Comments on: Microsoft’s MacBU to hold special press conference next week

By: J Mac

J Mac — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:53:26 +0000

This is clearly Snow Leopard related.

No way they discontinue the product.

Would be nice to see some tighter collaboration functionality or extensibility built into the products.

By: Loweded Wookie

Loweded Wookie — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:14:02 +0000

I have to disagree that we NEED Office.

I got Office legit for $20 NZ because I wanted Exchange integration on my Mac. I have yet to get that integration because Microsoft refuses to have the Mac clients be on par with the Windows versions.

I use iWork ‘09 and find it to be infinitely better than Office and I couldn’t give a toss about DocX support which is fairly limited in Mac support anyway.

There is nothing to make me think my $20 was well spent and yet everything to say that my $180 was. That doesn’t stack up.

Maybe they’ll get it right with Office 2010 and I really hope they do but I’m not waiting with baited breath.

By: schalliol

schalliol — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Will, sure, if they killed office it would hurt Apple. This would have been true for decades. Besides the reasons I previously suggested why this PR doesn’t likely mean a removal of Office, the FTC would certainly inveatigate because MBU makes money and MS would look like the bad guy, which is not something it wants right now.

By: Will

Will — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:03:11 +0000

Virtually everyone agrees Office for Mac is a major ingredient in the Mac’s popularity. For those who simply must have integration with the Office suite, it gives all this without enduring the clunkiness of the Windows platform.

While the MBU provides a considerable contribution to Microsoft’s coffers, by no means is it the biggest contributor. Instead, Office for Mac continues to allow Apple to be a thorn in Microsoft’s side by out-performing Microsoft on virtually every criterion and portrays Microsoft as a slow, dull, lumbering mammoth.

Don’t you think the killing of Office for Mac is a neat way for Microsoft to pull the rug from under Apple’s rise in popularity? I realise doing this publicly is not the usual way Microsoft removes these thorns, but perhaps it has finally taken Apple’s advice to think different.

By: Jim Dalrymple

Jim Dalrymple — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:43:36 +0000

I agree.

By: Schalliol

Schalliol — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:38:45 +0000

There’s no way they’re killing office with this PR. You don’t PR that, instead you’d at least take residual without updates.

By: Arjun Muralidharan

Arjun Muralidharan — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:28:21 +0000

Either they’re discontinuing Office (which I doubt, it’s still a profitable business), or they’re releasing a new Office alongside MS Office 2010 for Windows. And it gets the ribbon. That would be great.

Say what you want, Office for Windows is an amazing product and always pulls me back towards Windows.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:25:10 +0000

I fear Microsoft will withdraw its Office for Mac products.

By: macfixer

macfixer — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:42:53 +0000

Probably has something to do with Entourage EWS…

//k

By: geoduck

geoduck — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:55:02 +0000

“and so finally there will be a compelling reason to upgrade from Office 2004.”
I haven’t found a compelling reason to upgrade from OfficeX. Though Snow Leopard may change that.

By: schalliol

schalliol — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:42:22 +0000

Please, oh please, Cocoa-based Word and Excel (with VB-support for Excel).

By: SteveP

SteveP — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:19:26 +0000

Dave, I’d have to disagree….

You could use their converter to open .docx files in Office 2004, and where I work this is what we have chosen to do because of Microsoft’s brain-damage in removing the VB programming support from the Office 2008 suite.

They have promised to put it back in the next release, and so finally there will be a compelling reason to upgrade from Office 2004.

By: Dave Barnes

Dave Barnes — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:28:46 +0000

Yawn.

I only purchased MS Office 2008 for one reason.
.docx

I thought that I would need 2008 to be able to read .docx files.
Over a year later, I realize that I wasted my money as there is the converter for Office 2004 AND the number of .docx files that I receive is a tiny percentage of Word files.

Now, my only reason for even thinking about purchasing MS Office 2010 is that Office 2008 might not run under Snow Leopard.

MS Office reached the “good enough” stage years ago. Fear is the only reason to upgrade.