Office 2008 for Mac finally installed- Microsoft blew it

Yesterday I got my MacBook Pro back from having a new hard drive installed and last night I spent my time getting the system back up to speed.  Of course the hard drive had none of my stuff on it but Apple went ahead and installed Leopard on it since my old drive was running Leopard.  The first time I booted it and ran through the setup process it gave me an option to restore my system from a Time Machine backup so that is what I did.  In 38 minutes it had restored 51 GB of my data and applications and my system rebooted.  It came up just like it was before the old drive went dead and the process was painless.  Well done, Apple.

There was a system update while my MBP was in the shop so it installed when the system rebooted and when that was complete I decided to plug in my iPod Touch to get it synced back to the MBP.  I had synced it to the HP running Vista when the MBP was having problems and I wanted to get it syncing back to the Mac where I wanted it to.  I plugged it in and of course iTunes goes through the "do you want to sync with this computer" routine but the cool thing is it popped up a dialog box that said there was purchased music on the iPod that was not in the Mac's iTunes library.  It gave me an option to transfer it from the iPod to the Mac which was cool.  Apparently there must have been a song or two purchased on the HP that never made it to the Mac so the iPod actually became the conduit between the two.  Good to know.

Once I was comfortable that the system was stable and working just like it should I decided to install the Office 2008 upgrade that I have been sitting on for a week.  I have been anxious to get my hands on the new version and see how it works so it was now time to give it a whirl.  The upgrade process took 10 minutes after which it offered to blow away the old version so I said OK to that and let it do it.  I fired up Word first to see how it looked and definitely like the ribbon interface on the new version.  I then spent some time with Excel and PowerPoint too.  The ribbon interface is much better than the old one but will take some time to get used to, just like it did in Windows.

I saved my most used program of the suite for last, Entourage.  I had been hoping for some big improvements to Entourage to make it more Outlook-like.  Some people don't like Outlook but I do so the more Entourage works like it the better for me.  I am disappointed that not much has changed on the surface.  It is different for sure but the interface is very much the same as in the older version.  There are some new icons and the ribbon is a bit better but it's superficial.  The new My Day applet is OK and could be useful.

The main thing I was hoping Microsoft had fixed in the new version of Entourage is the ability to sync Tasks and Notes with Exchange Server.  No, no, no, no!  The new version doesn't either.  What is up with this?  Both Entourage and Exchange Server are both Microsoft products.  Why won't Entourage reflect my tasks and notes that are on the server?  How useless is a PIM that won't track tasks?  Very useless, once again.  You blew it, Microsoft.

Comments

[GoodThings2Life]

I've often wondered why Microsoft often cripples Mac versions of its products the way it does with things like Entourage and Messenger, among others.

Sure, the first reaction is always, "Well, duh, they want to dissuade people from using Mac OS instead of Windows." It seems like the obvious explanation, until you consider how ineffective it is.

Instead, they should be making the feature sets identical to prove that regardless of your OS, it's still Microsoft Office that lets you get real work done. It's still Microsoft Messenger that lets you communicate, etc.

The biggest gripe I have with Office 2008 is that they dropped VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) support, so the product made by the company I work for doesn't work with it. Not cool.

[A. Davis]

I've been holding off on upgrading just yet. How does it fair as far as performance goes? Now that its native Intel, is it significantly faster than 2004?

[Guy Adams]

51GB in 38 minutes!! Credit to Apple, that is impressive.

If only Windows had a backup system as easy.

[bobm]

Thanks for the review, for some reason the current Entourage won't work with my companies OWA and I was hoping that the new version would be better (maybe even the new SSH -> Exchange functionality) but leave it to Microsoft to mess this up.

I can understand and until someone makes them break the OS from the Office product line they will continue to protect their stuff first (at the expense of other OSs of course).

On a side note I had been using GroupCal to sync my Exchange calendar to my Apple calendar but that is broken in Leopard so it's Firefox and OWA for me now :-(

[Jake]

Windows does. It's called Backup and Restore Centre and it's very fast and very easy to use.

Getting back to Office, I don't recall Microsoft ever advertising that the new version would include Exchange support so I fail to see how they blew it. Surely you would have checked to see that Entourage did what you wanted before buying the product James.

As far as I'm concerned this and the lack of VBA support in favour of AppleScript just proves the lies in Apples ad campaigns - Macs don't run Office, they run a subset of Office.

P.S. Nice to see that you can congratulate Apple for making your restore work well when the only reason you had to restore in the first place was due to the fact that their hardware failed catastrophically.

[A. Davis]

So I just bought and installed it and it is a lot faster... very nice in that regard.

Here's one question and I'm not sure how to describe it, so I'm not sure how to find a resolution through Google...

I come from a Windows world. In the Windows version of Office, if you open Word, Excel, etc it opens them in a single window (ie: the document, all toolbars, etc are in one self-contained window that can be minimized, maximized, etc). The Mac version seems to open up different windows... one for the document, another for the toolbars, etc... sort of like the "coder view" of Dreamweaver or Photoshop. Is there a way to have Office on Mac open everything in one single window?

[Chuck]

@bobm

Since when did Apple start making hard drives?

Apple lies? If MSFT had stepped up to the plate and made Entourage JUST LIKE Outlook with the same functionality, we wouldn't be having this discussion. How is that Apple's fault.

MSFT fears Apple. Instead of taking a chance and making a great product, they cripple it so people won't buy as many Macs. Even when they charge $400 a pop for Office. Which is almost pure profit in regards to the lack of new features and being the last big time software suite to get ported to Intel.

We will be looking long and hard at moving to Mail/iCal on an Apple Xserve. Then we won't spend another dime on an Exchange server and having to pay Redmond whenever a new version of Office comes out. That is what MSFT doesn't get: there are alternatives to the Office/Exchange/Windows universe that are far cheaper and work better.

[Garner]

"That is what MSFT doesn't get: there are alternatives to the Office/Exchange/Windows universe that are far cheaper and work better."

dont make me laugh, having use literally everything available, there is nothing even close to the Office suite on a Windows platform in terms of robustness, feature set, professional world compatibility.

your comment is either made out of frustration or pure ignorance (not using Office to full potential, non-professional job, etc)

[GearsofWar]

"As far as I'm concerned this and the lack of VBA support in favour of AppleScript just proves the lies in Apples ad campaigns - Macs don't run Office, they run a subset of Office."

What about Microsoft's ad campaigns? They DID write the program, right? Try not to let your obvious anti-Apple biases show thru so easily in your comments. The only thing more pathetic than an Apple fanboy is an anti-Apple fanboy :p

And jk, it is amazing how close and yet so far away each version of MS Office gets for the Mac. For something like true compatibility and interoperability, it really is the little things that make all the difference between "use or don't use". MS is either unaware of this, uncaring about it, or, just zealous about protecting their main asset, which is a native Office running on Windows.

[Jake]

Sorry which Microsoft ads are you referring to? I've never seen a Microsoft ad for Office for Mac. Did MS advertise that Entourage would offer everything that Outlook offers or that VBA would be supported in Office 2008?

I have, however, seen get a Mac ads that promote Office compatibility as a reason to buy a Mac (at a time when Office 2004 was the only version available and it wasn't even compatible with Office 2007) and in my opinion lack of VBA support is a showstopper. Additionally, where's Access support, Visio support, Exchange support, etc. The list goes on and on.

This was an Apple ad campaign and they are to blame if they've mislead people into thinking that they can do everything on a Mac that they can do with Windows. It is these incompatibilities with day-to-day software that prevent more people from switching and it is important that people know that limitations and compatibility issues exist BEFORE they buy a Mac, not after. To suggest otherwise is, as I said before, a lie - regardless of how I feel about Apple or their products.

[James Kendrick]

Wow, this is one of those "my way or the highway" areas, isn't it? Those who are not familiar with Entourage should realize that it worked with Exchange Servers in the old version and still in this new version. But, and a big but, since it won't sync Tasks and Notes with the Server it limits the usefulness, especially for those like me who are dual platform. Everything besides this glaring lack of support is much better in the new version of Entourage so it's even worse that they didn't add this simple capability into it too.

[Rob]

just so you know, the special media center edition of office 08 has exchange support. Course it is 500 bucks so you had better really want it.

[James Kendrick]

One more time. Entourage 2008 has Exchange support. It syncs email and contacts. It does not sync tasks and notes.

[The Wife]

"your comment is either made out of frustration or pure ignorance (not using Office to full potential, non-professional job, etc"

I have no words. Shaking head in frustration.

[QA]

Microsoft's applications are not getting any better. It's not only Vista. You'd think they'd at least be able to get Office right. They've actually removed some features in Office 2008, like the ability to rename emails that have been sent to you in Entourage.

Luckily we have NeoOffice, which satisfies the needs of the average user. And for large businesses with specific needs, it may be cheaper to hire programmers to customize the NeoOffice code than to buy overpriced licenses from Micro$shaft. And the biggest irony is that (if I'm understanding correctly) NeoOffice offers VBA!

So it only makes sense to at least try the open source suite to see if it meets your needs before forking out the dough for Office - especially since it looks like Microsoft has once again mostly ignored the needs of the people using their products.