Microsoft has announced the addition of “Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition” and whittled their offerings down to two choices:
1) Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition
2) Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student
The new Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition is a suite that has all the familiar Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage, all updated with Service Pack 2) while including new tools for the enterprise:
• Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition – Provides faster data synchronization so Entourage users on Exchange 2007 will experience improved email and calendaring support. Additionally, Microsoft has added the ability to sync Tasks, Notes and Categories.
• Document Connection for Mac – Improves access and browsing to documents on SharePoint Products and Technologies and Microsoft Office Live Workspace for streamlined collaboration
• Extras – More than 200 business-related templates and clip art, along with lynda.com training
The Office Business Edition has an estimated retail price of US$399.95; $239.95 for the upgrade.
Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition excludes Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services support, Microsoft Exchange Server support, Entourage 2008, Web Services Edition (Sync tasks, notes, and categories), Remote Desktop for Mac 2, training by lynda.com, and the 200+ business-related templates and professional clip art. It has a suggested retail price of $149.95.
MacDailyNews Take: These are the people who want you to pay them way too much for their bloated products:
• Not everyone wants a machine that’s been washed with unicorn tears. – David Webster, Microsoft’s general manager for brand marketing, commenting on Mac users, April 4, 2009.
• Paying an extra $500 for a computer… $500 more to get a logo on it? – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, insinuating that the only difference between a Mac and a Windows PC is the Apple logo – March 20, 2009
While the “You’re a Fscking Idiot, Now Buy My Software” is an interesting sales tactic, its efficacy may be suspect.
Not on my MBP! Never again!
I got a promotion over the tools that have been in my company for years, because the big boss has been impressed with my work output and presentations given. Why, you ask. Because those tools are stuck in Vista and I bring my MBP to work from and I use KEYNOTE which far superior to Power point. My boss is now thinking about making the investment into macs now. Go figure.
Business templates and clip-art!
OMFG, where do I get a copy?
But they still lack the analysis toolpak?!? Come on guys, you had it in Office 2004! When it comes to advanced spreadsheets, unfortunately, I still cannot move away from MS Office on Windows. Everything else, I’m happy to use my Mac.
My Mac has been Micro$oft free for years now. iWork 09 works great.
Never ever never
It’s too late. I bought my MB used and it didn’t have iLife nor iWork but came with MS Oriface 04. So I been using that for 4 years and 1 more used MB later.
With Snow Leopard comming out I decided to bite the bullet and get the “box set” for $169(Snow Leopard, iLife, iWork).
With little HD space left(hopefully SL will fix part of that), there is no reason to lug around MS anymore.
Gave away my version of Office – using iWork and loving it…
I never liked Word – I “grew up” with Wang word processing which was incredibly efficient and effective. Word was always a bloated backward step…
The amount I use the business templates and clip art and tutorials by a previously unheard of website is worth the extra $250 hands down.
In fact, where can I pay $250 to get a unicorn to stick me in the A$$!
None of your Apple products are Microsoft free. Apple’s putting Exchange into everything. You can’t escape.
Oh, and MDN: Apple’s entire marketing effort for the Mac over the past several years has involved characterising Windows PCs and, by extension, their users, as boring and stupid. An interesting tactic, but, judging by the increase in the Mac’s market share, effective, no?
Hey Microsoft, change the name to Microsoft Orifice. It is much more appropriate for the product that MS Office.
Office for the Mac is even more unusable than Office for Windows. And I just found out that we aren’t upgrading to Exchange 2007 until the end of next year, at the earliest, so I will be forced to attempt to use Entourage even after upgrading to Snow Leopard. Yippee.
Entourage sucks. I was excited when I heard “True Exchange support” but that turned out to be false and stupid when I tried to use it with Exchange.
Boo Microsoft. Even your Mac Apps blow.
Here we go…
Office Home
Office Pro
Office Ultimate
Office Student
Office NotOnMyMac
Just use Apple iWork instead ( Pages, Numbers, Keynote )
Opens, edits & save MSWord docs & saves as a .DOC file.
WAY easier, WAY better & NO MS TAX on their WAY over priced & bloated MS OFFICE for Mac.
BaldyBot Bloated Ballmer will not get my money!
Why does loving a Mac mean you have to hate Microsoft? When I needed to buy a computer two years ago I had about six hundred euro to spend(at a serious stretch) – and that instantly discounted a Mac. Also, as a fairly light computer user, I don’t see a huge performance difference between the Sony Vaio I bought then and my current MacBook. I love that machine but in retrospect I think Apple could, for example, have done better than 2gb/160gb for the asking price considering what else is out there.
No VBA.
This isn’t a Business Edition, whatever it says on the box. Avoid.
Somebody should tell Microsoft that it is 2009 – closing into 2010!
“Additionally, Microsoft has added the ability to sync Tasks, Notes and Categories…..”
In fact, Microsoft didn’t do anything besides putting tears from unicorns and unicorns “templates”. Ability to sync task and calendars came from the new Snow Leopard Active Sync compatibility, Yes, Active sync is a microsoft licensed product, but Apple implemented it on the Mac and pay (not stole) the license from Microsoft.
Add matrix functions to Numbers and I’ll kick Excel to the curb and never look back.
MDN MW “alone”, as in “That feature alone holds me back from dumping Office”.
@ hello,
“Apple’s entire marketing effort for the Mac over the past several years has involved characterising(sic) Windows PCs and, by extension, their users, as boring and stupid. An interesting tactic, but, judging by the increase in the Mac’s market share, effective, no?”
If some PC users are stupid enough to think that the Mac/PC commercials are dissing PC users instead of making fun of a PC’s problems, then Apple doesn’t need those imbeciles as customers.
I thought they were getting rid of Entourage and going to create a Mac version of Exchange?
I just opened the link to this article figuring that I would hear nothing except some crickets chirping.
Been using the same version of Office for about 10 years now. Never had a reason to upgrade, but when it comes, Open Office will sure be a lot cheaper!
“Why does loving a Mac mean you have to hate Microsoft?”
Hmm… Because Microsoft is a leech attached to Apple? Because they’ve lied, cheated, and stolen to get where they are and have never actually earned even a tiny bit of their success through honest business? Because they’ve never had an original idea? Because their products have, from day one, been poorly engineered fourth-rate garbage? Because one of their major goals is destroy open standards and replace them with proprietary ones tied to Windows? Because they tried to kill Linux via the SCO Group? Because they have an army of paid trolls and bribed tech writers on their payroll(Yes, Rob Enderle, I’m looking at you)? Because they lied to the Department of Justice and created forged letters supporting them in their monopoly trial, some of which were “written” by dead people?
Actually, looking over that list, you don’t even have to love Macs to hate Microsoft. You can hate them for a whole delicious rainbow of reasons.
It’s big news when Microsoft REDUCES the number of “editions.” Figures that it would happen in their Mac unit.