Mac Office 2008 Slips to 2008. Should We Care?
2004 seems so long ago.
That was the year of the last version of Microsoft Office for Mac users. In Microsoft-speak, 4 years is about right. After all, Microsoft went from Office 2003 to Office 2007 for Windows. This time, Mac users have more at stake. Along the way in those 4 years Apple switched their hardware, so Mac users running later machines with Intel chips are forced to suffer as older software runs in PowerPC emulation mode. For most of us, the Office applications are the last non Intel-native software we have left. A fact that we’re painfully reminded every time we watch that blue “W” bounce. And bounce. And bounce, before the application finally launches.
Office 2008 in all its universal binary glory has been planned and only teased to this point, leaving some to wonder how on earth Microsoft was going to pull off a full beta cycle and release by the end of the year as originally promised? The answer? They won’t. Office 2008 has slipped to a release date of early 2008 at best.
Does it matter? Do we have a choice?
The good news is that Mac-based web workers have some alternatives. Many of us are not forced to pick a word processor based on what’s dictated to us. We have choices, yet compatibility is a high priority. We can think different with iWork. We can go full featured (and save some money in the process) with OpenOffice, NeoOffice or ThinkFree. We can try online editors (and collaborate in the process) with Google Docs, Zoho or Coventi. All of these applications have some measure of interoperability with Word .doc files. We can even go minimalist.
However, I’m sure I’m not the only web worker who has simply been unable to make a complete break from Microsoft Office, even on the Mac platform. Feature-wise, Word 2004 is a good application. I have no complaints. It’s simply slow on my MacBook Pro.
It’s not that I haven’t tried to find a new suitor. I’ve tried most of the alternatives. Sure, I have a good first date and I see all of Mr. Write’s advantages. I can picture long term love and commitment. This is it. This is the application that’s going to make me forget ole whatshisname…Word? But ultimately, it’s the little things that destroy the relationship. The fonts that are wrong and throw the page count off. The tracked changes that don’t track. The headers and footers that I’m sure look perfect when viewed in Word 2003 and now look ghastly when converted. Inevitably, my colleagues ask “What did you use to write this?” not at all fooled by the .doc extension on the file. I have to admit to them that I’m trying the new flavor of the month…then it’s back to the safety and endless bouncing icon of Word 2004.
Sure, we can sit here and curse Microsoft, and compare this slip to Vista slips. Or we can make excuses for why we’re not getting an update this year. We’re hearing that the reason is the change in coding environment due to the Intel switch. Microsoft is a huge company, but the resources they have devoted to Mac development are well, not so huge.
In the end, we have work to do, so we suffer on. Fellow OS X web workers, have you given up on Word…or are you like me, and feel you have no choice but to roll with the punches for a few more months?
I more upset about being tethered to an un-universal version Entourage. Working for an Exchange-based company, there aren’t really alternatives for both e-mail and scheduling.
I care, but I find myself caring less and less as I use other alternatives. If I could make a clean break from all MS apps I would consider it a victory. I might even dance… A
Interesting post. Since moving to my MacBook in January it’s taken a few months for me to move off Microsoft products. This isn’t because of any anti-MS feeling, it was just that Office ran terribly on my machine. I’m now using other software for my office apps, mainly NeoOffice, Keynote and Mail. It plays well with others 95% of the time and knowing it might be antsy 5% usually makes any problems that arise a little more managable.
I’ll certainly be interested in Office 2008 but it’s going to have to go some way in making me go back.
Why not buy a copy of , and run the latest copy of Office for Windows through it? Works great for me, and if you run parallels in coherence mode you don’t even have the lame virtual machine window, and you can even set Windows programs to be the default for opening files. So once Excel or Word is open you can barely even tell its not a Mac program. Speed is pretty impressive too, my experience has been really good with excel and word files.
Whoops, forgot to close the link tag!
Word is a real PITA sometimes but I’m not thrilled by the alternatives. iWork is a step in the right direction but they really haven’t brought it up to “professional grade” quite yet. I have Parallels and Office 2007 on my Macbook Pro but I find it too inconvenient to have to load Windows and then use Office 2007 only to save and then transfer said files to my Mac. I’ll wait for Office 2008 and deal with the slowness of Office 2004 in the mean time. After all, I hardly notice a little slow loading when running 25 applications at a time.
I switched from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org a few years ago before I ever thought about using a Mac. Then when I bought my MacBook Pro I automatically went and started using OpenOffice.org. I am heavily contemplating the use of ThinkFree Offline Premium if I can get an invite, or I might try NeoOffice since it is more aqua. Any way you look at it, there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft. Not saying they are a bad company, I just personally have no use for the software.
Interesting – I’m managing not to use Office at the moment, but with a career change imminent, this may not be the case in the near future. I have Neoffice on all the Intel Macs and that seems pretty darn good (One caveat is that I am not really pushing it as yet).
It’s a shame, but not surprising that the slip has happened – they COULD redeem themselves somewhat, by getting a beta out soon…. will this happen though? I am not holding my breath.
I’m unhappy about not having Outlook 2007 for Mac. My small business uses a hosted Exchange because none of us will give up the Blackberrys because of their battery life and dependability (we’ve all used Blackberrys since 1998). Interestingly, each of us have iPhones but for personal use (read: geeks who have to have them for the gadget and AnythingApple factors). Just give me Outlook 2007 that runs on Intel Mac and I will be the happiest person. Anyone have any news on the Outlook release?
I am not sure what the attraction to Microsoft Office really is. Like Windows, those applications are really inferior to other alternatives. Is it the deceiving look like Office 2007 for example?
My suggestion is to try Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox, Sunbird, Thunderbird, and/or other alternatives for just one month. You might be startled and pleasantly surprised. Let’s face it, Redmond is going down hill as we speak and they simply can not produce what they seem to say they will produce. Until extreme changes are made at the company and at the highest of levels, Microsoft will continue to tumble.
Maybe the reason for the delay is simpler: MS is losing market share from the Macs and doesn’t want to offer one more reason to switch…
Treeorc, the answer is ubiquity and features. Most people in business have copies of MS Office and while the applications you mention implement most of the features of Office, it is still ‘only most’ of them. I do share with colleagues documents with embedded VBA code (mostly spreadsheets), equations, versioning, comments, etc.
If one is only scratching the surface on terms of features and writing letters and todo lists, then changing is easy: one never needed Office in the first place. However, for power users the alternatives fall short of being really useful. And don’t get me started on mickey mouse web wordprocessors…
I’m (mostly) Microsoft Office free and LOVING it. I NEVER need Word, and only occasionally need to open an Excel document–but that’s changing thanx to Google Apps…In fact, I’m pitching HARD that our whole office ditch our Exchange Server 2003 in favor of Google Apps NPO Edition.
But I digress. Regarding “MS WORD,” I have a workflow using the right tool for the job. Here’s my “kit”:
• When someone sends me a .DOC I simply need to review, from within GMail (in Firefox) I click the “Open attachment as a Google Doc” link.
• If I am getting the .DOC file off of our server, I open it in APPLE TEXTEDIT, or maybe directly import it into APPLE PAGES
• When I need to start a document from scratch, I use GOOGLE DOCS as the starting point.
• IF that document has a “migration path” towards something I would be printing for distribution (i.e. newsletter on our office color laser or sending out of house to a print shop), then I use APPLE PAGES. I might bypass Google Docs altogether if the document is fairly short. It’s INSANELY powerful.
• Also on my harddrive, is a copy of MELLEL, the Israeli produced Word Processor that was the first Cocoa WP with any amount of muscle. It still has a dear place in my heart, but I really haven’t used it much.
That’s about it. TextEdit, Pages, and Google Docs do all the heavy lifting and are a THRILL to use (in comparison to the crufty MS Word).
I use NeoOffice when TextEdit won’t cut it.
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