Microsoft’s next-gen Office suite for the Mac is being given a top-to-toe refit in readiness for its debut in the third quarter of 2007. On the surface is a revised interface which borrows ideas from the Office 2007 for Windows ‘ribbon’ and has already been radically changed due to user feedback. The new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will all adopt the native XML file formats of their Windows siblings. And, the program is of course being rebuilt as an Intel-friendly Universal Binary application.
I bet converting the assembly language code to obj. C must have been fun.
Because of course there’s no chance that they’ll have done it in Carbon like the rest of the app…
Please Microsoft Dump Entourage and Give Mac users Outlook 2007 with full Exchange connectivity.
I agree.
A full Outlook with exchange integration may just be the killer app for the Mac.
However, exchange exposes a web service interface that allows other applications to access and manipulate a user’s mailbox. Other applications like Mail.app and Thunderbird can definitely take advantage of this and offer near complete exchange/outlook like functionality.
While functionality like this is distinct possibility in the near distinct future, MS release an outlook of it own for the Mac may just make it the winner.
My 0.02c.
I’m not sure whether the Ribbon would be a good idea in Mac Office or not.
* It’s a horrible idea because it has little to do with the existing interfaces, and we don’t really need too many more interfaces at the moment!
* It’s a good idea because a lot of Mac users use Office because it is what is required of them and what they are used to. If my father was suddenly presented with Word with a vastly different interface to what he’s used to I suspect he’d find it harder to cope.
On a side note, I’ve been pleasantly surprised today just how well Pages will import and export Word docs. Plus you get a nice, slightly humorous note about how “shadows will look very different.”
good news for the mac platform as it will help with osx infiltrating buisness thanks to the implied compatibility
good news for Microsoft, 1) mac users will buy the companys cash cow 2) you cant say they are being monopolistic if its available on another platform
Kind of a funny thing, Microsoft would be smart also to release this for Linux, except that of course the Zealots would bash it down, then of course a lot of people wouldn’t use it just because it’s Microsoft. But you would get those that are in corporate settings who need to use MS Office and at the same time are needing better administration tools that come with Linux.
Either way, it couldn’t hurt MS to release that, only give them some more money.
Kind of a funny thing, Microsoft would be smart also to release this for Linux, except that of course the Zealots would bash it down, then of course a lot of people wouldn’t use it just because it’s Microsoft. But you would get those that are in corporate settings who need to use MS Office and at the same time are needing better administration tools that come with Linux.
AFAIK, there are several flavors of Office than run under Wine/Crossover already.
Kind of a funny thing, Microsoft would be smart also to release this for Linux, except that of course the Zealots would bash it down, then of course a lot of people wouldn’t use it just because it’s Microsoft. But you would get those that are in corporate settings who need to use MS Office and at the same time are needing better administration tools that come with Linux.
You must take into account that releasing a decent product for Linux would mean considerable engineering and QA effort; I don’t think that the lack of a Linux version is a political decision – it probably doesn’t make sense from the economic point of view.
“You must take into account that releasing a decent product for Linux would mean considerable engineering and QA effort; I don’t think that the lack of a Linux version is a political decision – it probably doesn’t make sense from the economic point of view.”
True statement, though I disagree to an extent. By releasing it for OS X, the main work for porting it to any of the *nix platforms, on Intel, will be complete. On the economic front though you are correct in the sense that most older Linux users do not want to pay for any software. However, for bringing Linux to the mainstream this is what needs to happen. Like it or not, MS Office IS the de facto standard for business, whether a true standard or not.
True statement, though I disagree to an extent. By releasing it for OS X, the main work for porting it to any of the *nix platforms, on Intel, will be complete. On the economic front though you are correct in the sense that most older Linux users do not want to pay for any software. However, for bringing Linux to the mainstream this is what needs to happen. Like it or not, MS Office IS the de facto standard for business, whether a true standard or not.
Flawed reasoning.
Just because OS X has *nix at the core doesn’t mean apps written for OS X specifically can be ported to other *nix platforms easily.
There’s more to OS X than the *nix core after all.
“Flawed reasoning.
Just because OS X has *nix at the core doesn’t mean apps written for OS X specifically can be ported to other *nix platforms easily.
There’s more to OS X than the *nix core after all.”
That could be. It is not what I see however when I use it or administer it.
“By releasing it for OS X, the main work for porting it to any of the *nix platforms, on Intel, will be complete.”
Mac Office is written to the Mac OSX Carbon API. Porting it to Linux would be no easier than porting the Win32 version of Office to Linux.
“Mac Office is written to the Mac OSX Carbon API. Porting it to Linux would be no easier than porting the Win32 version of Office to Linux.”
Isn’t the carbon API based on ANSI standard C? Please correct me if I am wrong. MS uses their own version of C, but Carbon uses ANSI standard C from my understanding.
Back in the days Microsoft used to make apps for Apple and IBM. In my humble opinion Microsoft should seriously start thinking (working) on office suite for Linux, it all about making money and not waging a holy war against Linux. In all seriousness Microsoft Office for Linux might be the most profit making app for Microsoft. There’s a saying “If you cannot beat them join them” I know it’s a cliché but is true.
What flavor of linux would they make it for? Support GNOME or KDE?
As if GNOME vs KDE was not enough, there’s enough small differences between the flavors that providing support for all would be quite costly. And we all know how much linux users just love to pay for the software they use.
If Microsoft does come out with a decent enough Office Suite for Linux there would be plenty buyers for it, just because Linux users support open source movement doesn’t mean they wouldn’t pay for software. Which would mean that there aren’t any commercial softwares available for Linux, many films where made using Linux boxes running a software called Shake, films like Hollow Man, Titanic were made using this software and Linux port costs about upwards 4000 dollars (single user licence), linux users do shell out money if the app is worth it.
The eurotrash pirates would sooner chop off their own noses than pay for quality.
NeoOffice is working mighty fine on the intel Macs, word docs, excels, havent tried the .ppt yet b/c of Keynote. Neo is now free here: http://www.neooffice.org/
Enjoy!
NeoOffice, working mighty fine?
Go back to disturbing goats under your bridge. NeoOffice is good for $0, but it spazes when you resize it, it’s buggy, barely native at all and slow as hell. If you have the money MSO:Mac is an excellent product (excl. speed on macintels)
Does this mean that the next version of Office:Mac will be released in the same year as the Windows version?
Ever since they started using the year naming scheme, the Mac version has always been a year behind the equivent Windows version.
Whilst I welcome a new version of Office for OS X, the lack of VBA support will mean that the product is not suitable for most enterprise customers. Especially around Excel.
There was some discussion in an earlier thread about possibly embedding REALbasic’s VB macro support into Office. I’ve no idea how feasible that might be from a technical perspective, but from a business point of view it might be a sound solution, especially as REAL are constantly evolving REALbasic and its components.
I’m still using the very first Office for Max OS X: Office X, circa 2001.
On my MacBook. Under Rosetta emulation (it’s PowerPC code). Runs fine, just takes a couple extra seconds to open, that’s all. Never had a single crash, and I haven’t seen any compelling reasons to upgrade to Office:Mac 2004. The new XML format may force me though, unless OO.org finally releases a fast/non-memory-hog/non-X11 Mac version.
Yes, the old Office under Rosetta is faster than OpenOffice2 *and* uses less memory.