Filed under: Software
Microsoft launches Office 2008 sneak peek site
Microsoft is letting out information in dribs and drabs about Microsoft Office: Mac 2008, the long awaited Universal version of the company's productivity suite. Today brings a new website that showcases some of the new functionality found in the Office apps, as well as shows off the new UI (which looks to be influenced, though not directly related to, Office 2007's UI).Sadly, this website doesn't have any information about Entourage, Office's email client which I know many people (including myself) are anxious to hear about. Still, it is worth a look to see what Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are going to look like in January.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
chris said 1:37PM on 9-18-2007
already seen it try to keep up tuaw
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Mystic said 1:47PM on 9-18-2007
Hilarious! Will not load in Safari.
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Leonard Nimrod said 2:00PM on 9-18-2007
It will be interesting to see how much Office:Mac, a once very profitable suite for MS, has been hurt by Apple's own advancements in iWork and the several free copycats of Office that are available.
Even Windows users have less reason to be drawn to MS's Office. I believe that Office has historically made up 1/3 of MS profits.
With iWork becoming "complete", and with NeoOffice and Open Office working out bugs quickly I don't think MS will be developing another version of Office:Mac.
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G said 2:16PM on 9-18-2007
"Welcome to" a sneak peek site which is almost as obtuse as the UI on Office itself. Are we supposed to click on the little yellow triangles? Sometimes a video starts playing, sometimes it doesn't (maybe it's just a slow server?).
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Chris O'Rourke said 2:31PM on 9-18-2007
Now all we need is for this to allow ALL of the missing "requires office" features in Sharepoint 2007. Granted because they designed Sharepoint to also require Internet Explorer but that's really a different subject.
What I'd really like is that pesky 4 year old permissions bug to FINALLY be squashed but then I'm just an impatient IT Manager.
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Robert Ortenzi said 2:34PM on 9-18-2007
Stay away from Entourage! I used to use it exclusively for many years. It's big downfall: the database file. Once that goes, you lose everything. Email, contacts, calendars - all gone. So great job on that, Microsoft. I can't tell you how many times while managing a network that people have lost everything because of that one stupid file that everything is in. If it hasn't happened to you yet - give it time. Switch to Mail.app now!
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Fritz Laurel said 2:47PM on 9-18-2007
@8 - just restore from your backup. You do backup, don't you?
I use Entourage because Mail.app sucks so bad for all the accounts, etc I have. It beats mail.app on "organizability," IMHO. And I've never had a problem in the past 5 years with the database file (which is at about 1.5GB now).
I just wish MS would do SOMETHING to get a universal version of Entourage out ASAP. Just recompile the freakin thing, MS! Come on. You DID use Apple's Dev tools when you developed, right? What? You developed it on PCs with Visual Studio?
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alphacrumb said 2:52PM on 9-18-2007
As much as I enjoy using iWork 08 for home projects, let's not kid ourselves -- the Mac needs Office 2008 to be taken seriously in the academic and corporate world.
Microsoft's office suite offers functions that just don't exist (and probably never will) in iWork 08, such as multiformat citations, a common bibliographic pool, etc. And although NeoOffice/OpenOffice are fantastic values, they have a wee bit too many bugs and incompatibility issues for me to trust them with some of my more important documents.
I for one can't wait for Office 2008, as I'm sure are plenty of potential switchers.
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Lover said 3:18PM on 9-18-2007
@alphacrumb (#10): The last thing the Mac needs is another excuse for switcheurs to invade a platform wholly unsuited to their so-called culture. Let the tweed-jacket beancounters keep slaving away on Microsoft PC Excel Pro or whatever—they're better off with an OS designed by PC people, for PC people. (I speak in stereotype; I know many creative, lateral-thinking accountants, some of whom I am honored to call my friends.)
It's true, however, that McNulty and his band of Mac poseurs at "F5-to-refresh" TUAW would be happy to see the bandwagon-jumping continue.
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Johnny said 3:20PM on 9-18-2007
They must be having server problems (or just getting hit hard). Videos don't load. I had to try it on a PC to get a good laugh if it just didn't work well on a Mac, but it didn't work there either.
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nntpgrip said 3:25PM on 9-18-2007
Remember that this one is not supposed to have support for Visual Basic. That means for some with "enhanced" excel docs etc., this is worthless... Parallels FTW...
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Mo said 3:35PM on 9-18-2007
Yes, build a website in Flash, so it's not particularly accessible, and runs like a dog with every Mac browser I know of.
…or is it just me whose MacBook fans are guaranteed to pick up whenever I leave a Safari tab open with a Flash animation going?
Microsoft continues to demonstrate that they actually don't “get it”, period.
Mind you, they have the edge over “Lover” up there, who seems to be the bizarre opinion that some people shouldn't be *allowed* to be productive on “his” (“her”?) platform. Seriously, grow up.
@alphacrumb: In the UK academic world, Macs have been taken seriously for years (and the proportion of students using Macs has only risen in the past few years).
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niclet said 3:40PM on 9-18-2007
I'll stick to NeoOffice and iWork. I banned all MS apps for health
reasons (!)
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alphacrumb said 3:53PM on 9-18-2007
@Lover (#11): As a switcher myself, I'm still in awe of the animosity shown by Mac users to PC users (and vice-versa). We're not exactly at war with Microsoft, are we? (Are we?) I switched because OS X Tiger proved to be the superior platform (something I couldn't really say with System 9 and previous).
@Mo (#14): Yes, I shouldn't have made it sound like Macs aren't taken seriously at all in academia. (They're big in education here across the pond, too.) Yet how much of the Mac's popularity in universities is due to the fact that MS Office *is* available for it. When it comes to writing a doctoral thesis, for example, only MS Office and the lesser-known Mellel have fit the criteria for a "proper" word processor.
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Kevin Pilasky said 4:41PM on 9-18-2007
All videos are streamed from a Youtube account:
http://youtube.com/user/MacOffice2008
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Paul said 5:09PM on 9-18-2007
Any news about OneNote? I can't wait for a native OSX version.
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Mitch said 5:09PM on 9-18-2007
I think Microsoft coming out with Office 2008 is good for Apple & the Mac Community. The more developers supporting the platform and delivering software that customer's want is great.
Personally, I am not the least bit 'excited' about the release and find a Sneak Peak Site to be kind of silly. I have very light word processor & spreadsheet needs so I may not be a typical consumer.
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Tomahawk said 5:59PM on 9-18-2007
With Google's recent addition of Presently (posted here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-feature-presentation.html)
I really can't find any reason to purchase this. Microsoft waited too long, and made too dramatic of a change of Office to make it worth my money anymore. Then again if I want an offline office suite I'll just stick to iWork, NeoOffice, or StarOffice.
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Brian said 6:08PM on 9-18-2007
@19 You may have light needs, but I make my living as a writer, and I never open Microsoft Word. Scrivener and Pages get me where I'm going with ease, and I just export to .rtf or .doc for the people I'm working with in the PC world. I didn't have some big "I'm not using Microsoft tools" moment, either. I've got Mac Office on my machine, I just slowly began never using it as tools better suited to my work came along.
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Mike P said 7:52PM on 9-18-2007
Funny how the intro movies use flash and not spotlight :)
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