Microsoft has released Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.8 Update which, according to Microsoft, “fixes a vulnerability in Word 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.”
For more information about this update, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB941809.
Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.8 Update applies to: Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Word 2004.
More info and download link here.
MacDailyNews Take: Do you really enjoy Microsoft-induced security problems and bloated, old, overpriced code on your Mac? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Many Mac users think they need Office, but really don’t. Give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and see for yourself.
Why did it take soooo long for this?
Office hasn’t changed in eons!
Microsoft free since iWork ’08 came out!! I deleted them with a smile…
” Many Mac users think they need Office, but really don’t. Give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and see for yourself.”
Couldn’t agree more MDN. So when I send my boss an important report or proposal and he either can’t open it or it isn’t formatted correctly, it’s his fault for not joining you and the other 1/2% of the population using iWork.
As Mac Fanboys, we need to take a stand. So what if we lose our jobs, it’s more important that the 95% of the entire world who uses office conform to us…
Thank you for your well though out “Take”. You might reconsider Mr. Jack if you ever seek employment in the real world..
Woooooo Hoooooo Steve!!!!!!!
And many Mac users really do need Office MDN.
But this is one Office user who is still smarting from the knowledge that, if he upgrades to Office 2008, he’ll have to pay an extra US$250 just for the “privilege” of attaching to his company’s Exchange server.
To the Microsoft Mac Business Unit, whether you set the pricing policy or not, that stinks, big time.
Is my calendar off? I thought it was 2007. Is my watch too fast?
WHY…?
Use iWork aka Pages…and save yourself a bundle!
to anthony007,
it’s just the naming convention, office 2007 for windows is same as office 2008 for mac. same happened to office 2003 for windows, mac version of it is called office 2004.
how do you use pages for notes taking? like word 04 does. the indentation settings in pages requires more work than word…
I like MS Office on the Mac – as Mac apps go it is getting old, but still runs well. I have two problems with it though: the pricing is unrealistic and it is not feature complete.
The Mac BU should be proud of Office, I only hope their new version is worthy of the high price.
It IS your fault for not saving your report as a PDF before sending it to your boss. Anything else is considered unprofessional.
“The Mac BU should be proud of Office, I only hope their new version is worthy of the high price.”
The pricing for the “Home Edition” (how Microsoft) is reasonable, at $150.
The problem is that they will charge you $400 for the next version up. This appears to contain nothing more than an upgraded version of Entourage, which will allow you to attach to an Exchange server (with new services not supported in the existing version). Perhaps I’m missing something here, but I can’t see how that $250 price difference can be justified.
Shoeman you only need to export you important report or proposal as a power point document and problem solve.
@Shoeman
So you make it clear that you will sell your soul and support the evil mafiasoft thieves, blackmailers and extortionists for a few more cents per hour. Don’t expect decent people to follow in your footsteps.
Or maybe it is that don’t you live in a land that is free?
Is it just me or is MSN always coming off as a shill for Apple, trying to shove the unproven iWork product? Think it has something to to with their Apple affiliate status???
a few months ago I would have cared about this… since I’ve switched to iWork ’08 there’s been no looking back!
It’s be interesting to get a running tally of how many security fixes have been released since the original release of Office 2004. For both Mac and Windows versions.
I haven’t updated Office since 11.3.3 when it started getting sneaky behind the scenes on our network. I hate it when companies Trojan Horse DRM. Shouldn’t have been surprised, though.
I would gladly dump Office 2004 and not buy Office 2008 for the MAC, IF, Apple can get some friggin support for exchange server in the mail app. Its sort of there in the current version but its janky t best and there is no real help. I would gladly stop using it but I pay for an exchange server account and yes I want exchange server so Apple get off your butt and fix your crap.
Well, I must have got the Tardis date set wrong. I was aiming for the end of 2007. LOL!
We Timelords prefer open apps like NeoOffice. No shackles! No timewarp!
The Mac BU does amazing work and Entourage beats Apple Mail by a mile ( despite the years) . I love my Macs but Entourage, Word and Excel are pretty amazing. We had Word first so let’s celebrate. Microsoft may be the evil empire but the Mac BU has always kept us ahead of the curve. MS Office for the Mac has always been better than the Windows version….so let’s celebrate the fact we have an amazing team at MS working to make their products better for us. And as much as I love Pages…it is not Word..not even close. Appleworks could have killed Word..but we gave up the fight.
And here comes 2008 in just a few more months.
MS is still boasting Office 2004. Almost as regular as Adobe and there cs updates. Oh damn, they just release a whole new version and charge you for it.
Most software sucks in these terms.
Good reason to make it walk the plank.
TRY google docs. It’s free and has some amazing benefits.
Cheaper then iWorks too.
Pray it works on iPhone – but no one told me yet.
pp
Office 2004
The 4 says it all.
Isn’t M$ Office 2008 for Macs due in Jan.? Wow, a new version every 4 years. Well, that’s actually lightspeed for Microsloth.
I am tired of seeing mac daily news telling people to get rid of Microsoft Office and Go with IWork. Not many people have IWork and will not get it. Most people use office, and will continue to use office. I like using Microsoft Office for windows and Mac. I am not a fan of IWork. It is nothing compared to office and will never be. If you want to buy Microsoft Products for the mac. Buy It. If you want to buy IWork, Buy It. Don’t let some web site dictate to you and tell you what you should buy!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Microsoft,
Eat me.
-c
I agree with several of the above posters. MDN repeatedly gets it wrong on this one. I suspect that most Mac users in PC environments need, and will continue to need, Office. I’ve given my take on the reasons why before on this site. They involve both reality and perception.
The first reality is that iWork, although impressive, still isn’t up to Office standards in many areas. Pivot tables, for one; they don’t exist in Numbers. Other posters have provided other examples.
A second reality is the need to maximise compatibility with PC-using colleagues. Compatibility doesn’t just mean seamless document transfer (although that’s important). It also means the ability to sit down at one another’s desks and instantly recognise what’s happening on-screen. It’s no use trying to tell somebody long chained to Windoze that, “This is Apple’s Numbers spreadsheet (or Pages). It’s kinda different.” They’ll tune out immediately.
The perception issue is equally important. One of the reasons I’ve managed to keep the Mac faith for 22 years in a PC workplace, surviving numerous corporate attempts to bludgeon me into Windoze use, it that I can show them Office. “It makes my Mac totally compatible with your PCs” (not completely true, but true enough).
The repeated attempts at forced conversion to the Dark Side are the reasons why I’m pissed off at the 2008 Office pricing. I can tell a mile off, that my IT will balk at forking out $250 just to attach to Exchange. “You gotta be kidding. How ’bout swapping to a PC”.
My strategy will be to keep quiet about the Exchange issue, and either use Entourage 2004 (assuming it will still work in the presence of Office 2008) or swap to Mail, and manually record calendar events etc. On that point, Apple, if you could better integrate Mail with Exchange, that would be much appreciated.
PS: Hi Chrissy. How’s the job hunt going?
I agree that iWork is not yet up to Office in several areas. If Apple keeps going, I hope it will be a viable replacement in two or three years. Not yet though. However, I’ve found NeoOffice to work pretty well. Unless one uses some of the obscure formatting options in MS Office, almost everything else can be done. I recommend people try moving their work to iWork and NeoOffice while still keeping MS Office in the wings for the times when the others fall short. Keep track of how many times the others won’t work, not just when you become frustrated because you haven’t taken the time to figure out how to use the different ap, but when it clearly won’t do what you need. I suspect the numbers will get smaller and smaller. More people may be able to make the leap than think they can. Not all (yet), but quite a few. The Exchange issue might even be solved at some point for those who need it. Well, that’s my take.
YAAAAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNN!
‘The global mac community fell asleep at the sound of this news from Microsoft’.
I use iWork08.
The ONLY reason I havent deleted Office X (yes – I still use the 1st ever version of Office for mac OS X! – never needed to ever update it) is because I very occasionally get a design job to tidy up a clients powerpoint presentation and need to test the transitions.
This is normally once or twice a year max, other than that I just use Apple’s excellent iWork.
Has anybody else noticed that every single update for Office 2004 says the following:
“fixes a vulnerability in (insert Word, PowerPoint or Excel here) 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.”
WTF? Absolute junk code.
I’ve been switching our users to NeoOffice here – what’s really funny is that it opens more formats and even Windoze .doc files better than Office 2004 – proven it a number of times. I have had zero compatibility issues and no crashing. Plus, the open source community keeps the thing updated regularly.
Since I do page layout, etc., I don’t need a “word class” word processor, so I’ve switched over to Bean, which is a freeware, fast, light little WP that is totally rad. Give that one a try. Reads and writes all MS Word .doc files (unless they have a graphic installed).
I also don’t need the “extras” in Entourage, and I find it slow, clunky, and a royal pain to use. I far prefer Mail.app, or even Thunderbird.
MW=point. There is no point to have M$ on your Mac.
Thank you Microsoft Business Unit for your good hard work. These dedicated people never get any respect (and probably not much support) from either Microsoft or the Macintosh community, but they do a good, thankless, job for us, and it is very much appreciated by many Mac users.
We’ve heard of all kinds of empty promises about how compatible Mac programs are at reading and saving Word documents (TextEdit) and when put to the test, were found lacking. The MBU has been the only ones, that I know of, who truly got it right.
My home PowerBook is as Microsoft free as it possibly can be (thank you Think-Free and Neo Office), but my work’s PowerMac has got Office for Mac and works quite well with all of the Microsoft-centric applications and servers at my work. The company that I work for offers no support at all for Macs (sound familiar?). If it weren’t for the MBU and Office for Mac, I would need to sneak onto a Windows PC to do any kind of interactivity with other employees. Now, I can do everything from my Mac thanks to you, and I really appreciate being able to do that.
First sensible comment here Rudge. MDN are somewhat delusional in their view of the real world.