Filed under: Software
Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac delayed until January 2008
Craig Eisler, General Manager of the MacBU and proud Canadian, contacted TUAW with some news about Microsoft's much anticipated Universal release of Office, Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac. Craig let us know that Microsoft has pushed back the release of Office 2008 for the Mac to make sure that the suite is up to snuff.Office 2008 for the Mac will be released for manufacture in December of this year for a US release of mid-January 2008 (just in time for Macworld 2008).
Clearly updating a large suite like Office is always a major undertaking, and focusing on getting it right is great, however, January 2008 is 5 months away from now. I asked if there would, by any chance, a public beta in the coming months. Sadly, there will not be one. It would seem if you want to get your fix of Office 2008 you'll have to check out this gallery of screenshots Microsoft provided to us during Macworld 2007.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Jon said 3:10AM on 8-02-2007
I read an article about how disorganized Microsoft is. There are teams on other sides of the world who don't even know they're working on the same project!
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Noshtzy said 3:19AM on 8-02-2007
January 2008 is actually five months away. I had to count on my fingers but I'm pretty sure it's not eight months.
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hessi said 3:24AM on 8-02-2007
Well, I'm not sure I should wait for it, anyway...
Agreed, the current Office/Mac is simply TERRIBLE, and far from useable on an Intel Mac due to its astonishing lack of any performance. But this makes it a lot easier to use Office/Win in Parallels, which is even starting faster in a whole than one part of Office/Mac.
Adding the never solved incompatibility-issues, I think I'll stick to Office/Win.
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DerekJ said 3:27AM on 8-02-2007
Vista released: OS X and Linux market-share's go up.
Office 07 Released: OpenOffice and other alternatives market-share's go up.
Well, at least the 360 is a success...
(I mean that! despite the failure rate, the 360 is a great system)
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Jon said 3:51AM on 8-02-2007
#4: Aren't the PS3 and Xbox being outsold by the Wii?
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john said 3:57AM on 8-02-2007
finally microsoft realizes that it needs to be on every OS other than microsoft itself.
this is a major shift in perception and will go a long way in defining the next generation technology for users. http://www.clickindia.com
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Scott Falkner said 3:59AM on 8-02-2007
>to make sure that the suite is up to snuff.
By "Up to snuff" they mean with macro languages that are totally incompatible with the Windows version.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2138349,00.asp
Idiots
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TC said 4:27AM on 8-02-2007
A US release of mid-Jan? So does that mean we're going to have to wait even longer in Europe?
I hope not — it's certainly not as if MS uses the time to change the menus to British English: we still have to pick a "color" rather than a "colour"!
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Elliot said 5:06AM on 8-02-2007
Oh good.
I'm actually sitting here at 2am working on '04 on an Intel iMac. Woulda gone to bed an hour ago, except Word has crashed three times on me tonight. Ironically, that kept me up long enough to learn that I'll have to put up with this crap for longer.
The only thing I hate more than Microsoft products is the fact that I'm forced to use them by people ignorant of alternatives.
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kuswanto said 5:09AM on 8-02-2007
not really care anymore since most of us now use Google Docs for collaboration and neoOffice for local viewing.
I have to admit, the interface of MSO 08 is looks pretty.
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Joakim said 5:23AM on 8-02-2007
Ridiculous. But I guess that's what's to be expected of Microsoft.
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brandon said 5:29AM on 8-02-2007
You mean people still use Office on the Mac? I thought everyone had switched to iWork or OO. Wow, had seriously believed Office for the Mac had been discontinued or something. Turns out, it's just being delayed.
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Sebastiaan de With said 5:32AM on 8-02-2007
Personally, I always used Google Docs for the spreadsheet work, and NeoOffice - but having bought iWork recently (Pages is just lovely) I no longer have to use those alternative for anything but Excel. I wasn't about to go use Microsoft products on a Mac anyway.
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zerock said 6:38AM on 8-02-2007
they need to fix messenger.
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Christian said 6:51AM on 8-02-2007
Wait, Apple started shipping Intel-based Macs in January 2006 (forever ago, in the world of personal computers). EVERY OTHER DEVELOPER has made a successful port to Xcode and Universal Binaries, but it's going to take Microsoft 24 MONTHS to get theirs out (30 months if you include the 6-month development leadup from WWDC 05)?
There's no way that porting Office is any harder than Adobe porting all of its products, and lo and behold, we've had a Universal Binary Creative Suite for 3 months already. If Adobe can gets its crap together, what is Microsoft's problem?
I already didn't think the screenshots from Office 2008 looked all that wowing. The Mac BU has also revealed that Office 2008 won't have some of the cutting-edge features that Office 2007 for Windows has (but that it will have other "Mac-specific features" instead). In other words, we're waiting two and a half years for development of relatively minor enhancements (from a user's perspective) and a final porting of the code to be compatible with 2-year old computers?
I know the Mac BU guys try to play nice with the Mac community and play down the natural aggressiveness of that community towards Microsoft. But honestly, Mac BU, you're doing nothing but increasing my animosity of the company you work for by demonstrating the same lack of quality and commitment that makes every other product from that company so detestable to me (and I'm a full-time Windows Server admin).
In summary: Unbelievable delay.
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slytle said 7:19AM on 8-02-2007
This is actually a good thing. Craig Eisler is new the the MBU and is trying to get the house in order. Better to delay the release and produce a better piece of software than to meet an arbitrary deadline.
Also, try reading the comments from Craig's POV. I wouldn't be in a hurry to update the readers of tuaw with that attitude.
Craig: there are those of us who appreciate what you're doing there. I'll get get my MBU news from Mac Mojo from now on. ;)
.sly
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Lars said 7:56AM on 8-02-2007
It's good that they come clean so early on. That said, I can't use Word (the application I use most from Office) on my Intel iMac. It's too slow and even with all patches it crashes like crazy.
For stuff I get from the Windows world I've switched to NeoOffice, which does the trick nicely, is free and Universal.
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Quix said 9:25AM on 8-02-2007
Hmm, conveniently delayed until after the back-to-school buying season. With Vista's lackluster response from consumers and Apple's domination of the news and rising sales, does anyone *honestly* believe Microsoft doesn't intentionally delay and/or hobble their Mac software for strategic reasons?
Personally, I'm over Office and have been for awhile now. I'm just waiting for iWork 08, which hopefully will have a spreadsheet app (hurry up Apple).
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Jon Niola said 9:38AM on 8-02-2007
Did they ever decide to add back in VB support? If I recall that was an issue some around these parts were not too pleased with.
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Wah! said 9:44AM on 8-02-2007
Whenever MS gets around to punting out office '08, I'll still be using NeoOffice, which runs dandy on my MBP, can save documents in .doc format for my MS-tethered friends, and has the low low price of nothing at all. Given all these advantages over Office, I have a hard time being excited or even interested in what Microsoft is doing.
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