I ditched Office in favor of Apple iWork years ago and I don't miss it one bit. Who needs all that bloat?

Those who need access to an Exchange server, that's who.

NeoOffice isn't excellent. It's passable. So is OpenOffice. But both are also slow. And both have the same problem. They try to be too much like Office than their own thing.

@Testudo,

And you consider Office 2008 fast?? It's the slowest, most bloated release ever. And it doesn't have VB support either. So what's the point? There is "partial" compatibility with MS Office 2007 (the key selling factor), and it's dog slow.

Why not use Sun's StarOffice which actually retains VBScript support, and it's robust and slick? It's also a small fraction of the price of MS Office?

You're a Microsoft b**** !!

@testudo Agreed, I think what makes apps/suites like iWork so great is they are the un-Office.

I own both Office '08 and iWork '09 (and every version since iWork '05). There are some situations where you cannot use anything but Office, and there are some where you can use anything else.

Office '08 is fine, but it's definitely not speedy. In fact, I was pretty dumfounded at how slow Word '08 was to open on my 15" MBP 2.66Ghz w/ 4GB of RAM; Pages '09 flies on it, as does everything else. I read that Office '08 was designed and programmed from scratch so it would explain the 'teething problems' it had when it was first released.

Office '08 SP2 does seem to speed it up a tad, but nothing spectacular.

I dislike M$ as much as the next person (possibly more) but I think the MacBU does a pretty good job.

I agree with Testudo. Neo offfice, star office, etc. are not really substitutes for those of us that live in the MS Office world. 2008 is ridiculously slow.

What I don't understand is how Office 2004 on my PPC 1ghz 1gb ram was sooo much faster than Office 2008 on my 2 x 2.33ghz C2D with 4gb??? And worse yet is slower than 2004 is in Rosetta!!!

I hate spending money for a worse product but I did!! shame on me......

Well I think the main difference is for what you use what. Truly OpenOffice or NeoOffice is more than good for more than 90% of the users. The other 10% could have some necessity for some products like MS Office or iWork ... The situation with MS Office here is that lots of people are afraid of changes and also is a fact that for a little percentage MS Office makes a difference and is necessary, but not for the majority.

One feature I find nowhere but in MS Word-- Track Changes. Utterly critical when writing for publication and editorial review. (Which reminds me how far behind I am in my reviews...agh)

iWork can do everything practically. So why buy the cow when you get the milk for free.
If nothing else, Keynote should be PLENTY of cause to lose MSFT Office...