business software
10/10/2006, 8:45am, EDT
Tuesday, October 10th
Next Mac Office due in late 2007
Microsoft doesn't expect to ship the next version of its flagship suite Office for the Mac until the second of half of 2007, confirming a report from last month. Code-named Office 12, the next version of its flagship office suite will bring an enhanced look and feel to match Mac OS X's interface evolution, and enhanced features as well as Universal Binary support for native performance on Intel-based Macs; however, Reuters reports that the company does not expect to ship the much-anticipated Universal update until eight months after the release of its Windows counterpart. Microsoft currently expects to ship the next version of Office 2007 for Windows in January, which could mean that Mac users would wait about three and half years since the last major update. Office 2004 for Mac was released in January of 2004.
Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit group product manager Mary Starman confirmed the release date while saying that the update will bring an interface overhaul in line with Apple's interface guidelines and the direction being taken by Mac OS X Leopard.
"This may draw on elements of the 'ribbon', a new strip of commands and formats to debut in the Windows version of Office 2007." Reuters also confirms that Word, Excel and PowerPoint will adopt XML as their native file format--much like its Windows counterpart.
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NeoOffice has also evolved to the point where it is useful.
My favorite word processor for general use is Papyrus which uses an editable PDF file format. For more complex documents, Ragtime version 6. Both are almost unknown, but they are powerful tools. And they aren't as sluggish and as unstable as Microsoft's feeble and always so late efforts.
Why? Lets face it, MS Word is bloat-ware. It once was a great word processor, exactly what it should be. Now, its more than that, even delving into areas like web page design and page layout.
The problem is that MS cannot afford to make a great product, because it's the updates that make MS the money. That is, once they give you the initial sample of their drug, your hooked for life like a junky.
Bloatware.
The reason we have to care is that there are still millions of people who use word/excel/powerpoint and billions of word/excel/powerpoint documents. This is the perfect opening for a 3rd party to finally create a killer replacement... but, perfect import/export is a must for any replacement... and this has always been a stumbling block for contenders.
Pages is a step in the right direction, but still has a ways to go...
Does anyone remember Fullwrite from the OS 7 days?! Way back then it had WYSIWYG with advanced features that even word 2004 lacks... It can be done.
Buh-bye. You guys really dropped this ball, IMHO.
"Surprise, Surprise !!"
Why is anyone describing the "2nd half of 2007" date as delayed? What earlier date has ever been announced? And since when did the mac version ever come out much less than 8 months after the windows update?
Come on, macNN - stick to the facts and stop making up a story. More sense and less 'media-flame', please!
-- BarryW