Mac Microsoft Office 2008 needs a public beta

November 13th, 2007

Apple introduced their Intel based Mac line in early 2006, and basically ever major software manufacturer has updated their software to run on the new platform. Older software, though compatible, runs at a fraction of the speed. The last remaining offender is Microsoft, with their atrociously sluggish Office 2004. Not only is this software a generation behind its Windows counterpart, it’s terrible performance makes using it incredibly frustrating, even on otherwise speedy machines. Microsoft has issued a slew of minor updates over the past several months, but their are but minor patchwork on a crumbling foundation.

Office 2008, optimized for Intel-based Macs and brining the software suite back into parity with its Windows counterpart, is due in January. Some irreversible damage may already be done. Frustrated by the inadequacies of Office (particularly given that most users depend only on basic functionality), some (like myself) have turned to Apple’s iWork or other considerably less-expensive competitors. Sure, they’re not as feature-complete as Office, but they’re good enough. The Keynote presentation software allows me to generate presentations considerably faster than I could with PowerPoint.

One no-brainer move that would help Microsoft earn back some credibility would be a public beta program. This would help free users from the pain of using Office ’04 now, provide useful feedback to the company, and allow users to see benefits (presuming there are some) of Office ’08 prior to buying. I only hope that the lack of such a program doesn’t bode ill for the software suite.

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  • Malcolm Eley

    Hi, and thanks for the excellent idea of at least trying working with a Mac rather than continue to endure MS Office. One question though: Do you have any idea where all the relevant criticism of MS Office (and, indeed, the other junk) can be found on the net? It amazes me, as an intensiver user of Word and occasional (involuntary) user of PPT and Excel, that the whole web’s not full of outraged protests – or am I looking in the wrong places?
    This applies in particular to the German version of WORD (I’m a [British] translator working here in Germany), but I suspect all the other versions are just as bad! But where are the protests??
    Best wishes
    Malcolm

  • http://www.tsaiberspace.net/ Rob

    There is no reason to use MS Office for personal data (I submit to office interoperability realities for work-related data). OpenOffice does just about anything one could possibly need to do for personal data. There is even a native Mac port – NeoOffice. I can move and work on my data files between Windows machines and Mac machines with no problem.

  • http://www.infobhan.com ibhan

    Malcolm: I think that many people have just come to accept MS Office as the standard, and don’t even realize how bad it’s become. Apple Insider had a nice series comparing Office to iWork recently.

    Rob: The problem I have with OpenOffice is that, well, it sucks (yes, I’ve tried NeoOffice). At best, it’s about as good as MS Office, but it is just as clunky and is downright sluggish compared to iWork. The only reason I still use Word for some word processing tasks is that I haven’t been able to establish a good system for academic reference tracking.