New Office Suites For Macs

Monday, April 2, 2007 14:45

Last week saw a couple of noteworthy developments in the Mac productivity-suite business:
* The most Mac-like offshoot of the free, open-source OpenOffice suite, NeoOffice, advanced to version 2.1, which adds support for the new file formats Microsoft introduced in Office 2007 for Windows. (Confusingly enough, the original OpenOffice project now has a Mac port underway too. Although an alpha release of it is expected in May, it still seems far behind NeoOffice: According to its development roadmap, “native printing” support won’t happen until the end of the year.)

* Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, the successor to its Mac-only Office 2004, is now in private beta testing. On Friday APC (short for Australian Personal Computer) published a report on this new version. It features some details on the graphics infrastructure and screen shots of its new, tab-centric interface, which–like the “ribbon” feature of Office 2007–tries to make it easier for users to discover Office’s numerous features.

A potential third competitor in the office-suite market, however, remains a mystery. For many months, the Apple rumor sites have been predicting an update to Apple’s iWork bundle of desktop-publishing and spreadsheet software, one that would add a spreadsheet application and officially replace the company’s antiquated AppleWorks. But January’s Macworld Expo convention came and went without any such update.

For a long time, the best productivity suite on the Mac was the only productivity suite on the Mac–Microsoft’s Office 2004 (still one of my favorite Microsoft releases). Only Windows users had real alternatives to Microsoft, such as OpenOffice and Corel’s WordPerfect Office. Now that’s changing. With NeoOffice and, eventually, OpenOffice, Mac users have a free option; with a reinvigorated iWork, they may get a better option.

Source: Washington PostÂ

http://geoff-caplan.com, email geoffcaplan@mac.comÂ