[my58vw]

I just bought a copy of Office X 2 months ago. Now I see that there is a new version coming now. Based on the keynote is the features that are coming worth the 149 upgrade ed price? I just dished out 129 for the orginal program. Things do not look much different and I think that I will be staying. Any sugestions?

[mavapa]

My suggestion is that unless the newer Office is much, much faster than the last newest Office, don't bother. I had a performance hit going from Office for OS 9 to Office for OSX. I am not going to upgrade anytime soon, unless it's lots faster and very cheap to upgrade.

[Nobody]

Maybe I'm mistook, but I thought I read that the upgrade would be free for registered v. X users...

[d00d]

Just for users buying between now and Office 2004's release. I wish it were a free upgrade.

[stockscalper]

From the looks of the overhead they're adding to the program I doubt if it will be any faster than the current edition. On the other hand, this is probably the last version Microsoft is going to do for the Mac so maybe you should buy it for nostalgia's sake. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Mac-Ale]

Ah, more "pile" masquarading as an informed opinion...
Mac and Office will continue together as long as word processing and and spreadsheets are an important tool in the working world... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[d00d]

Well said MA.

[stockscalper]

Why would Microsoft continue to invest precious R&D resources on a platform that has only 2 to 3% marketshare at best? Their contract with Apple is expired and they are no longer required to produce products for the Mac platform. Wake up and look around you MS has dropped support for just about all of its products for the Mac except for Office and you may be sure this upcoming update will be the last.
Yes, there will always be wordprocessing and spreadsheeting needs in offices (although those are barely used on the Mac platform) and Windows/Office compatibility will be a must, but Mac users are going to have to rely on makers of other software for this purpose; ie, Appleworks and Mariner Write/Calc.

[mavapa]

Word processing and spreadsheets barely used on Macs? I think you mean you barely use them. Lots of other people use them on Macs.
I wouldn't worry about MS support for Mac products just yet. The future holds a lot of changes, but they will almost certainly be different from what we expect them to be.

[Mac-Ale]

I use Word and Excel far more than any other aps, many other Mac users do as well...and since Apple seems to have stabilized their market share from the alarming days of the late 90s, MS would be dumb to skip the profits...believe it or not, Apple might be a niche player, but that hardly means they're extinct...just because Bud Light is the world's best selling beer doesn't mean that that small craft brewers aren't profitable -- many are...
A number of people demand Macs, and the working world demands that they use Office for most professional purposes...

[mavapa]

Right. I have to use Office because everyone else in my line of work uses Office. And mostly
Windows computers. It's odd that the federal government uses MS almost exclusively, unlike some other countries' government offices that are switching to open-source applications. They don't want to be reliant on an American monopoly. Not to mention their fear of the possibility that the US government might convince MS to build in backdoors. (Please, I'm not saying they do, but not everyone trusts the government as much as I do. Are you listening, Mr. Ashcroft?)

[Mac-Ale]

Agreed...I'm not even a Word fan, its way more bloated and non-intuitive than it once was (Word 5.1 was the first word processor I liked better than WordPerfect)...its just the standard...

[d00d]

They invest money into Office for Mac because it's still highly profitable. It's really that simple. There's no profit in Internet Explorer for Mac and they accomplished their goal when they started making it: domination of the browser market as a whole.
Where's your proof of lack of development in other products? Just because they stopped development of Internet Explorer? New updates of MSN Messenger come regularly (for a good part because the IM wars still rage). Microsoft's mouse drivers have had regular updates. Microsoft just announced a new version of VirtualPC with Powermac G5 compatability. If I remember correctly, their assimilation of VirtualPC was in about the same time frame as the IE discontinuation. And before you say that VirtualPC 7 will have little changed, Powermac G5 is a major undertaking because of a lack of pseudo little endian mode on G5 processors. It's a major development undertaking. Mac Office development is alive and well, as is VirtualPC. Microsoft will continue to develop Mac Office for some time to come because of continued profits (especially as OS X adoption rates continue to rise) and because they don't even want to give Apple a serious chance to make a competing product through customer discontent. Mac Office also acts like a gateway drug for companies using Macs. People see how well it works and they make a knee-jerk embrace of other Microsoft products.
I think you've been reading too many rumor sites.

[DPG4450Guy]

MS makes boucoup bucks from the Mac Office suite - but beyond that, there are anti-trust issues involved in ever dropping it (as things stand now.) So it isn't going anywhere.