rather, one thing: in addition to being a Mac version of Office, MacBU has recognized Office:mac needs to be a Pro version of iWork. Simple as that. They don't compete. They complement.
You are ignoring a lot.

iWork, and specifically Keynote has never been about the consumer. If it had been, it'd have been included for free with every mac by now. Apple has been trying to take away MS's low to mid range customer base. And leave the high end to MS.

The latest screen shots make it clear that MS is not willing to let that happen. These are drastically friendly apps, but at the same time more powerful and take away many of the Apple advantages.

You also forget that student pricing on Office is in most cases less than or equal to iWork and Office simply will always be chosen over iWork by the average joe consumer.

They don't complement. They are in competition. Saying otherwise is simply trying to avoid the neccessary comparisons for some reason.
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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 01:38

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
You are ignoring a lot.

iWork, and specifically Keynote has never been about the consumer. If it had been, it'd have been included for free with every mac by now.
The only two reasons iWork doesn't ship with new Macs yet is: 1) it's still an incomplete suite 2) Apple is being greedy.

It is, both in branding and purpose, and even in its price point, a sibling to iLife.

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Apple has been trying to take away MS's low to mid range customer base. And leave the high end to MS.
I'd like to see you do professional stuff with Pages. Good luck, especially, with collaborative document editing. That's "mid-range", whatever the hell that means anyway.

Quote:
The latest screen shots make it clear that MS is not willing to let that happen. These are drastically friendly apps, but at the same time more powerful and take away many of the Apple advantages.
They are more powerful because they are, and always have been, higher-end, more expensive, and targeted at a different customer base.

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You also forget that student pricing on Office is in most cases less than or equal to iWork
In what world is $149 (Office:mac student pricing) is "in most cases less than or equal to" $49 (iWork student pricing)? Seriously, I don't follow.

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and Office simply will always be chosen over iWork by the average joe consumer.
That's as completely true as it is irrelevant.

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They don't complement. They are in competition. Saying otherwise is simply trying to avoid the neccessary comparisons for some reason.
So I guess Apple is having iMovie compete with Final Cut Express now, and oh, by the way, that also competes with Final Cut Pro.

Mhm.
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Brave Ulysses
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2007-01-11, 02:19

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The only two reasons iWork doesn't ship with new Macs yet is: 1) it's still an incomplete suite 2) Apple is being greedy.

It is, both in branding and purpose, and even in its price point, a sibling to iLife.
iWork is a perfect example of a half assed product by Apple. Apple is capable of making amazing products (see iPhone) and they are also capable of having a great idea but kind of getting bored with it or not giving it proper attention... and that's iWork. They are greedy with it for no reason. I don't understand why it's not included with consumer macs. It's stupid.

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I'd like to see you do professional stuff with Pages. Good luck, especially, with collaborative document editing. That's "mid-range", whatever the hell that means anyway.
um... that was my point.

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They are more powerful because they are, and always have been, higher-end, more expensive, and targeted at a different customer base.
They aren't targeted at a different customer base. MS doesn't want entry level consumers to buy something else. Especially on the Mac where I'd imagine they need every sale they can get.

Quote:
In what world is $149 (Office:mac student pricing) is "in most cases less than or equal to" $49 (iWork student pricing)? Seriously, I don't follow.
In what world do you actually buy the RETAIL student version that doesn't even require you to be a student to purchase? Educational pricing is typically 39-59 dollars for the entire Office Mac suite.

Quote:
So I guess Apple is having iMovie compete with Final Cut Express now, and oh, by the way, that also competes with Final Cut Pro.
In your efforts to be a smart ass you simply derail conversation. Stop being a prick and making terrible analogies.
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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 02:25

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
iWork is a perfect example of a half assed product by Apple.
I can agree that, for the time being, it feels incomplete, and arguably "half-assed".

Quote:
um... that was my point.
Quoi? Your point is:
A) that "mid-range" doesn't need collaboration?
B) that iWork should have it?
C) ?!

Quote:
They aren't targeted at a different customer base. MS doesn't want entry level consumers to buy something else. Especially on the Mac where I'd imagine they need every sale they can get.
Of course Microsoft wants to sell to as many as possible. And they succeed as well. But iWork is specifically targeted at consumers, and Office is not. You only need to look at Microsoft Works to see that Microsoft agrees.

Quote:
In what world do you actually buy the RETAIL student version that doesn't even require you to be a student to purchase? Educational pricing is typically 39-59 dollars for the entire Office Mac suite.
Or zero, just like iWork.

You can't just hand out random volume licensing deals like that and consider them an argument. The retail prices are relevant because they show that, clearly, Microsoft thinks Office is worth several times as much as iWork. Moreover, they clearly think it caters to a market that is willing to pay several times as much.

Quote:
In your efforts to be a smart ass you simply derail conversation. Stop being a prick and making terrible analogies.
It's a completely accurate analogy, and you know it.
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steve77uk
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2007-01-11, 02:58

Round Two! Ting!

Just to put my two penneth in here, I must admit I have got 2007 on my work's computers and power point now rocks because all of the cool stuff is easier to access, also also outlook 2007 just whips 2003... A lot of thought went into this one I think...
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rob05au
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2007-01-11, 03:04

Any picts would be nice.
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Doxxic
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2007-01-11, 06:52

My take is that however elegant it is, iWork is still a half-assed program suite, being too half-assed to either compete full-assedly in the Office pricerange (relative to target market), or install full-assedly on every mac for free. So in fact, I think it has no target market at all, except a handfull of half-asses.

So why is it there? My guess is that iWork is basically a half-assed way to let Microsoft feel that as long as they support the Mac so half-assedly, Apple might as well come up with their own programs that might rather half-assedly open and save Office docs, but still allow Apple to stick their full middle finger in MS's half ass when the moment is there. With all due respect.

And oh, shouldn't it run quite full-assedly on the iPhone soon?

Last edited by Doxxic : 2007-01-11 at 07:07.
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Moogs
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2007-01-11, 08:55

Every release Microsoft "greatly enhances the interface and discoverability", which is code for: we added a couple bells and whistles and made your interface shinier than before. Seriously, I'm just going to run iWork, or I'm going to run Vista office via Parallels. 2004 was my last Office upgrade I suspect.

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Mugge
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2007-01-11, 09:11

I'm also highly suspicious of this "discoverability" talk. I keep imagining a lot of huge ribbon menus stealing all my screen space without being the least productivity enhancing.

It's also going to be interesting to see if this new file format, is going to spell a forced upgrade anyway.
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psmith2.0
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2007-01-11, 09:31

I bailed on Office a couple of years ago. I'm fortunate in that I'm not in a position to need it. I'd much rather fire up TextEdit over Word anyway. Times like these, I'm so very thankful I don't do the report/spreadsheet/presentation thing in the "real world".

Yet I'm very glad it's there for the Mac population, don't get me wrong. It's an important bridge, no doubt. I hope it's always there for those who need it (and I realize tons of Mac users do).

But it ranks right up there with label makers, free downloadable TrueType fonts and 3D software in the "list of things I can't bring myself to give a damn about".

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Moogs
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2007-01-11, 09:43

It's handy to have Word for swapping documents with Windows people, and Entourage is still nicer than Mail / Address Book / iCal combo IMO. I wish Apple would just merge the damn things then I wouldn't think twice about using it.

As for presentations, I'm ready to switch to Keynote. Powerpoint has some nice features but they're all buried beneath a mound of little dialogs. Annoying!

...into the light of a dark black night.
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kieran
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2007-01-11, 10:04

The screenshot I've seen of the new PowerPoint makes it look very nice, especially when compared to the current version. I use Keynote primarily because of how ugly PowerPoint is, but I don't know what I'll use when this comes out. It looks very nice and well designed.

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intlplby
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2007-01-11, 12:46

i love the fact that it's going to destroy backwards compatibility so when you show up with your PPT on a disk it won't work on the computer the company provides for you because they haven't updated their software....

or you send out that critical office document and the recipient can't open it...

microsoft has some of the worst backwards compatibility of all....

this is why PDFs are infinitely better
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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 13:33

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mugge View Post
It's also going to be interesting to see if this new file format, is going to spell a forced upgrade anyway.
No, free converter for Office 2004 within a few months from now.
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Mugge
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2007-01-11, 13:37

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
No, free converter for Office 2004 within a few months from now.
Yes, but is that thing going to work like an add-on to Office 2004 or is it going to be a separate program. And how much of the formatting etc. will the old Office be able to save in the new format?
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rasmits
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2007-01-11, 15:26

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Originally Posted by intlplby View Post
microsoft has some of the worst backwards compatibility of all....
Are you kidding? Windows XP runs most software from alllll the way back to Windows 1.0 in 1985. Macs now can't run software from 5 years ago (not a bad thing).

If you're only talking about Office backward compatability, Microsoft needed to cut off their old format. The XML format is infinitely better. Not only that, but they will be releasing a free file converter, so none of those scenarios you just listed will be an issue.

You had me at asl
.......
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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 15:30

What he said.
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Barto
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2007-01-11, 18:43

Except OOXML (MS Office Open XML) is not a real standard and not a real break from the old format. It's based on the application behavior of Word for Windows and hence is impossible to fully implement by anyone except Microsoft.

And it's going to take 120 man years for Microsoft to implement it in Mac Office.

See also this analysis.

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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 18:45

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barto View Post
Except OOXML (MS Office Open XML) is not a real standard and not a real break from the old format. It's based on the application behavior of Word for Windows and hence is impossible to fully implement by anyone except Microsoft.
It's standardized by ECMA. For all intents and purposes, it's a standard.

Quote:
And it's going to take 120 man years for Microsoft to implement it in Mac Office.
An Adobe employee isn't exactly the most neutral person to comment on the matter. And since they clearly can't even maintain cross-architecture apps, they're not one to ask either.
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Moogs
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2007-01-11, 19:42

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Originally Posted by chucker View Post
An Adobe employee isn't exactly the most neutral person to comment on the matter. And since they clearly can't even maintain cross-architecture apps, they're not one to ask either.
Why wouldn't they be neutral? They have no stake in office-related software. Meantime their engineers are a very talented bunch, so from a technical standpoint I'd at least give them the benefit of the doubt. As for cross-architecture apps being maintained, what do you mean by "cross-architecture" in this context? Surely you can't mean cross-platform because they've been doing that all along. Clarify please?


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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 19:44

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
You have something to say on Soundbooth, Premiere Pro, etc. being Intel-only Mac apps? There is no excuse beyond laziness.
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Moogs
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2007-01-11, 20:01

Oh all right. I didn't understand what you were saying. Anyway, it's true that's disappointing (the AV apps all being Macintel only) but I think the reason is simple economics; it has nothing to do with capability. They can't justify the extra development expense of making two versions for one platform, when in 2 or 3 years, most of the people who use those apps (Pros) will not be using PPC any longer. There will still be many PPC machines out there for a good 5 or 6 years at least but they won't be used by video pros IOW. The audience for those apps is the key to their decision. That and in 2 or 3 years no one is going to be making UB / PPC apps anymore probably. They'll all be native Macintel only.

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chucker
 
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2007-01-11, 20:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
Oh all right. I didn't understand what you were saying. Well, anyway it's true that's disappointing but I think the reason is simple economics; it has nothing to do with capability. They can't justify the extra development expense of making two versions for one platform, when in 2 or 3 years, most of the people who use those apps (Pros) will not be using PPC any longer.
I know it's not about capability. They certainly have capable, talented engineers. However, the "economics" argument might easily be a fallacy on Adobe's part. I think Gruber has summarized it well:
Quote:
The lesson Adobe seems to have taken from Apple’s Intel switch is that instead of assuming a PowerPC architecture, they can assume an x86 architecture. The lesson most other Mac developers seem to have taken is to stop making assumptions about the underlying processor architecture. Their “Intel-only” Mac software may well bite them on the ass someday in the future.
Apple didn't ask developers to start writing Intel apps, but to write Universal apps. Now, currently, Universal refers to PowerPC and Intel, and for the foreseeable future (the next 5, maybe 10 years), that is highly unlikely to change. But regardless of Apple, the Mac and Mac OS X, it has been the prevalent development mantra for well over a decade now to abstract your code from CPU-specific assumptions, and, if anything, to use frameworks for CPU-specific optimizations. E.g., rather than coding specifically for AltiVec on PowerPC and SSE3 on Intel, code for Accelerate.framework, which will take care of the rest.

Adobe knows that. They just can't be bothered to follow it. It's arrogance, and like Gruber says, they might very well regret this someday.

Quote:
That and in 2 or 3 years no one is going to be making UB / PPC apps anymore probably. They'll all be native Macintel only.
(You need to stop expanding your posts while I reply. )

Virtually all developers aside from Adobe have tailored their build environments to the point where building for both architectures is completely streamlined, and where adding another would be literally the click of a checkbox. Adobe hasn't. That's their loss, and unfortunately ours as well. The only kind of app where CPU-specific code makes sense is something like Parallels Desktop, for very obvious reasons. Adobe's entire product line, however, should not be CPU-specific in the least, and the fact that it is indicates laziness. "Economics" be damned.
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Doxxic
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2007-01-12, 05:19

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
Virtually all developers aside from Adobe have tailored their build environments to the point where building for both architectures is completely streamlined, and where adding another would be literally the click of a checkbox. Adobe hasn't. That's their loss, and unfortunately ours as well. The only kind of app where CPU-specific code makes sense is something like Parallels Desktop, for very obvious reasons. Adobe's entire product line, however, should not be CPU-specific in the least, and the fact that it is indicates laziness. "Economics" be damned.
Just curious about some other dinosaurs. Do you know if the current versions of Cubase and Quark Xpress are "universal by checkbox" as well?
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Bryson
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2007-01-12, 05:24

I know that apps can be compiled for either platform with the tick of a checkbox, but...

Surely they still need to be tested in each environment separately? And if so, then testing for an app of the type of complexity we're talking about is likely to be expensive, no? Would that not exert a pressure to create apps for Intel only?

Or can you test your app in Intel and be confident that the tests will be consistent in PPC?
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