First Looks at Mac Microsoft Office 2008

Category: 3rd Party Hardware
Link: First look at Office 2008 for Mac: final code
Description:: The biggest software release of '08 is Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, and it's hitting the streets this month. Read on to find out all you need to know about the new package.

Posted on MacBytes.com
Approved by Mudbug

Cool. I'm looking forward to trying out Office. We'll see in a couple weeks I guess.

"Microsoft has applied some of the Vista version magic to Office 2008 with regard to pricing. Thankfully, however it's a bit easier to follow. There are two main options; a basic Office 2008 for Mac standard edition ($649 or $399 for an upgrade) or an Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition ($849, or $549 for upgrade)"


Unbelievable !!

"...It's been a long time between drinks for Mac users waiting for a new version of Office..."

With the exception of Palmerized in the first post, I've not heard of anyone wanting or needing an upgrade to Office. Specifically to Palmerized: why do you look forward to it? It is simply the "something new" factor, or are there some features of Office that you need and are not present in the shipping version? Sure it looks different and may perform advanced functions easier, but do you use any of those functions? Personally I've not used Office in years and I don't even launch iWork all that much. TexEdit is my go-to workhorse for anything that isn't page-layout.

I work for a Mac reseller and I know that almost our entire user base uses Office simply for MS Word to write simple letters and school papers. 90%+ of that work could just as easily have been completed with Mac's TextEdit program for free.
For those looking for more complex layout, I always suggest iWork at 1/2 the price (of Student Teacher) first. It's faster, easier and integrates with all your other media on the Mac more easily.
The maybe 2% of people who actually "need" Office are those who are sending documents via email to others who will edit and return those documents. Sure you could do this with iWork via export, but it's an extra step and you really have to use the menu items or be a contortionist to hit the shortcut key for "Save as...". iWork needs a "default to Microsoft" save option.
Even for those who send lots of documents, most don't need the recipient to edit them, and I still suggest iWork and "Save as PDF", it's more universal and no worries about changes on the other end.

So I really do want to know... what is in it for the consumer to get an Office upgrade? I know what's in it for MS, lots of money.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has dropped macro and Visual Basic (VB) support in Office 2008

Wait ... really?! No macro or VB support in Office 2008?

This is a big gotcha for me, macros are used extensively at my place of employment. Crapola. :mad:

Honestly, I don't see why someone would shell out that kind of money for MS Office given all of the other alternatives.

Hopefully this will step up the game so we can get Apple to look at iWork more seriously.

That's the only reason I care about these Microsoft updates... Same goes for the Zune and all the other players out there. People should be happy when those products improve. The more they improve, the faster Apple has to work to stay that much more superior. It's always funny to see some new product by a competitor and the article is rated "97 positives, 462 negatives."

Now the real question is whether it's the same slow awful program it was in 2004. I can't count the number of times I've had to wait for Word or Excel to resolve it's pinwheel of death.

Hopefully this will step up the game so we can get Apple to look at iWork more seriously.

That's the only reason I care about these Microsoft updates... Same goes for the Zune and all the other players out there. People should be happy when those products improve. The more they improve, the faster Apple has to work to stay that much more superior. It's always funny to see some new product by a competitor and the article is rated "97 positives, 462 negatives."

I'm actually looking forward to this release. It hit home last week when I was trying to print some file labels ... NeoOffice completely bungled a simple label format. I ended up switching to MS Office on my Dell and it got the labels perfect on the first go.

If they remove some of the bloat then I will probably be purchasing Office 2008 for my Mac. There is still just no substitute.

Now the real question is whether it's the same slow awful program it was in 2004. I can't count the number of times I've had to wait for Word or Excel to resolve it's pinwheel of death.

Yes, if they can fix this then maybe I'll go back to Word and move away from Google Docs.