Office:Mac 2008 Released

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 16th Jan 2008 22:29 UTC

Microsoft has released Office:Mac 2008. "The suite is a major step forward for those who prefer to use the Redmond company's applications for the Mac platform. Since its last update in 2004, much has changed on the Windows side: this effectively brings Apple customers up to speed." Ars sat down with the Mac Business Unit at MacWorld.

0 17 Comment(s)

Post a Comment

and

by Mellin (2.88) on Wed 16th Jan 2008 23:16 UTC

Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 1

if you use vbscript you'll have to convert them to applescript(there's no vbscript support in office 2008)

Edited 2008-01-16 23:17 UTC

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 2

RE: and

by djame (2.4) on Wed 16th Jan 2008 23:24 UTC in reply to "and"

Member since:
2005-07-08
Fans: 1

Yes, I can't believe they asked nothing about this. Just a random chat around a cofee.
I just can't understand why they didn't at least port the vba part under rosetta. Emulation of something vital is better than nothing.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

RE[2]: and

by weckart (1.8) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 09:01 UTC in reply to "RE: and"

Member since:
2006-01-11
Fans: 0

It was not ported because VBA is deprecated. It will not be available in Office 2009 for Windows, either.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 3

RE[3]: and

by Mellin (2.88) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 13:26 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: and"

Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 1

they are going to use CLR instead (windows only?)

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

RE[4]: and

by BluenoseJake (2.68) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 16:13 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: and"

Member since:
2005-08-11
Fans: 7

MS and Novell have been doing some work together on Mono and Moonlight, maybe they are planning to leverage that. Mono already runs on the Mac, and supports everything back to Panther

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 2

RE[3]: and

by Sparrowhawk (2.52) on Fri 18th Jan 2008 19:55 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: and"

Member since:
2005-07-11
Fans: 0

It was not ported because VBA is deprecated. It will not be available in Office 2009 for Windows, either.

Not so: http://blogs.msdn.com/access/

Check out the entry for the 17th.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

Very good

by Marcin (2.56) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 00:04 UTC

Member since:
2007-06-06
Fans: 0

This is very good news for me. I have been running Mac Office 2004 on Intel Mac 10.4 by emulations. As a result office has been extremely slow and keep crashinf all the time. I hope that Office 2008 for Intel Mac will be much more stable and faster than the previous Offices's on Mac.

Edited 2008-01-17 00:06 UTC

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

Going to face stiff competition

by sultanqasim (4.84) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 01:18 UTC

Member since:
2006-10-28
Fans: 2

Office 2008 (Mac) is a nice program but it will face some stiff competition now. It has dropped visual basic scripting macros and been shuffled around like Office 2007 (PC) - reducing it's competitive edge. Many users who needed those features will be moving to apps like NeoOffice. Office has improved in the graphics area but iWork still blows it away - so people who find graphics very important will use iWork. And now that iWork has Numbers and it will get Numbers 2 at MacWorld 2009, Office loses it's excel edge. I doubt this will sell as well as 2004 did (well, it will probably lose Mac market share but the number of macs sold every year has multiplied many fold). Overall nice, but it will face stiff competition.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

RE: Going to face stiff competition

by Wintermute (4.28) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 02:20 UTC in reply to "Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-30
Fans: 0

"and it will get Numbers 2 at MacWorld 2009, Office loses it's excel edge"

Dream on... No serious user of Excel is going to switch to "Numbers 2". No wait, Numbers 2 doesn't even exist. Quit smoking Jobs' crack rocks!

"I doubt this will sell as well as 2004 did (well, it will probably lose Mac market share but the number of macs sold every year has multiplied many fold). Overall nice, but it will face stiff competition."

Mac versions of Office represent a tiny percentage of the revenue for Office products. As far as Microsoft is concerned, they have no competition when it comes to Office... Office for Mac will continue to sell well and Mac users will continue to buy it.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 5

RE[2]: Going to face stiff competition

by sigzero (2.12) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 02:43 UTC in reply to "RE: Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2006-01-03
Fans: 0

I agree. I know quite a few Mac users myself and they are ALL going to upgrade. They didn't even care about VBA support being dropped.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 0

RE[3]: Going to face stiff competition

by kaiwai (1.32) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 06:12 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 19

The question is, how many users actually use VB macro's to such a degree that Office 2008 will not be a viable upgrade? The simple fact of the matter, yes, there are those who do use VB, but the numbers are few and far between.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 3

RE: Going to face stiff competition

by evangs (3.2) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 07:22 UTC in reply to "Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-07
Fans: 3

Many users who needed those features will be moving to apps like NeoOffice.

No they won't. NeoOffice feels more sluggish on my Macbook with 2 GHz RAM than Office 2004 running under Rosetta. I can only imagine what Office 2008 is going to do to NeoOffice performance wise.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 2

RE[2]: Going to face stiff competition

by Moochman (2.84) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 08:49 UTC in reply to "RE: Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 1

Well, I suppose that's what OpenOffice for Mac native is for:

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/index.html
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Porting_-_Native_...

Of course, when the final version of that will be ready is anyone's guess....

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 3

RE[3]: Going to face stiff competition

by evangs (3.2) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 11:52 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-07
Fans: 3

I'm not that optimistic. OpenOffice isn't exactly a speed demon on Windows or Linux.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 3

RE[2]: Going to face stiff competition

by Thom_Holwerda (Staff) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 11:36 UTC in reply to "RE: Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-06-29
Fans: 20

I can only imagine what Office 2008 is going to do to NeoOffice performance wise.

Office 2008 seems to run just fine on my PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz with 768 MB of RAM. Looks rather dashing too.

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

RE: Going to face stiff competition

by Adurbe (2.76) on Thu 17th Jan 2008 12:20 UTC in reply to "Going to face stiff competition"

Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 0

If by some silver tounged magic I persuaded my boss that we NEEDED macs in the office then that alone would be a feat. Trying to persuade him we didnt need office either would get me a new job :-p

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 2

ewwwwwww.....

by aquila_deus (1.32) on Sun 20th Jan 2008 12:10 UTC

Member since:
2005-10-02
Fans: 0

Why must office on mac look better than office on windows??

Reply Permalink Bookmark Score: 1

OSNews