[kerryd]

I read the article with great interest but I do not see this as that dire at all. I've used Office for the PC and since 97 and Office for the Mac since 03. I don't use macros and have no need for them. I use Quickeys to automate everything. I do want to see though, as soon as possible, Office that is Universal Binary. And if it has good support for Automator and AppleScript I'm much happier. This is what I'm using in my Apple environment. I don't think Apple is that concerned about the corporation - check out their ads. They lost this market in the 90s. There market is people like me - individual business people who are also home users and can interact very nicely with the PC when we must - thank you very much.
I have Parallels on my Machine with XP Pro and Office 2002 to work with the information I created in Access, Outlook etc back in the day. I don't create anything new in the environment as I prefer to work in OSX but I have to reference past stuff. However if I did need to work in my Windows environment Parallels makes that simple. I've got the best of both worlds. And the Mac will only get more powerful and be able to run two or three OS's easily. This is the future - virtualization is the way things are going and multicore processors makes this a much greater reality.
I thought the authors article was well written but I really think he is predicting something I doubt will happen - the death of Office on the Mac. I think users will be happy with the new version of Office. It just isn't arriving fast enough as a universal binary. (And I also disagree that Office running under Rosetta runs just fine. It is sluggish and chews up memory).

[griffman]

"I use Quickeys to automate everything."
Just for the sake of clarity, there's a big difference between what one can do with an automation tool such as Quickeys (I also use a couple of similar tools to smooth my workflow) and macro support in Office. Quickeys cannot, as but one example, do something like "Take the value in cell C12, then read the name of another workbook/worksheet from cell D14, and then paste that copied value into a proper cell in that named worksheet -- and account for the fact that the worksheet name is a variable that will be changing."
I love tools like Quickeys. But they're not a replacement for macros in Office. Yes, AppleScript and/or Autmator, if fully supported, will be (on the Mac, at least). But if they just give us a simple "use AppleScript to automate your tasks; see Apple's programming guide and open our Library in Script Editor for assistance," then we'll be taking a big step backwards.
-rob.

[griffman]

Of course you're allowed to have opinions. But the article isn't merely an opinion on some random blog; it's a call for action on a pretty high-profile site. You wrote, "Things have quieted down -- and I think thats a bad thing. This is a critical issue that demands attention." You're clearly trying to get people upset about this issue.
Yes, I am -- because it's my opinion that it's an important issue. Only by stirring discussion about the issue, though, will we be able to determine if it's just me or not.
So we should all be mad at Microsoft and complain loudly that they have not done the impossible. Why? What is the point of causing anguish over something that cannot be changed?
There is very little that cannot be changed, given enough motivation and resources. See New Coke or Microsoft Bob, or more relevantly, Microsoft's attempts to kill off "Classic VB" (some background). It's also difficult to believe that the world's largest software company, home to some of the best and brightest software engineers on the planet, cannot solve this if they would choose to do so.
Certainly. But the MacBU knows the numbers, and if they were large enough that it would have made it pointless to release Office 12 without VBA support, they wouldn't have decided to do it. But we have their decision, and I'm positive it wasn't made lightly, so we can guess that the numbers weren't significant enough in the big picture.
Or that it was simply the easier alternative to choose, knowing they had a target ship date. Ship date vs. feature inclusion is probably the decision that had more relevance.
Apparently they figure they can make enough off of things coming up in the new version that it will outweigh the loss of sales from those who need VBA support.
I agree that's what they think. I think they're wrong /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.
getting off of CodeWarrior and moving away from deprecated APIs. The MacBU needed to modernize the code before developing it further, and native Intel support was just one aspect of that. It had to be done, even if the Intel change hadn't happened.
I agree with that. The old code was apparently very old, and needed modernizing. Oddly, just like the VB code.
The second decision -- not to create a new VBA runtime at all, even for a future version -- is, I'm guessing, because Microsoft as a whole is trying to push .NET rather than VBA, and the MacBU may be figuring that the time would be better spent working on the future platform rather than the past one. But that's harder to tell; they haven't talked as much about that as they have about not including VBA in this version.
Indeed. From what they've publicly discussed, my opinion is that they've focused on AppleScript and Automator for Mac-specific support, in lieu of any form of cross-platform compatibility. That was the essence of my argument -- that their decision to abandon cross-platform support was, in my opinion, wrong, and will lead to the end of Mac Office.
Still, what single compelling reason was there for anyone to upgrade to Office 2004?
From our review, Entourage/Office gained the powerful Project Center, Office in general stopped crashing nearly as often as v.X did, a new Notebook layout view appeared in Word, Excel gained a print preview view, the compatibility center for checking how well your file will work cross-platform (wonder if they'll bother to retain that in 2007?), an expanded formatting palette, audio notes in Word, support for Ink handwriting recognition, Excel's built-in formula auditing tools, new charts in Excel, Smart Buttons to help auto-fill tasks, Presenter tools in PowerPoint...etc. In short, there was a long list of new features, as v.X really represented nothing more than a Carbonized version of the prior release.
But I believe the MacBU folks genuinely want to make a good product, and that they wouldn't drop something as big as VBA support without agonizing over it. I hate to see them given even more grief over an issue they've already suffered over. I'm defending the people more than the organization here.
I agree that they want to make a good product, but where we differ is that I believe the decision they've made will lead to a much worse product for many users. The point of my opinion piece is to express that opinion, see how others feel about it, and hope that Microsoft at least cares enough to give us some options so that we (a) don't have to re-code all of our existing work, and (b) can somehow use Office in a cross-platform environment. I really would like to purchase the next version of Office. But as it stands today, it wouldn't be productive for me to do so, unless I were to start using two different versions -- one for when I need macros, and one for when I don't. Urgh... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
-rob.

[mcsandberg]

I've worked in a large corporate environment and the use of visual basic in ANY application has caused such severe problems that it is now prohibited. These problems include but aren't limited to:
1. VB cannot be maintained - the users who write it are NOT professional programmers and don't use proper techniques, version control system or document the code.
2. It doesn't scale - if the app does become popular we have to re-write to run on the big servers so that it can support the many people who want to use it. E.G pooling connections to the database so that 2,000 users aren't individually logged in (which tends to upset the DBAs)
3. Virus problems - security was never a consideration with VB.
So, this decision will actually HELP in that company's case.

[webgodjj]

So, if you haven't ever used open office. It is a really fine product. NeoOffice is even better, really becoming a "mac-like" product.
Now that apple has embraced open source solutions, why doesn't it do so with NeoOffice. You know, like give them some developers, or money?
I agree with most that Apple could make a new killer product, but why? Just make an existing one better.

[webraider]

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Indeed. From what they've publicly discussed, my opinion is that they've focused on AppleScript and Automator for Mac-specific support, in lieu of any form of cross-platform compatibility. That was the essence of my argument -- that their decision to abandon cross-platform support was, in my opinion, wrong, and will lead to the end of Mac Office.

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I understand that this is your opinion.. but I don't think it's that bad. After all VB on Widows is dying a SLOW death and although it will be in the "Next" release of Office... it probably won't survive past it. That being the case it would eventually happen anyway the two sets of software will be back on equal footing. This is a "temp" fix and IMHO a BETTER one because Automator is better than VB
Also.. this is not the first time that Office for Mac DID NOT Have Visual Basic support. There have been many years with no VB support. Granted these were in the dark ages of the early macintosh computers but we survived then.
For those of you who ar talking about an alternative solution... those will not offer VB support either so they won't fulfill this particular need. Those options include OpenOffice, NeoOffice, etc...
Apple needs to work on it's idea of Office Compatibility. As far as WordProcessing is considered... PDF makes for a better format than Word does as long as you can edit it.. but it doesn't have the nice features like mark-ups etc... If Word for Windows, and Pages on the Mac could open PDF's in addition to saving images in PDF... then that would be a huge step in interpolarity. Windows ain't gonna support PDF openly however in favor of their new baby.

[keath66]

And of course, Microsoft's decision making process is suspect.
Internet Explorer for Mac was discontinued (and IE for Windows put on hiatus) because the goal of neutering Netscape was accomplished. Improving internet standards and making good software wasn't really a goal.
Why was Windows Media discontinued on Mac? I can't even figure that one. They developed Windows Media 9 (or whatever number it was) with DRM as a way to encourage business to develop video sales or rental business around Windows Media. It would have meant money to Microsoft. But then they marginalized their own platform by not making it cross-platform. Sorry, but the 90% Windows market share isn't quite so large when only considering machines used at home where most videos would be purchased. Microsoft management decided cross-platform media support was unimportant? No impact on business? Doesn't affect sales? Hello? Compare iPod, iTMS vs all WMV and PlaysfurSure devices. Cross-platorm Quicktime and Fairplay made that big market possible.
The reasons given by the Mac Business Group for ditching VBA, make sense only from the standpoint of a manager of a team of eight developers having to turn out an enormous product. He's saying it will take too much of the team's limited resources; he's not saying it is impossible or not worthwhile. We have a wealth of languages (perl, python, ruby, C, etc) that continued to operated across processors. It's not too much to expect mighty Microsoft, holding all the source code and all the Office APIs to be able to do as much.
The problem is above him. Microsoft management will not add more developers to the Mac team. That shows how little they care, and that they intentionally cripple their own developers' ability to turn out relevant Mac software.
Microsoft could double the number of Mac developers and show no impact to their bottom line, and I believe the Mac division would remain profitable on it's own terms. With their management's continued small-mindedness however, Mac products are suffering, and future sales will suffer. The company is marginalizing the usefullness of Office on Mac, and I for one am not interested in upgrading any longer. I'll live with what I've got under Rosetta for a few years, and look for a replacement word processor and spreadsheet.
It's not Microsoft hate, it's just that if they aren't able to support the machine I use, I will not be supporting them either.

[yangzone]

So the big task for Parallels and MS is to come up with some kind of Vista OS plugin so that, hopefully, the whole of Vista does not need to load in order for Office for Windows to run on OS X. Probably impossible? But at least it might be possible to hide the "other aspects" of Vista when running Office for Windows in OS X.
"Doughnuts: Is there anything they can't do?" -- Homer J. Simpson

[mdawson]

If you honestly believe for so much as a second that a utility such as Quickeys can substitute for the functionality of VBA Excel then you most definitely do not use VBA, kerryd. There is a dramatic difference between Quickeys functionality and the ability to automate and customize Excel workbooks as Rob has already indicated. Power users in Excel, such as myself write VBA code all the time to process large data sets (see my previous post) and without VBA that productivity is lost because I need that level of functionality at home as well as at work.
As to the opinion that VBA is unimportant or that dropping it from the Mac because it will eventually be phased out on the Windows side is inconsequential is nave reasoning. As Rob has indicated, he has over 100 Excel workbooks with VBA code. I do not have nearly that many, but as an engineer I have several workbooks that contain very complex computational VBA programs some to the point of software development atop Excel that are being used for productivity purposes by others.
The finance sector is not the only group using VBA, as engineers and scientists have been gravitating toward Excel since the late 1990s because of its number crunching abilities. The added power of VBA Excel has made Excel an even more powerful tool especially given that professional in such technical fields often can write code with aplomb. I do not think twice about writing a quick subroutine or function in VBA to handle a computation that is repetitive. It will often take far less time and I will have less computational error if a write my own functions and subroutines to automate tasks then if I rely on copying and pasting with cell formulaswhich admittedly is the extent of programming than most Excel users will perform.
VBA scripters may constitute a minority, but they are a powerful minority with thousands of man-hours invested in coded spreadsheets that are more often than not reusable for new data sets. These spreadsheets are also used for projects that may be worth millions of dollars. As Rob has already mentioned, not all companies are 10,000+ employee institutions with a dedicated IT staff that programming projects can be handed off to. To add to that, not all companies consist solely of business school types and in engineering and scientific firms the individual technical employee or project team can more effectively write quick code to make their workflow more efficient than the computer scientist in IT that has no understanding of what these scientists and engineers do.
That type of client-programmer cooperation only works at the long-term software development level, not the I need to make this analysis go faster because I have a deadline situation that engineers and scientists face everyday. There is a reason that college students in technical fields, engineering especially, are typically required to take at least on programming course.
As Rob has stated several times over, losing VBA on the Mac is a downgrade and even if Microsoft is moving to .NET on Windows they have made no indication that they are doing so with Office:mac. And this argument that VBA is not used elsewhere on the Mac and is therefore irrelevant for Office:mac is bull/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif! The Mac version of Office needs to be compatible with the Windows version and that includes scripting capabilities. The fact that VBA on the Mac as been flawed, or more properly limits, for several versions of Office:mac is not justification for removing cross-platform scripting altogether. Automator/Applescript is not cross-platform and it does nothing for my existing VBA workbooks.
Microsoft has added the ability to use REALbasic in Office:mac and given the MBUs reasons for dropping VBA support, Microsoft, if they really gave a rats backside about Mac development, would do the same for Office for Windows. The reason I state this is because REAL Software has added the capability to REALbasic to translate VB code and in a personal correspondence from REAL I was informed that REALbasic in Office:mac can do anything VBA can do. The cross-platform of integration of a REALbasic editor in Office could be a short-term, if not overall long-term solution for legacy VBA users on the Mac and Windows given the capability to translate VBA code. Adding REALbasic functionality cross-platform also frees Microsoft to develop whatever new scripting technology they wish to implement in Office.
The fact of the matter is that Microsofts support of the Mac is more an anti-trust failsafe than a genuine desire to support the Mac. If Microsoft did care about the Macand that is not to say that the MacBU staff are not passionate Mac usersthen we would see Mac versions of Microsoft products and adequate staffing to develop Access:macso that the MacBU team would not have to completely suspend Office:mac development in the interim as per their excusea long time ago. Instead we only have Office:mac and the few other applications have been killed off.
Lastly, to the poster that indicated networked solutions as the solution, you can live in a 1984 world if you want to, but I have no desire to do so. I prefer my personal data be held on my personal computer and I prefer my access to software to not be controlled by the caprice of a service provider or the intermittent quirkiness of an Internet connection. With the exception of some of the draconian licensing schemes of many corporate level applications, which most home users do not deal with, purchased software tends to work as long as one has hardware with which that software is compatible. The idea that my use of software can conceivable be turned into another monthly bill does not sit well with me. And, if networked software becomes the norm you can best believe that software companies will nickel and dime customers to death.
Larry Ellisons ideal of the network computer did not catch on for good reason and from a consumer standpoint given Corporate Americas penchant for finding ways to rape consumers and our current governments utter disrespect for the citizenry, the fact that Ellisons idea never came to fruition is a very good thing.

[mdawson]

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Also.. this is not the first time that Office for Mac DID NOT Have Visual Basic support. There have been many years with no VB support. Granted these were in the dark ages of the early macintosh computers but we survived then.

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Bringing up the fact that VB was not supported on the Mac well over a decade ago when 1) it sparsely existed and as such 2) hardly anyone used it is non-sequitur. By that reasoning people could simply do without Web browsers because few people dealt with the Internet prior to about 8 years ago. VBA support has been in Office:mac for at least 10 years and a segment of Mac users have come to rely on that feature.

[mdawson]

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I've worked in a large corporate environment and the use of visual basic in ANY application has caused such severe problems that it is now prohibited.

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That may be the draconian solution chosen by some corporationsmost likely those corporations that have adopted computing policies that pretty much lock users out of doing anything beyond using a set of predetermined softwareit is an irrational across-the-board solution. Microsoft has implemented a somewhat effective means to deal with macro viruses and it is up to the end user to be smart about their use of macros.
Companies can very easily implement a policy that Office documents with macros can only be opened if they are from trusted sources. Also, as Office for Windows has macro security set to high by default and the average office worker is too technologically ignorant to know how to change the setting, they can determine who has the ability to change to a lower setting. Typically, only those with the technical expertise and therefore the ability to determine safe coded documents would ever delve into Tools > Macro > Security anyway.
As to scaling, programs written in scripting support languages are not meant to be scaled up as you described. These languages exist to make it possible for power users automate repetitive or complex tasks to improve their workflow. If multiple people want to use a scripted workbook then they need to have their own copy of the workbook. As such things are internal documents it is not as if there some distribution cost associated with doing so. Besides, the sharing capabilities of Office are limited, regardless.
There are too many scenarios, again typically in engineering and scientific firms, as well as in financial intuitions as others have mentioned to just outright ban the use of macros in many companies.

[mdawson]

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So the big task for Parallels and MS is to come up with some kind of Vista OS plugin so that, hopefully, the whole of Vista does not need to load in order for Office for Windows to run on OS X.

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Are you talking about the same Microsoft the rest of us are talking about? If other companies find ways to run Windows-only apps on a Mac, Microsoft is not going to lose too much sleep over it, but what you are suggesting, while technically feasible (e.g., Wine and Parallels Desktops new coherency mode), Microsoft has no interest in helping any third-party developers along in that area. If this were to happen you can best believe that Microsoft would strong arm Parallels to charge the additional cost of a Windows license to the price of Parallels Desktop and that they will collect their share.

[rhp]

OK...a couple of more and I am done...

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"...One kept the servers running, and the other ran around with his hair on fire doing desktop support...

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Michael Jackson did computer support for your company? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

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I just don't see Office for the Mac in that future /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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I don't think the Mac can survive without Office. But, I don't see Office in 5 years being what it is now...on Windows or on the Mac. I see more of a markup type open platform interpreter (a la XML) that could use programming code or whatever inside the doc that displays and acts a certain way, depending on what the client computer has instructions for. But, we will see!

[griffman]

"Michael Jackson did computer support for your company?"
Well, now that you mention it, it always seemed he was moonwalking from station to station /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
-rob.