Microsoft stepping up to the plate with goods: Office for Mac

[Atlant]

If you have a student in your home, a THREE-PACK of the FULL
version of Microsoft Office v.X for Mac now seels for $149! With
the onslaught of diseases for the PC platform, maybe it's time
to consider a new platform?

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2048979

DR. MAC

Microsoft stepping up to
the plate with goods

By BOB LEVITUS
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

IT all began with an e-mail message from a reader: "Somewhere I've
seen that Macs are far superior to my clunky Dell for avoiding virus
attacks altogether. Did you write something to that effect?"

Of course, I replied affirmatively: "I've written it more than once
and it's absolutely true. The Macintosh is not vulnerable to any of
those pesky Windows-only viruses; our address books are safe (at least
so far)."

Shortly thereafter he responded: "What does the Mac have comparable to
Windows where I can do Word documents, spreadsheets, etc.? Apple
doesn't seem to publicize those applications much, mostly the games
and graphics stuff, which is not for me."

And I replied: "If you need Microsoft Office, there's a Mac version
(Microsoft Office X) that is roughly the same, feature for feature, as
the Windows version, but designed exclusively to run on a Mac using
Mac OS X.

"I use Word X every day and it's solid as a rock."

An hour later I received this: "Thanks so much. I wish I'd met you
30 years ago

<more>

[MadHound]

1. Score another for the Mac!

Microsoft has been making it's Office suite for Macs for years, that is one of the things that sold my wife on Macs way back when. Not only that, but if you have a Wintel box at work and a Mac at home, you can bring your Office documents home and work on them on your Mac(and visa versa).

Macs are well worth the extra money you pay for them. The rock solid stablility of an OS designed to fit just one machine is vastly superior to an OS designed to work with many. And the supposed lack of programs for Macs is a myth that is dying a slow death. Almost all major programs can be had in Mac versions, along with games. If there is a program that you have to have and it is only for Windows, go out and get yourself either an Orange PC card or Virtual PC. That way you can run Windows stuff on your Mac. Note that I don't think there are any such cross platform programs for Windows. That's really a shame, for there are some very good Mac only programs out there, including Sound Studio(great for transfering vinyl to CD) and the entire Ambrosia Games offerings.

Maybe I should stop blowing their horn, for if you get too many Mac users the hackers kids will start writing viri for Macs. Oh well.

[Rooktoven]

4. the hackers kids will start writing viri for Macs...

Nope,

Windows' vulnerability (and OE and Outlook) is it's handling of VB scripts. Mac OS X (and any unix-like platform-- Linux, FreeBSD, etc) also inherently don't let scripts run as root without specific user permission.

System message: A worm would like to load. If you agree please type in the super-user password.

Let the hacker kids try...

[ryharrin]

7. You're right about programs being available for macs. Wrong about games.

There may be many games available for macs these days, but its nothing compared to the volume of games available for PCs. Also, most games are released months after they have been released for PCs. Macs are also rather underpowered for the latest games available. The whole "MHz myth" thing was an excuse when the difference in speed was a few hundred megahertz, but now the difference is in gigahertz.

[MadHound]

14. Gee, you need to check out the new Macs

Or even the G4s. These are still the fastest machines around out of the box, bar none. Macs underpowered? I don't think so. Wasn't the first G4s banned from export due to the fact that they were classified as supercomputers? I have yet to see a Wintel box with that designation. Face it, when it comes to speed and power Apple sets the bench mark every time.

And you're correct, it generally takes a few months for a game to be ported over to a Mac. But most major games do this. And if you really want to have the game right away, like I said before get an Orange PC card, or Virtual PC. The Macs have more than enough power, speed and stability to run TWO OSs at the same time. I have yet to see a Wintel box that can do that.

Go check out any objective magazine, then you will find out how "underpowered" Macs are, especially when compared to a Wintel Box. Personal anecdote, I recently put away my first Mac because it was too underpowered to run on the net. It was ten years old. How many Wintel boxes last that long?

[Poiuyt]

19. Macs are not underpowered anymore

The new G5 Macintosh computers have started shipping this week. They should be at least as fast if not faster than the fastest PC's. I can't speak about gaming (I never play games).

[Devils Advocate NZ]

2. Of course the author fails to point out...

that the reason there are fewer viruses for the Mac is that there are FAR fewer Mac users. What virus programmer worth his salt is going to waste time writing viruses that can only infect 5% (a guess, I don't know the actual Mac vs PC ratios) of computers in use?

But does this Mac using author even recognise that fact? It seems not, because if he wants to be able to continue bragging about how few Mac viruses there are, he would be better off NOT encouraging more Windows users to switch.

[DrBB]

6. Nope.

OS X is Unix-based. Because Unix is open-source it has benefited from years of having thousands of hackers independently working on improving it. Nothing is immune of course, but it is inherently more resistent to viruses than Microsoft's OS. Mac finally learned the lesson Unix hackers have been proclaiming for years: software manufacturers who refuse to use the Unix operating system are doomed to reinvent it.

[Proletariat]

3. Will they ever make WIndows for Mac?

[wtmusic]

5. Hopefully not

Why would anyone want MacOS to crash all the time? ;-)

[ryharrin]

9. You mean like it always did until OSX came out?

And windows did until Windows 2000 came out?

[MadHound]

15. How many Macs have you worked on?

I've found(along with most major computer mags) that Macs are inherently stable. I have gone years without having one of my Macs crash. And this is working with OS 1.0 up. Sorry, but on the few Wintel boxes(no matter what OS) I've worked with the machine crashes every week or two minimum.

This comes from running a machine specific OS, rather than a generic OS on whatever machine.

[DrBB]

8. Yes: Virtual PC

You can run Windows under Virtual PC on the Mac. If you want to.

[slackmaster]

12. There's a lot it doesn't do very well

Forget about running any multimedia applications under VirtualPC.

I work for a software company that develops educational materials for the PC. We used to develop for Mac but Apple screwed us when they nearly went bankrupt, so we use Macs only as Web clients.

VirtualPC runs general office applictions slowly but OK. Forget about running video or audio. We also tested the Orange Micro PC emulator cards which are no longer made. They sucked less than VirtualPC but still were not acceptable and cost too much.

[DrBB]

16. Agreed

Virtual PC is a massive memory hog--I dunno why I mentioned it other than to point out it does exist. Apple made a lot of mistakes--number one being keeping such a tight rein on the OS early on and thereby essentially marginalizing themselves from the vast numbers of developers out there.

But OS X is a joy! Just this weekend I installed Apache webserver, MySQL and PHP on my G4 laptop. Since the main site I manage is on a BSDi Unix machine, this is an incredible advantage. I can use my laptop as a testing server, and also have access to all the non-Unix gui stuff for web design on the same machine.

[bpilgrim]

20. macs are the king of multimedia

are you kidding? :shrug:

i used to make a living at it till the web came along and now i use the mac for that as well and since they now have switched to the most reliable platform out there - all my servers run on it - i couldn't be more happy with my 13 year relationship with the mac.

:hi:

peace

[Bandit]

18. Windows was designed from Mac ~ Why would Mac need a windows

program? Makes no sense at all. Windows is a poor knock off of Mac.

[DrBB]

10. This is a really weird article

I've been around long enough that this article's topic seems really bizarre to me. I grew up using pre-Windows PCs, and the standard word processor was Word Perfect. Microsoft Word was something you got with those snazzy, graphics-optimized Mac machines. All that desktop publishing stuff--it was all Mac. So when Windows finally appeared and we got a window-based OS for our PCs, there was suddenly Word For Windows, a great boon. Had it on my old Leading Edge PC.

So the idea of, "Gee--guess what?--there's a Word for the Mac!" is actually kind of ironic.

[Kellanved]

11. The PC version will be sold in 3-packs as well

It's the new MS licence program: The educational version can be installed on 3 PCs and everybody can use the software he/she has at the office for free at home.

[dpbrown]

13. There will never be more viruses for the Mac

Because so many of them are written to exploit Windows macros and holes in the system.

So long as those weaknesses don't exist in UNIX-y operating systems like Mac OS X, there will never be as many viruses made for them, no matter what sort of interest hackers take in writing them.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. Screw Office,,,

It's been on Macs for years.

I want WordPerfect for the Mac. It's almost as good as a DTP program and does everything I could possibly need. More than Word, and with less hassle. Saves very well to Word formats (except for the stuff it does that Word can't do) and does a damn good job with PDF. I got the Family Pack 4 (WP, Quattro, and some other stuff) for 50 bucks and a rebate. WP 11 is out now, and has even more stuff in it, including improved PDF filters and full support for XML.

If you haven't worked with "Reveal Codes," you just haven't worked.

Open Office has a Mac version The latest version, 1.1, is getting up there with WordPerfect, at least the PC version I have is. And it's free: www.openoffice.org

With Windoze emulators out there, I can't see too many reasons to buy a new Windoze box unless you're a gamer or need to save money.