Office 2007 Compatibility Pack for Office:Mac Coming "(Fairly) Fast"

Hmmm, very interesting in my opinion. I'm trying to think back at how long MS agreed to keep making products for Apple. Atleast something's coming. Thanks for the news.

Good news. It's cool these days to hate on Microsoft, but theres no doubting that Office some of the nicest peices of software.

I've used 2007, and it's great.

simple solution - don't use mso 2007

A hard choice must be made when choosing a platform(os and hardware).

If you chose Apple/Mac, you are putting yourself in the bottom 10% of computer users that companies like M$ care about. You can't blame M$ for not putting the same effort behind their for-Mac products as their for-Win products for more than the obvious reasons. They are not going to spend the same $/time for 10 clients as they are for the other, windows loving, 90. Maybe it's 20 to 80, same deal... (not to mention that OSx is in even better position to compete with windows...even less enthusiasm on M$ part)

I'll appologize for Steve Jobs here for leading you all to believe that the Apple/Mac/OSx platform was going to take over the world and that everyone would build UniBins for it ASAP, oh, and that stuff would "just work".

In conclusion, I'd like everyone who has been holding their breath to please breath, and stop waiting for games and high-end appz to come UniBin wrapped and ready for the holiday season(oh wait, weren't we expecting Adobe UB appz by Jan06?). It's coming, I hope, but not as soon as we'd like. Don't be upset, this is the price of "cutting edge", or, going with the "under-dog", or something (not to mention the bugs, patches, firmware updates, recalls, lack of support, more bugs, system instability...)

Cheers to all and have a good night!!

(PS. maybe it's all FUD, but I'm not spending a nickel on the Mac OS or platform until they get their collective sh*t together. My PC works just fine. I'm looking at Apple for my next one, but they are not looking ready for prime time...yet)

Now if someone develops an unofficial converter for OSX when Office 2007 comes out for Windows, big bucks could be made.

-tj

Hmmm, very interesting in my opinion. I'm trying to think back at how long MS agreed to keep making products for Apple. Atleast something's coming. Thanks for the news.

I think Roz said that M$ would be supporting the Mac platform for at least another five years, at the WWDC when the Intel switch was announced.

btw, I apologize for my previous post, if it was a little negative, I should have waited until I'd had my coffee before posting.

Cheers,

won't the next version of office for mac be out by the time that the compatability pack goes final? gee thanks MS...hopefully it will at least be a universal app

won't the next version of office for mac be out by the time that the compatability pack goes final? gee thanks MS...hopefully it will at least be a universal app

Mac Office 2007/8 is supposed to be a universal binary, so Im assuming a compatibility pack will be universal as well, but who knows with Microsoft :-/.

Mac Office 2007/8 is supposed to be a universal binary, so Im assuming a compatibility pack will be universal as well, but who knows with Microsoft :-/.

Well what I think is retarded is the the compatibility pack is in fact scheduled for after the release of the new Office:Mac. Honestly, wouldn't it make more sense for them to release a compatibility pack before so as to accomodate the period of time between Office:Mac and Office:Win 2007's release?

Well what I think is retarded is the the compatibility pack is in fact scheduled for after the release of the new Office:Mac. Honestly, wouldn't it make more sense for them to release a compatibility pack before so as to accomodate the period of time between Office:Mac and Office:Win 2007's release?

Its Microsoft, nothing can be that simple .

I've been using OpenOffice for a few years now and haven't even looked at MSOffice for a long while... is OpenOffice a resonable alternative yet, or is it still lacking to those who use MSOffice alot?

It just seems that MS is treating their Mac market as an afterthough (at best! ...compatibility pack after the new verion...???)

Cheers,

Think of it this way: would Microsoft rather:

A ) Have people buy a uni-bin version of Office: Mac

Or...

B ) Have people to buy Office 2007 for Windows, buy a copy of XP, and use bootcamp

Since the latest Macs use Intel CPUs, there isn't so much potential market share to be lost (if there ever was much in the first place) for Microsoft. They have much more potential money to make if they could entice Mac users to buy a copy of Windows. What better way to do this than to leave them in the cold by delaying crucial software for OS X?

Microsoft is taking Mac users for a ride. Plain and simple. I know they should have more of an interest in the Windows side of things, but they are doing the absolute minimum to fulfill their contracts. Sure, they have a 5 year contract to keep making Office for Mac. But in those 5 years, we'll be lucky if they come out with two releases.

Apple desperately needs to upgrade its Appleworks suite. Big time...

Well, Novell is going to create a patch for Openoffice that will make it fully compatible with the new Microsoft Office format. I, for once, think this is going the best opportunity for programs like NeoOffice and Openoffice to get more market share. By the way, the new Office format for Microsoft is going to be open and standarized so any office suite outhere will be able to run it without problems.

Well, Novell is going to create a patch for Openoffice that will make it fully compatible with the new Microsoft Office format. I, for once, think this is going the best opportunity for programs like NeoOffice and Openoffice to get more market share. By the way, the new Office format for Microsoft is going to be open and standarized so any office suite outhere will be able to run it without problems.

That's great news. I look forward to using OpenOffice more.

^

Agreed, that's great to hear, that MS is releasing an Open-Source format!

Well, Novell is going to create a patch for Openoffice that will make it fully compatible with the new Microsoft Office format. I, for once, think this is going the best opportunity for programs like NeoOffice and Openoffice to get more market share. By the way, the new Office format for Microsoft is going to be open and standarized so any office suite outhere will be able to run it without problems.

Hopefully that whole M$ and Novell deal will indeed be good for open source developers.

The big name/money app-makers for the Mac platform seem to have really dropped the ball.

Im using Neo office for everything for the last 4 months, and i dont miss MS office, and yeah i would love an apple office, compatible and COOL...

Scothiam, at least i, am here with Mac for their Mac only software, go find Apple software on windows......FCP Studio is just the tip. The principal Big name software company working to support OSX is Apple, and thats the way to go when u are the underdog. And we know Apple does good and cool sofware.

Scothiam, at least i, am here with Mac for their Mac only software, go find Apple software on windows......FCP Studio is just the tip. The principal Big name software company working to support OSX is Apple, and thats the way to go when u are the underdog. And we know Apple does good and cool sofware.

Yeah, I agree. I think if you want an apple for anything other than what apple offers, you're wasting your money. If you want a computer to run a catalog of native appz, stick with windows... for now...

I'll keep watching and waiting for this to change

btw, all of the appz I use are available for Mac, although not yet universal. I'm also holding out on a new computer purchase for newer-better virtualization features. I'm really a 'multiple-OS' fanatic, if anything.

If OpenOffice runs as good on a new macintel as it does on a wintel, I'll be happy with it. They do have native versions for PPC or Intel based macs (not a unibin).

No need to worry folks. Leopard's TextEditor'll have ya covered!

No need to worry folks. Leopard's TextEditor'll have ya covered!

there you go. Maybe Apple can start working on Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and Photoshop replacements too!! Then I'll have no excuse (cept for money of course) to get a Mac. Cheers to that!

If you chose Apple/Mac, you are putting yourself in the bottom 10% of computer users that companies like M$ care about. You can't blame M$ for not putting the same effort behind their for-Mac products as their for-Win products for more than the obvious reasons. They are not going to spend the same $/time for 10 clients as they are for the other, windows loving, 90. Maybe it's 20 to 80, same deal... (not to mention that OSx is in even better position to compete with windows...even less enthusiasm on M$ part)

Hang on - let's be consistent here. If MS = M$ , then OSX = O$X :-)

No need to worry folks. Leopard's TextEditor'll have ya covered!

mhm. but isn't it sad that another company can come up with compatability for a format on a platform before even the maker of that format can.

I'd like to see TextEdit's new feature added into the next version of Pages, I love that program, but I have a hard time being able to use it because no one else I know has a mac. I can't even get it to save my documents as an rtf.

Now, pardon my ignorance here, but what sort of improvements are we talking here over the old format? It seems like MS is just attempting to introduce yet another crazy standard, when the old one seems to work perfectly well.

I can easily see an unofficial converter being made rather quickly...a simple AppleScript of sorts to strip out the essential text and formatting and dump it into a nice .doc. Of course, it really underscores the fact that MS is pretty much leaving Mac users in the cold again... =/

- Matthew

two words UNIVERSAL BINARY

Hang on - let's be consistent here. If MS = M$ , then OSX = O$X :-)

True that!!!

good call, and my apologies.