Macintouch – Microsoft Office 2008 Review

Macintouch has a great in-depth review of Microsoft Office 2008 by Robert Mohns. Previously, I used Microsoft Office v.X and 2004 on a regular basis. However, since iWork ’08, I’ve not used Office at all.

I hate to take this position, but with top notch virtualization options now on the Mac, and a quality, low cost native solution (iWork), I’m afraid there’s just little need for Office 2008. From what I’ve seen, the Mac Business Unit did an exceptional job with Office 2008. But that doesn’t change the fact that the landscape has changed since 2004.

iWork 08 provides a better presentation app in Keynote, an as capable word processor for the average user in Pages, and a promising spreadsheet app in Numbers. Additionally, I’ve had no issues opening legacy Office docs in iWork 08. Keynote does the best job at converting PowerPoint files. Word docs open just fine in Pages so long as there isn’t any heavy duty tabular formatting. And I haven’t had any issues opening Excel files in Numbers (at least the ones that didn’t use Pivot Tables).

In addition, now that virtualization options are of such high quality, I have to wonder why you would pony up money for the Mac version of Office, which is somewhat compatable with Office 2007 for the PC, instead of just getting Office 2007 and running it via Parallels Desktop or WMware Fusion

So, I fully expect this to be the last version of Office for the Mac. Not because Microsoft would kill it to spite Apple, but because Office on the Mac was always a strong seller, and it made financial sense for Microsoft to keep developing it. In today’s world, I’m not so sure Office 2008 will be a big seller when there are cheaper (iWork 08) and more compatible (Microsoft Office 2007 via virtualiation) options.

Category: Reviews