Although Microsoft’s Office 2004 won’t be on store shelves until the middle of this year, MacWorld got a sneak peek at its new features. And these additions — from a command center for related correspondence, calendars, and files, to an audio recorder that gives your typing fingers a rest — made quite an impression.
Mac Office 2004 First Look: Microsoft’s Next Suite
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Would this be Office 2003 on the mac? Just curious.
no it is office 2004 on the mac.
Does it always seem that the Mac versions of MS’s Office suites are better than their PC offerings? This thing looks sweet! (no pun intended… okay maybe)
Most of the time, the Mac version has some cool features that are not part of the Windows version. However, there is still one glaring feature that is decidely lacking in the Mac version. True Outlook Exchange support. Sure, the last version of Entourage purported to have Outlook Exchange support but it is truly not the same as what you get in the Windows version. Their idea of Exchange support is just simple IMAP with no suport for calendaring and other features. Step up to the plate here MS. Give us true Exchange support.
Fair enough. That is true. It would be really nice to have a true Exchange client again. That is actually the last and only “Classic” application that I still run. If that would change… I could get rid of my OS 9 stuff.
I think I’m buying this version, since my college has it on all their macs I use.
I’ve heard that MS Word, and PowerPoint were Mac programs written by MS years before on Windows, is that true?
Office was released on the Macintosh before it was ever relesed for Windows. Office on the Mac might even be older than the Windows OS itself.
Office was *originally* released on the Macintosh before it was ever released for Windows. However, around Word 6.0, they dropped the Mac codebase to use a shared codebase between Mac and Windows, and they used the Windows codebase for that effort.
So it’s highly doubtful that the Mac Office codebase is older than the Windows codebase; it may have started earlier, but it’s “dead” now, undeveloped since Word 6.0.
This is actually why Mac Word 6.0 is considered to have been the worst Word release, Ever.
See: http://weblogs.asp.net/Rick_Schaut/archive/2004/02/26/80193.aspx
The review did nothing more than highlight again the features that were mentioned at MWSF (except for the scrapbook). What about changes under the hood. Ho mentioned that we could finally have filenames longer than 30 characters. But what about other changes that are necessary for some of us, such as Unicode support. I cannot use Word to work on my documents because it has no Unicode support. Also, the Asia layout options on the Mac are far behind the Windows version. If you want to have full English options, you have to keep the program in English mode. If you want to have full Japanese support, register it as a Japanese application. But, you cannot use all of the features of both at the same time.
Office is making nifty improvements just to make them, but no changes are being made where it counts, it seems.
I concur on the Unicode support.
However, I did not understand the upgrade options (or maybe I did!). It seems that upgrading is free if you have v.X but that just sounds wrong (for Microsoft anyway) since v.X is fairly old.
What a nice peace of Work, looks so clean.
If you’ve bought a version of Office from a certain date (something like Jan 04) or later, then you can mail in a get the new version of the same level (Pro for Pro, Student for Student, etc) for free. At least, that’s what it looked like.
This is a very exciting software release IMHO. The new “Project Center” that allows you to correlate email, contacts, tasks, and calander events by project is a HUGE jump forward in usability from a productivity standpoint.
I typically have anywhere from 6-12 projects in flight at a single time, with different project teams, mail aliases, etc for each project. It is very difficult to manage all of the various bits of information for each project and keep them all separate. The project centric view greatly simplifies this.
Now….hopefully it supports Document Workspaces and Sharepoint…..
Oh, and if they added a multi-protocol IM client, that would round things out very well. Much like the LotusBuddy that IBM has internally that I’ve seen mention of on CNET recently.
– Kelson
I’m the first person to say that a Usable Atrractive Interface is the most important part of any App, especially on a Macintosh, But the Functioning, and suitability to the users task, are not far off in Importance.
Personally, I have no use for PowerPoint (or Keynote) and A simple, yet powerful Word Processor is more useful to me than a Fully Functioning Hybrid Word Processor/Page Layout/Group Collaboration Utility like Word.
The only App in th Office Suite that would suit my requirements would be Excel… Although a Proper Database Application, would be better.
As an Aside, while Microsoft have obviously tried to make Office Document-Centric by including the “Project Center”, they have only succeeded in making a rehash of the Microsoft Works/ Claris Works/ Gobe Productive/ AppleWorks Suites. I doubt I’ll be purchasing it.
Office 2004 will cost the same as the previous version of the suite, across all three editions introduced by Microsoft last fall.
The Standard Edition of Office 2004 — which includes all four Office applications — sells for $399. The $499 Professional Edition includes the same programs, as well as the latest version of Virtual PC with Windows XP Professional. The cost of the Student and Teacher Edition remains $149, with users still able to install the suite on as many as three Macs.
If you buy Office v. X before June 30, 2004, Office 2004 will cost you little or nothing. Upgrading to the same edition is free; upgrading from the v. X Standard Edition to the 2004 Professional Edition costs $90. If you have the academic edition of v. X, upgrading to the 2004 Standard Edition is $90 and upgrading to the Professional Edition is $129. Upgrade pricing for registered users of Office 98 remains unchanged: $329 for the Professional Edition and $239 for the Standard Edition.
I don’t see anything in there about having to buy v.X after a particular date. It looks to me like this is a free upgrade from v.X. And that would *really* surprise me.
“I don’t see anything in there about having to buy v.X after a particular date. It looks to me like this is a free upgrade from v.X. And that would *really* surprise me.”
As well it should surprise you. Because it isn’t necessarily free. It’s only “free” (other than S&H) if you buy it between January 6, 2004 and June 30, 2004 and if you stay within the same product (Standard vs. Professional).
This is according to the Microsoft rebate on the http://www.microsoft.com/mac site.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/5/f/05f5ef70-dd7f-4e81-92b…
Otherwise, I would assume there is some sort of upgrade fee.
…Entourage purported to have Outlook Exchange support but it is truly not the same as what you get in the Windows version. Their idea of Exchange support is just simple IMAP with no suport for calendaring and other features. Step up to the plate here MS. Give us true Exchange support.
The latest version of Entourage X fully supports Exchange calendaring and tasks, etc. I don’t know what “other features” you want, but I’m not missing any — I regularly access my Exchange account from my PowerBook AND my work-issued Win2k machine AND a home WinXP box with Outlook 2002 — I see very little difference.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entouragex/entouragex.aspx?pi…
While Entourage has calendaring support, the kicker is that you have to rely on having Outlook Web Acess (OWA) running on the Exchange server. In other words, Entourage X works just like Evolution with Ximian Connector. IMO, this is a half-assed offering from MS, who has the ability to put out a proper Exchange client.
The only App in th Office Suite that would suit my requirements would be Excel… Although a Proper Database Application, would be better.
Have you given 4th Dimension a go? ( http://www.4d.com )
I’ve long given up on getting meaningful upgrades from MS on their products, Mac or PC. The programs do what I need them to do.
For me to buy this Office upgrade for the Mac, it needs to have the following things:
1. Long file names
2. More speed. The fact it takes 3-5 seconds for the print menu to pop-up is pathetic.
3. No “We’re Not Really Trying” bugs. Yes, every app has bugs, but even after five revisions, Office v.X has some sloppy, embarrasing bugs.
Is it pathetic that I am willing to pay $199 for an upgrade for the above list?Yes. But, the above drives me crazy every day, and this is par for the course from Redmond.
However, if any one of the three are not in the next version, I will not pay for an upgrade, no matter what else they put into Office. I hope Redmond is listening to their customers.
I thought that their would be an updated msn messenger in the Office package as well.
However, there is still one glaring feature that is decidely lacking in the Mac version. True Outlook Exchange support.
Entourage does have true, full Exchange server compatibility. I and about 70 of my work mates use it every day. Sure there are some limitations, such as having to use an Exchange 2000 or 2003 server, and having to use the very latest version of Entourage X (Or update the one you have with an update) – buts its there, and it works 100%.
> Their idea of Exchange support is just simple IMAP with no suport for
> calendaring and other features.
This is simply wrong! Read this page to realise how wrong you are:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entouragex/entouragex.aspx?pi…
Thanks,
Andrew McCall
Actually, I will have to disagree with anyone who says Entourage is a complete Exchange client. Here are two items to check out.
Global Address List (Missing)
Public Folder Supprt (Anything other than mail items, Missing)
I realize that you can access the GAL by using the LDAP feature and searching for an entry, not really the same thing…