MS Office 2001

[Faragbre343]

Does anyone know if MS Office 2001 is going to be for OS X? I've been seeing a lot of it lately, and it rocks. Just wanted to know if it was.

 

[Josev Best]

Office 2000 is not optimized for OS X, although it will most likely work in Classic mode (not ideal). Microsoft is planning a Carbonized version for release in the Summer of 2001, and apparently has no plans for a Cocoa (OS X only) version.

 

[modin]

Has Microsoft committed to a carbonized Office 2001? Let me just say that would mean a lot.

 

[Justin]

It should be carbonized.... it's as simple as that.... the reason Apple created Carbon was so it would be easy.... I mean, it's just like some 10% of the code.... how difficult is that.... especially for a company the size of MS

 

[Frost]

I'll ask some people at work. They'll know (trust me).

 

[macboy73]

It makes absolutely zero sense why Microsoft wouldn't carbonize Office now. It's just the perfect time to do it. Seems strange.

 

[mattyb77]

I don't know how Microsoft is writing Office 2001, but they're probably carbonizing it now. The modifications may only be 10 percent of the code, but that could mean hundreds of thousands of lines.

 

[David R]

Yeah, I want to purchase Office 2001 real badly, but I'm not spending my money until it's Carbonized.

 

[Pascal]

The main reason most software is not carbonised yet, is that the Carbon librairies were not really complete until recently (assuming they are now).

AppleWorks was an exercise for Apple, a test for them to check for the usability of their new library, and a way to find bugs in that library. Now that they have succeeded in making an app fully Carbon compliant, that means that they should be able to correct the kinks in the CarbonLib so that the other programmers can start seriously carbonising too.

For instance, Eudora could not be carbonised until very recently (and I still do not know if it can be now), because some of the calls made by the application had no carbon equivalent. The Eudora "team" (I think it is a team of one) was very unhappy about this to say the least.

This being said, whatever the state of the CarbonLib, whoever is the first to get a Carbon based app out will certainly greatly widen its user base.

Basically, the message to programmers is this : stop complaining and start coding : you could win big !

 

[modin]

It's critical for OS X in some environments. At work I've got several hundred users who mostly run MS Office 98. No way are they going to want to run MS Office as a Classic app, it's just too confusing (at least now). So whatever environment Office runs in, that's what they'll use, be it OS X, OS9... or Windows 2000 (shudder).
But if it's Carbonized for OSX's release, we can just switch.

 

[esc]

At work I'm in a world where Macs are tolerated only if the user supplies his/her own support and they run MS Office. I won't think about moving to OS X on an office machine until Office is carbon and runs well under OS X.

For what it is worth the Mac folks at MS are saying that a carbon Office will be released when OS X is released - the current version is not carbon.

 

[Pascal]

At work I'm in a world where Macs are tolerated only if the user supplies his/her own support and they run MS Office.

Tolerated ??? Tolerated !!! Have you noticed that word ? Wow !!! Hitler would certainly love to meet the skinheaded computer managers at the place where you work !

I guess the next step will be : "We will gladly tolerate you if you bring your own computer, your own chair, your own desk and you work for free. Otherwise, you do what we tell you to."

 

[esc]

Actually the place I work isn't that Hitleresque. Most of the Fortune 5000 requires you to use Wintel. An MIS dept selects the machine, puts software on it and (in theory) keeps it and the various LANS, mail servers etc running.

We have a policy that allows you to chose other hardware and software as long as there is a common denominator - which happens to be MS Word and Powerpoint. I generally get 20 email attachments with either or both of those a day. My Mac running OS 9 is actually more stable than most of the Wintel machines and a few others have moved to Macs (in particular laptops for travel and home work) for the added stability.

Many of the people at work know and love varaious Unix flavors and are running Linux, freeBSD and Solaris. Unfortuantely Star Office and other tools for Office compatibility generally sucks. These folks would move over to Mac OS X if Office ran on it natively.

 

[Pascal]

Sorry if i "over-reacted" but it seemed so weird. With your last explanation, it does appear much more acceptable...

Thus, I retract my previous post.

 

[rosignol]

Pascal= Basically, the message to programmers is this : stop complaining and start coding : you could win big !

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Absolutely. I'm going to be holding off on moving my users over to MacOS X until Adobe revs Photoshop & Illustrator (and maybe until the .1 update is out), but once that happens it's going to be "Carbonize or hit the road" around here.

It is quite probable that we'll be leaving some apps behind- and looking for replacements. Who wants the sales?

 

[Piet Keizer]

MS says Office 2001 will be carbonized by next summer. Of course, that's pretty late. I think they don't want to raise to much expectations for it to be earlier and bug-free. And they should be especially careful about the availability of drivers when OS X is released. They can't control that part.

I really believe that Microsoft is considering it to be in their interest to deliver a reliable carbonized Office 2001 as soon as possible.