Mac Office 2008, Why I Will Be Buying
January 4th, 2008 | by Michael |First off, yes this is a blog dedicated to Apple’s Numbers spreadsheet.
That, in my opinion, does not preclude looking at other office programs on the Mac, and traditionally Mac Office has been the dominant player. While I think Numbers is a great tool, and will meet the needs of a great deal of the casual spreadsheet user market, most power users will want to at least consider upgrading to the latest version of Mac Office.
Mac Office 2008 will be released on January 15. It is the first version of Office that is specifically written to run on Intel chips (the last version, Office 2004, ran through the Rosetta emulator).
Mac Office 2008 will fully read and write Office 2007 (the latest Windows version of Office) formats. Numbers advertises that it can read and write to Office 2007 formats, but in practice, lets just say the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
New features include "Elements Gallery", which allows you to quickly add layout features (which judging by the screen shots looks a lot like Pages). Chart creation also seems to be greatly simplified and improved. While creating Charts is fairly easy in Numbers, the types and customizability was lacking for most power and scientific users.
Users moving from Office 2007 will also notice that the "Ribbon" user interface did not make the move over to the Mac with this release. I have been running Office 2007 at work and in Parallels on my Mac for some time now, and like the Ribbon for the most part, but I sometimes find myself digging for minutes looking for things.
It wouldn’t be Microsoft if they didn’t complicate things by putting out different versions, so here is a quick version comparison for Mac Office 2008:
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition - This version will include licenses for up to three machines for non-commercial use. It will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. It will not support Automator scripting.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Upgrade - If you have the standard version of Mac office 2004, you can purchase this to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (see below).
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac - This version will get you all of the features of the Home and Student Edition, plus Automator support and full Exchange support.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition - This version gets you all of the features of the standard edition plus Microsoft Expression Media, which is a digital asset management suite.
In conclusion, while I would prefer to not run Microsoft software on my Mac (it makes me feel a little dirty), I have to admit that I fall into the power user category and will be purchasing Mac Office 2008.
Speaking of which, I usually buy my Mac software through Amazon, since the nearest Apple Store is about 50 miles away. You can also get a discount off retail and get free shipping.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
$149.95 $130.99 Save $18.96 (13%) + free shipping
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Upgrade 
$239.95 $214.99 Save $24.96 (10%) + free shipping
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
$399.95 $354.99 Save $44.96 (11%) + free shipping
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition
$499.95 $449.99 Save $49.96 (10%) + free shipping
