back to article Office for Mac finally breaks out of Microsoft

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 finally escaped Redmond and went to manufacturing last week, meaning Apple users get a fresh productivity suite just two years after their Windows-based counterparts. The software should hit the streets next month, with anyone buying the previous version between now and then entitled to a free …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The "comic video"

    Hmmm... that was suppose to be funny? I though it was just a gang of self-satisfied, smug nerds wasting time that could better be spent getting the bugs out of their product and getting to market in a reasonable timeframe. I think that Microsoft Office is more of a joke than this video.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Love the comments on the MS site

    "Can't wait for Outlook blah blah blah"

    Buggy useless stuff for the Mac, are they trying to bring the 'Windows experience" to fruity users? ie, a vector for malware, pwning etc?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wasn't Office 2010...

    released on June 15th **2010** (RTM, I'm pretty sure was late April) which would mean that Mac users get an update 5 months after their Windows-based counterparts. There wasn't a "2009 version" either.

  4. Simon King
    FAIL

    I bet I know of one feature that didn't make it...

    Cross platform video chat in Messenger. MS once again manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - they've had a Mac client since the OS 9 days, but have never bothered to add the AV. Now Skype has made it irrelevant. Well done MS!

  5. OrsonX
    Unhappy

    Well I hope its better than 2008

    which is a pigs ear... half way between Office 2003(PC) and the one with the ribbon.

    Instead of the ribbon is the usless 'productivity bar' (the one with Document Elements, Quick Tables etc) which I never use, but it can't be removed! Here's a clue Microsoft, when I'm working on a Document I want to see the frikkin Document, not your crappy interface...

    2008 is buggy & lacking in features. For instance, you cant click between pages to remove the page separator. Thers's no eye-strain easing blue background white text option.... and so on...

    I wonder what wonders the new version brings?

  6. Pandy06269

    Can't wait

    I, for one, cannot wait for this. I recently purchased Office 2008 for Mac not long after they announced the free upgrade offer, simply because the Apple iWork suite on the iPad is getting more attention than the Mac itself, which is really sad.

    After using OFM for a week it was clear to see that Office is still leaps ahead of iWork. I hope 2011 is a worthwhile upgrade, although I'm a little disappointed that I'm going to have to pay for an upgrade to get Outlook, especially after they've removed Entourage (which is included in the lowest 2008 edition.)

    Also there's an error in the article, 2nd paragraph - "...with anyone buying the 2009 version between now and then..." - it's actually 2008, not 2009.

  7. Ilsa Loving
    Pint

    Pitch Wizard?

    I hope the pitch wizard will be available in SP1. I was really looking forward to that!

  8. Andy E
    Coat

    Get ready to move your e-mail to Apple Mail

    I have been following the development of Office 2011 as I use Office 2008. Unfortunately most of my customers use Office so i'm forced to follow the herd. Having said that, Entourage was not too bad and I successfully used it with 6 e-mail accounts and at least a dozen rules to give me the environment I wanted.

    Where it gets interesting for Office 2011 is that Entourage is not included in the basic edition. I only need the applications in the basic edition and an e-mail client. The switch to Apples Mail was very, very easy and free. I managed to get the accounts setup and all the e-mail imported into Mail in a day. While there are some very good points about Mail (multiple Account support is better) it does have some drawbacks. For example you have separate Address book and Calendar applications and the Junk e-mail filtering is not as good.

    Having dropped Entourage I'm now in the position were I could upgrade to Office 2011 but I don't have a compelling reason to do so. I think I'll hang on to the cash and stick with Office 2008 until that must have feature in Office 2011 materialises.

    Mine's the one with the AppleScript book in the pocket...

    1. Paul Vail
      Gates Horns

      more than one reason to move to Mail

      You may have to click (elsewhere) for your iCalendar or your AddressBook, but whether it is a click to the left (cue Rocky Horror music) or just a click to the dock... it's just one click, dude.

      As for mail filters, Enrage is just as horrid as Mail. No one with half a brain (first name=Steve) would use either without SpamSieve.

      Here's the value in drinking the Mail-koolaid -- Mail's stores are mbox files (plural). I invite any Outlook or e-rage user to explore what happens when one little bit flips in that massive database they call an email store from Redmond. Try backing that beast up with TimeMachine, Bru or Retrospect on a daily/weekly basis -- sucks the living storage out of any external drive or tape. Mail (or Eudora) mbox methods keeps the backups and the data recovery to a sane level. Not something considered by the propellerheads who dig single point of failure mail storage. One dead mbox file = one missing email, not 1 or 2 or 3 Gbs or years of communication. Oh wait, that's a problem how?

  9. Barry Lane 1
    Gates Horns

    Who'd a thought that

    MS still makes an Office suite? Much as I appreciate the efforts of the Mactopia guys at Redmond or wherever they're based, the overpriced, overloaded, overhyped POS that Office has grown to become these days has no place on any of my Macs. The features missing from the latest Mac versions of MS Office don't concern me particularly, but the commercial reasons for their absence interests me more.

    In the face of increasing competition from what are quite stunningly good variants of the free OpenOffice - NeoOffice, Gooo, IBM's Symphony - and Apple's own iWork suite, MS seem intent upon pissing off their Mac customers by crippling versions aimed at them.

    It is with no great sadness that the last version of MS Office I bought was the last one I will ever buy. OpenOffice is a damned fine effort and works superbly well.

    1. Penti

      Surprising

      I'm quite glad they seem to have picked up Apple development of the Office suit, it needs to be compatible, fully compatible or else it's no use and Office 2008 weren't so your really had to use a Windows image / VM or terminal server to run Office 2007/10 on before in an enterprise or serious environment. Go-OO offered better compatibility with office files. However that's an alternative office suit, not really that good if you work together with others on MS Office. Hence the need to run it on Windows. I also hope IBM Symphony picks up though. There no reason for everybody in the world to be on MS Office. A drop in replacement just won't happen, so not having to run a Windows image for working in Office is a good thing, not that Windows is that expensive. But it should be a nicer experience for any one needing Office now, and saves memory, or the hassle of running a RDP session. Good thing the format is documented now though, and there's cloud services that should work good with Go-OO too. Good thing the field has move forward.

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