Microsoft At Macworld 61
Rolan writes "Microsoft announced several Mac software updates at Macworld. Updates include MSN Messenger 5.0 and Improved Outlook imports (PST File import). The article also says Microsoft has also been working with Apple to ensure that Apple's Spotlight search technology works well with Office documents."
any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:3, Interesting)
introduction of iWork? or the lack of a spreadsheet app in it?
introduction of $500 headless Mac?
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doesn't look like it will replace Office for most people. You either need the power of Word for wordprocessing (in which case you get Word/Office), or you don't need much more than Wordpad (in which case, you probably won't buy Office, it's expensive for that).
I may be wrong, but that's my impressions. Besides, Office is aimed (to a large degree) at businesses. And businesses would also want Excel and Powerpoint and other such things that are in Office. I don't think it should worry MS too much.
The $500 Mac I would worry about more. It is an easy way to get your feet wet in the wonderful world of Macs. Sure, MS can sell Office to Mac users, but if so many people start to see how nice the Mac is (overall, no viruses/spyware, etc) then MS should get worried. People will demand Windows gets that much better (good for people, bad for MS), or they will switch to Mac (good for Macs, bad for MS). THAT is the thing to be worried about (as I see it).
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2, Informative)
A minor point, perhaps, but iWork ships with Keynote as well as Pages, and Keynote is a PowerPoint replacement.
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2, Informative)
I suspect that the rest of the office suite will come over the next few years. Keynotes was weak at the beginning as well.
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2, Insightful)
$79 for iWorks compared to $400 for 2004 standard edition...I dunno about others, but I know I'd sure give iWorks a good look depending on my needs.
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2)
Microsoft knows that, which is why they sell Microsoft Works 8 for USD 49.95 [microsoft.com].
They also offer Works Suite 2005 [microsoft.com], with Word 2002 from Office XP instead of the Works word processor, and some additional programs, but without any other Office programs, for USD 99.95.
Perhaps they don't see the Mac market as one for w
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2)
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2)
Yes, I know. However, we are also discussing various office suites, and Works is one suite to which iWork is analogous - it's probably more analogous to AppleWorks, and Microsoft Works, than it is to Office, i.e. it's probably not intended for the people who need all the features of Office.
And the fact that it's only for Windows is actually significant here - it means that, unlike an Apple suite of equivalent power to Office, which would be a co
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:1)
Ciao
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2)
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:1)
If you've ever used Keynote, you'll know that it's basically a very simple but slick graphics program with some stuff added to make it good for interactive presentations. The "play slide show" mode with presenter graphics on the second monitor, for instance.
Pages is basically the same core application, only with some stuff added to make it good for producing mul
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:2)
"Poof" is already assigned to the Dock as the sound of an app being removed from the Dock, so it's unavailable for other purposes.
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:5, Funny)
I really doubt that. Bill has already proven that if you throw him a bone, he'll beat you over the head with it, break it in two and stab you with the pointy end while choking you with the smaller piece, metaphorically speaking.
In other words, one should be careful what bones you toss to someone with Bill's business acumen (and utter ruthlessness). Steve probably knows this better than anyone else on the planet.
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:3, Insightful)
We'll probably see one eventually (maybe next year at this time), if for no other reason than that they want to replace most of the functionality of AppleWorks.
Spreadsheet/Database and iWork (Score:2)
My personal wish would be for the next generation of FileMaker to be the enterprise's iTunes: a package that looks great on Windows, integrates better with PHP and mySQL than Access, etc. and then suggest that it work
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, probably something like, "Wow! How did you recover so quickly? Bill would like to integrate that into his keynotes."
Six years later...
Bill: Well, Conan, here's our upcoming Longhorn...
Conan: Looks like you're having a little trouble there.
Bill: But wait! Thanks to our new innovation in keynote demo technology, I'm able to swap a few cables here, and insert my DRM keychain into this slot, and after it authenticates with the Pa
Re:any reactions from the M$ booth to the... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but the Palladium server at Bill's office runs version 2.5.8.6.31 and the one at the demo runs 2.5.8.6.32. It detects the dicrepancy and automatically gives him a jalapeno enema for attempting to thwart the federally mandated protection schemes. The authorities are contacted and he is given 5 years in prison for his heinous crime on society.
Needs no additonal comment. (Score:4, Interesting)
Spotlight will index and search Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, but unfortunately it will not work with Microsoft's email and information manager, Entourage."
Re:Needs no additonal comment. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which makes total sense when you think about it. All Microsoft email apps use a large Database file to store email (think mbox but proprietary). All Microsoft email applications on the Mac have used that type of format (going back to Outlook Express 4 at least).
Do you really think Microsoft would totally re-engineer their current database st
RTFA :) (Score:4, Insightful)
It will.
The next paragraph of the article:
"It won't index Entourage and that's simply due to the way that Spotlight was made versus Entourage," said Erickson. "Entourage saves everything in a database format and we are working with Apple to see how Spotlight can index the database."
This is technically simple -- Microsoft needs to write an Entourage importer for Spotlight. I'm sure it will get done, although who knows if it will be in time for the release of Tiger?
Re:Needs no additonal comment. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Needs no additonal comment. (Score:1)
I've seen them get as large as 2 GB (at which point Entourage corrupts the database, but you didn't really need that mail did you?) so it is hard to imagine you could write an efficient function that would find what you are looking for quickly.
Does Entourage have a good search function already? I can't remember.
Re:Needs no additonal comment. (Score:1)
No. Tiger's mailboxes are compatible with Panther's mailboxes.
Who cares? (Score:1)
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Still no A/V support in Messenger? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheers,
Ian
Dead end (Score:1)
That said, Micro$oft could of course contribute to making the Mac experience better, just like any contributor of software. People tell me that M$N Me$$enger is actually rather good. This update therefore deserves as much attention as any of the other updates regularly found on Macupdate or Version Tracker - that is, it does not dese
Untrue. (Score:2)
Followed by acute disbelief when I tell them I have Office installed.
Re:Untrue. (Score:2)
Well, I'd tell them that (Score:2)
Anyways, the "student" version of Office 2004 is relatively cheap.
Re:Dead end (Score:2)
Or, more likely, most people don't know this article is here, since by default it's buried in the Apple section and not present on the front page - unless you specifically search the Apple-related articles, or you changed the defaults to push all Apple-related articles on to the front page (most people don't), you won't see this, and hence you won't know it even exists.
Of course, once you realize that, the opportunity to rant via creative misspellings
Re:Dead end (Score:2)
Whenever I see "Micro$oft" I always think of this [penny-arcade.com]
What about windows media player (Score:2)
Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:4, Interesting)
Applications that bring MS absolutely no financial incentive are only maintained for the sake of propagating their proprietary formats. It was likely that a person would rethink publishing content in WMV if he knew Mac users have absolutely no way of playing it back; now, individuals will be a bit less reluctant to take the full plunge into WMV, oftentimes unaware that the Mac user's experience (especially with streaming, imbedded media) is horrific.
MSN Messenger has not really seen a major change in ages, and is far behind its Windows counterpart. I realize things like audio/video conferencing are difficult to implement, but something as simple as pictures could have been done in a minor revision.
I haven't used the latest version of VPC, so I won't comment on its overall quality. However I suspect that if it were still in the hands of Connectix a G5 capable version would have arrived much sooner, and it likely would not have been delayed numerous times simply because of SP2. Let's hope Darwine will save the day.
After replacing Powerpoint with Keynote I fully welcome Pages. As clicheish as it may sound, Microsoft's applications emit an aura of conformity and stagnation, while Apple's seem to feel a bit more flexible and fun, something that's important when writing anything other than a business letter.
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, there are a lot of things I do not like about Office, especially Entourage. It's printing capability as a PIM is very limited for my tastes. It also lacks the ability to sync w/ Mail and ICal. Yes I know about the shareware scripts but that adds $
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:3, Interesting)
But Windows Media Player is definitely more pleasant to use on Mac than on its native platform. It just launches and does its job. No loading unwanted ads, no washing top of the window with a mouse to get the menu to pop up, no confusing tabs.
I suspect Microsoft has a secret fascination with Mac. They made their own OS mess
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could agree with you on that one. If the sole job of WMP was to open and play Windows Media files you download, then yes, it would be fine. Unfortunately I would mainly use it for streaming video. And in that regard it is simply horrible. I really wish they'd make that aspect of it usable before the baseball season starts. No matter how fast the connection, I always
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:1)
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:2, Flamebait)
I'm sick of Microsoft's lack of dedication to UNIX. Dropping Xenix, killing the IE port... bastards are worse than Adobe's support for IRIX.
The only reason there's still a market for Office on the mac is the hundreds of millions of FUCKING LEMMINGS who are all OH NOEZ I NEED TEH WERD and can't even squeeze their sphincter without making a power point presentation out of it.
You want microsoft products, get a goddamned PC. It's cheaper.
Re:Sick of Microsoft's Lack of Dedication to Mac (Score:2)
I find it (after a bit of a lengthy launch) to be a far larger threat to Office than iWork is likely to ever be.
If iWork had a spreadsheet component, and all components have excellent Applescript support (as I'm sure they do), then I might consider buying it. But I would continue to use NeoOffice as my interface to the Microsoft world.
Internet Explorer 5 for Mac ... new & exciting (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, IE 5, I've been waiting to see what the Internet would look like fresh technology like that. Will it match my brand new blueberry iBook?
Re:Internet Explorer 5 for Mac ... new & excit (Score:2)
Yes, that's one of the exciting new features - choose from 9 different colors, including blueberry and tangerine.
really really good for MS (Score:2)
MS will be forced to offer a cheaper introduction package, but since Apple's installer base will most likely grow slightly they could in the end see their profit grow.
iWork isn't a replacement for Office, not in a long shot. This said, it's probably enough for me, and a lot of other home users - the crowd that may run Office but sure hasn't paid for it...
Heck, even my over 70 years old father in law got his Office "free of charge" from a fellow
OpenOffice (Score:1)
Re:OpenOffice (Score:2)
Open Office for OS X was waiting for a rewrite to 2.0 2.0 is about to be released, and Open Office for OS X is another year away.
Exchange Support in Entourage (Score:3, Insightful)
All the Macs in my workplace have to keep Classic just to run Outlook. When you have a shop full of non-OS9 G4s and G5s, it's a disgrace. And while Mail.app can work with Exchange servers, it can't touch the Global Address Book and other important things.
Maybe someday...
Re:Exchange Support in Entourage (Score:2)
Re:Exchange Support in Entourage (Score:1)
Re:Exchange Support in Entourage (Score:2)
Still no Access... (Score:2)
How long have they had to port it now?
Ideal for switchers? (Score:1)