M$ Office preview

[Big Max]

I communicate with others who use MS Office by using Open Office for Mac. It's free and it works.

[kcmac]

Have any of you tried AddressX and GroupCal from Snerdware? They work seemlessly and silently with the Exchange Server. I have no need for Outlook with GroupCal. Can do it all with iCal. AddressX grabs all of the Global Contacts and puts them in AddressBook.

The Powerpoint presentation feature looked pretty good. But we are moving away from PP. Not to go with Keynote. We are just tired, as are clients are, of these types of presentations.

Word needs big file name capability.

The Notebook app is similar to Notebook and Notetaker. I have tried both of these apps and for the most part, they are just another place to store information, in another format. Eventually after the luster wears off, I quit using them and went back to more specific use apps.

Other than liking the newest version of almost everything, it will be pretty tough for me to justify the new Office after it comes out.

[Randman]

Pricing? March MacWorld says upgrading from the same edition of v. X to 2004 will be free, $90 to upgrade to the pro edition which will include VPC/XP. Anyone able to confirm/dispell this? From what I've read and heard, I'd think twice before paying a good amount of $$ for an upgrade, but if it's free? Then I'd say bring it on.

[Ripcord]

Have any of you tried AddressX and GroupCal from Snerdware? They work seemlessly and silently with the Exchange Server. I have no need for Outlook with GroupCal. Can do it all with iCal. AddressX grabs all of the Global Contacts and puts them in AddressBook.

Unless it does MAPI it doesn't do much good for me or, I'd expect, the vast majority of Exchange users. Windows Outlook still uses MAPI, and admins see absolutely no reason to turn on LDAP, SMTP, and IMAP, especially for security reasons. This means lots of extra work/risk to support Mac clients, which means Mac clients are out of the MS-Exchange enterprises, like mine...

[kcmac]

Maybe you should give them a look Ripcord. I don't work for Snerdware but you might just be surprised at what these apps do. I know our IT guy sure was.

[mindbend]

That presentation interface was awesome. I'm going to steal that look for something...


I like Office pretty well actually. I would use other options, but it would just make my life more difficult than it needs to be. Too many clients using Office. Sure, I can use Word files in TextEdit, which is cool, but it's not a full implementation. Can't depend on it completely. Same for the other apps. Using PPT files in Keynote isn't exactly a perfect science. As for Excel, there is no better spreadsheet IMO, so I would not even want to switch.

My biggest concern is this whole XML file structure which will eventually cripple cross platform compatibility. My understanding is that most of the Office apps for Windows will use XML, while the Mac versions will not. Right? Which means eventually my Windows clients will start sending me XML files that I can't open, so I'll have to ask them save down, which will be really annoying all around. Am I understanding that XML thing correctly?

[Captain Code]

I think they would make an update to the Mac version once they bring out the XML format on Windows.

The bad thing about it is, MS patented their XML format for Word documents so Open Office and other projects won't be able to open the files without licensing from MS

[fryke]

... which will probably lead to people using .doc instead of Word's new format. Just make that clear to your customers from the very beginning. ;-)