The Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) at Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Office 2004 for Mac via Microsoft AutoUpdate. Customers are encouraged to download SP1; it addresses potential security issues and bugs that their feedback played an important role in identifying. New to Office 2004, Microsoft Error Reporting Protocol (MERP) allows customers to communicate bug data anonymously to Microsoft, enabling efficient fixes and helping increase the overall stability of Office 2004.
“Our customers who use Office for Mac every day are a valuable resource because they put the product to the test in real-life scenarios that expand on our experiences in the lab,” said Scott Erickson, group product manager for the Mac BU at Microsoft in the press release. “We strive to deliver the best possible product experience through extensive testing and by gathering customer feedback. This helps us determine issues to address within a service pack and prioritize which improvements will make the most difference.”
When an issue occurs, MERP gives customers the choice to anonymously communicate data to Microsoft so developers can pinpoint and solve issues that affect users. While Microsoft proactively worked to improve Office 2004 through thousands of its own tests, new tools such as MERP played a large part after the product shipped in determining fixes included in SP1.
A service pack is a tested, cumulative set of security and critical updates following an initial product release, along with fixes for problems found by Microsoft or through MERP data provided by customers and through customer support calls. Customers will be notified and can download Office
2004 for Mac SP1 via Microsoft AutoUpdate. In addition, customers can download SP1 for Office 2004 from http://www.microsoft.com/mac ; Office X and 2001 users may also visit the Web site to receive new security updates and bug fixes specific to their product versions.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Mac users should not buy Microsoft software – May 16, 2003
Oh Dear GOD!!!
We are now applying SERVICE PACKS TO OUR MAC’s?!!
WILL F*CKING MICROSOFT EVER LEAVE US ALONE!!
I use Appleworks, it’s not as feature rich as OfficeMac but it Reads/Write Word and Excel files.
Been using it fine for many many years.
You don’t need OfficeMac, you don’t need to take the security risk, you don’t need to support the evil of Microsoft.
Encourage and use OpenOffice as it’s cross platform if possible, learn to think for yourself and quick getting sucked into Microsoft “corporate mentality” you’ll never get rich working in corporate America, you’ll just get by.
Break out of the rut and take a chance, the more you learn the more you can do to make the millions.
Corporate America is SLAVERY!!!
MICROSOFT IS SLAVERY!!!
Oh, man, this is a bummer revelation. I have Office on my Mac. I feel dirty, violated, and ill. I feel like a Windows user. I suppose that I should be grateful that I don’t have to pay to upgrade to Office 2004.
Everyday I have to dress up like some stuckup baffoon and look like a kiss *ss.
Sit at my booring cubical, using some depressing garbage of a OS “Windoze” for 8 hours a day.
I get home I crank my Dual PowerMac G5 on my rocking 23″ Cinema Display, fragging the cr*p out of people online, surfing the net without a care, recieving eMails without having to run anti-virus software and just plain having fun!
Then it’s back to the dull boring corporate job in the morning, like it’s a contest to see who can act the most stolic. These people don’t know how to live.
To be happy you need to get rid of things that are junk and employ happy things.
PC’s and Windoze are dull boring garbage, Mac’s are cool.
I use Office.
Apple needs their own Office suite.
AppleWorks needs a total rehaul.
We have Mail and Keynote, we just need a robust equivalent to Word and Excel, bundled into, oh maybe, iOffice?
MERP sounds rather like MEEP! – the noise emitted by Beaker from the Muppets when one of Dr Bunsen’s experiments blew up in his face.
Coincidence?
I think not…
I for one, love Office (well- specifically Excel and Entourage).
Excel is an amazing app and until someone comes out with soemthing as functional, Excel will be my Spreadsheet app of choice.
Entourage is nice email App for the business user. It is very robust with a nice underlying database structure.
Didn’t Excel oringinally come out on the mac first?
1: You have to do what you have to do to make the money.
2: You live below 50% of your income and invest the rest wisely and conservatively. Yes this may entail living in a trailer 20 miles in the woods and cooking all your own meals and not partying.
3: When you get enough saved or can get loans or gifts you buy a small apartment building or a house that you can chop up to make apartments.
4: You rent to good people, you keep your units in good shape yourself for many years so you keep good people. Maximize your income by eliminating turnover.
5: Real estate values almost always go up, pick a area that they will, near the water and islands are always a good choice.
6: Continue to work your job and maintain the rentals on the weekends.
7: Your income will start to grow, buy another house and rent out apartments in it.
8: Eventually you’ll come across houses people sell dirt cheap and you can fix them up yourself and resell.
9: After that you have a few real estate agents constantly looking for cheap properties for you, sometimes old folks just give away their homes for less than market value. Snatch them up, fix them up and resell them.
10: Quit your job, your rich. Just maintain a moderate living standard, don’t sit idle or you’ll be back working a job again.
Money accumulates on it’s own after you have reached “critical mass” then you see people chasing you for money.
😀
??? Is M$ serious?
Yep, here come the OFFICEMAC APOLOGISTS, go back to Redmond you piece of garbage.
“I use OfficeMac, it’s so nice, I just like how it controls me and abuses me with security issues”
“All my buisness and banking information just went unchecked across the internet, do I care? Oh no, I’m just a M$ kiss ass with a Mac computer, I don’t know where I stand”
We so need AppleGrandOfficeProProjectSuite!
Gome on Apple! Say Yes!
Don’t you all see what M$ is doing here?
They have a trojan and it’s called OfficeMac, it’s all shiney on the outside but it’s pure mindf*ck on the inside.
1: Sucks you into M$ mentality and acceptance.
2: Opens your Mac to security issues.
Trust me, do what I do and never let a piece of software from that company on your Mac.
It’s the Stockholm Syndrome all over again.
Demand Apple put out a iOffice suit or use Open Office or Appleworks, use interchangable formats.
Rebel, or lose your free will. You decide.
Microsoft = Evil
When is Service Pack 2 coming out?
I don’t think that it’s fair to be one step behind MS’s Service Packs.
Anyone have any actual information about this release? Specifically, did they add back the SMTP tunneling feature of Entourage v.X ? That’s all that’s preventing me from upgrading to 2004.
You gotta like “Service Packs”. It’s a little upgrade. If you buy software and get a free upgrade/update, be happy for crying out loud! Be a little realistic. The MS Mac group does make some OK software. I don’t see anything comparable in office products from Apple…
Has anyone actually installed this SP w/ the reporting “feature”? I’m curious as to how it was implemented. MS loooves to install everything as a freaking service and have it run in the background constantly consuming resources, opening ports, and providing new opportunities for security vulnerabilities. There’s no way I want an MS daemon running on my Macs. If I recognize something new or foreign when running top, it gets stopped and I find and uninstall the offending application.
I just installed Office 2004 a couple of weeks ago because I needed a compatible word processor. Now I’m starting to regret it. Are there any real alternatives out there?
Until or unless Apple comes out with something fully comparable, I’ll keep using Office 2004. Would I prefer an Apple solution over one from M$? Certainly. But until one comes along, I’ll stick with Office. Mac users that are not strictly blind M$ haters realize that it’s not that bad of a software suite anyway.
As a serious business Mac user, Office is a must. AppleWorks is OK for home use, but you can’t install it in a corporate environment, it’s just not good enough or used enough. I would love to see an Apple Office, but I doubt it will come. Maybe an updated AppleWorks will, with some added Word and Excel compatibility. OpenOffice is largely unproven, I don’t think it will take off in a big way.
Why shouldn’t MS release updates to their software? It provides a good service to existing customers. Apple does this all the time with OS X updates. Apple broke networking and Firewire drives with different OS X updates, so don’t tell me that making software with bugs is just for MS.
“Break Loose NOW!!” didn’t do himself/herself any credit with that post. I think for myself, and decided that MS Office was better than the Apple apps. And it Syncs with a Palm MUCH better than iSync.
guys i love office.. but for god’s sake DELETE THE AUTOUPDATE app.
I’m not gonna let those bastards insert anything they want.. making this or that the default.
Again.. love the software, but the last thing i need is MS breaking it with an SP.. I’ll let you know if i find any bugs
I just looked for the patch on the 2 links provided and I can’t find it. I ran autoupdate and it told me all my software was up to date???
It’s people like you Eric that keep the problem going.
If the marketshare for Appleworks increases Apple has no choice but to provide a better product.
Right now Apple doesn’t want to appear to be pushing M$ off, there are some compatability issues like VPC that the two need colaboration on.
Apple most likely already has a OfficeMac killer, it’s just not wise to release it unless demand calls for it. M$ most likely has threatened to pull off VPC if Apple puts out a iOffice.
But build the demand and Apple can use the excuse “we have 25 million Mac users demanding a upgrade to our product…”
Create the demand and Apple will follow and M$ will have to accept that the consumer has spoken.
People don’t want security issues of M$ product on their Mac’s.
If that means using a slightly less feature rich product then so be it.
So go back to Redmond where you belong.
I have upgraded with the Service Pack One, everything is fine, I don�t use really any of the other programs besides Word. So I don�t really have any issues, beside one comment to all you M$ haters. Give me a break, Apple has �security updates� all the time…and they to are here to �control� you. What program or OS doesn�t do that! It�s what they are for, unless you want to build your own program/OS! So get off the band wagon of hating Microsoft, Apple is a Corporation too! To get your money, that�s what business is for. Don�t like, tough!
I think the people at the BU are OK. I’ve read in an article that they are real Mac lovers.
To all you Mac based M$ apologists, get a PC and go back to Redmond where you belong.
Apple is dam near dying and all you can do is praise M$.
Apple is doing it’s dammest to turn around from being erased off the face of the planet and all you can do is focus your tiny minds on one product.
Take a look at the whole picture.
2-3% MARKET SHARE
Damm fence straddlers, M$ could pull or hobble OfficeMac next year, but because you built up a dependancy on the product you find yourself having to buy a PC to run the damm thing because you never gave any other products a chance.
Microsoft’s goal is to dominate. And allowing them your mindshare with OfficeMac is serving M$ and not Apple.
So basically your a traitor, just you never realized it until now.
I agree, Microsoft OfficeMac has integrated features to search thier sites, their email, their everything.
I don’t like it, I don’t like Service Packs, I don’t like this new snitchware.
It is a Trojan horse, even ads in MacWorld “develop your corporate self”
What kind of brainwashing bull$hit is that?
I use Mac’s to be free from them, I will use Appleworks and support my favorite company.
Peace to all Mac lovers. The revolution has begun!