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.
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.