# Cost for Microsoft Office on MacBook?



## spotted dogs (Sep 18, 2003)

I spec'd a MacBook Pro and then had a $600 additional cost for 'Parallel' software to run Microsoft Office. What's the deal with that? Is there a way around it? Can I run Office 2004 on Mac with Intel processor?


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## CdnPhoto (Jan 8, 2006)

Yes, you can.

If you wait a few days, Microsoft will release Office 2008 for the Mac.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Woah, stop, hold it. Something VERY wrong here.

$600? For Parallels?
Do you mean that some idiot quoted you the cost of Parallels + XP (or Vista) + PC copy of MS Office? Is that what you mean?
     

Ooh that makes me sooo angry. One of my HUGE pet peeves is morons who are selling Mac products who don't appear to know that MS Office *started* on the Mac platform and has *always* been on the Mac platform.

Word and Excel were on the Mac _three years_ before the PC version came along!

Well, at least I can save you $500 off that quote. Just get the Student/Teacher Edition of MS Office 2008 when it comes out (very soon now) if there is a student or teacher in your immediate family (doesn't that cover, you know, everyone?). You can get the current version NOW if you prefer, and it will run fine, but the new version (to be intro'd at MacWorld in a few days) will have lots new goodness and speed (yes MORE SPEED FROM AN MS PRODUCT! I know, right??!) and whatnot so I would really suggest waiting. You can use the free 30-day trial of iWork 08 that comes on your machine in the meantime, but be forewarned: it's addicting. Once you've gone with swingin' iWork, Office looks like a spinster librarian by comparison -- technically smarter, but definitely less fun.


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## MACinist (Nov 17, 2003)

I think 2004 may even have an upgrade guarantee right now so you may be covered to get 2008 upgrade for free.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Almost free. If you buy MS Office 2004 now, you can get Office 2008 "Special Media Edition" for $10 (S&H).


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

It should be mentioned that if you genuinely don't qualify for the Student/Teacher edition (hard to see how that would happen, but hey), the regular edition is pretty much the same thing, just more money.

(and the "Professional Edition" which is a LOT more money doesn't seem to have anything to justify the extra cost either? Weird!)


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## MACinist (Nov 17, 2003)

It's no longer Student/Teacher, it's now Student/Home. And if you buy 2004 Student Teacher, you qualify for the high end one; Media Edition.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

MACinist said:


> It's no longer Student/Teacher, it's now Student/Home. And if you buy 2004 Student Teacher, you qualify for the high end one; Media Edition.


Thanks for the tip, I'll have to go see what the "Media Edition" offers that the "Student/Home" edition doesn't. I doubt I'll go for this either way, but for people who need regular MS Office it's a pretty sweet deal.

I wonder if "Media Edition" offers three licenses in the package the way "Student/Home" edition does ...


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## WorldIRC (Mar 7, 2004)

It's a shame they removed Exchange support from Entourage within the Home / Student version...that upsets me.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

WorldIRC said:


> It's a shame they removed Exchange support from Entourage within the Home / Student version...that upsets me.


It's always a shame when they downgrade a previous feature, but you must admit that Exchange support isn't really part of the whole "Student/Home" idea, and it was probably hurting sales of the higher-priced editions ...


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

At least they kept Entourage. I don't think MS Office Student/Home for Windows has Outlook at all.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Entourage is Outlook for the mac. MS has never offered Outlook for the Mac, AFAIK.


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## MacAndy (May 17, 2004)

OpenOffice... FREE

OpenOffice.org: Home

Who needs MS Office?


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## G-Mo (Sep 26, 2007)

chas_m said:


> Word and Excel were on the Mac _three years_ before the PC version came along!


Easy tiger... Word was released for the PC in 1983 and for the Mac in 1984! Excel was on the Mac in 1985 and the PC (as Excel instead of Multiplan) in 1987...


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## WorldIRC (Mar 7, 2004)

I will get Office 2008 Pro through UMichigan for $50 just as they offered previous versions.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

chas_m said:


> One of my HUGE pet peeves is morons who are selling Mac products who don't appear to know that MS Office *started* on the Mac platform and has *always* been on the Mac platform.
> 
> Word and Excel were on the Mac _three years_ before the PC version came along!


Hear, hear! :clap:

There's alot of PC people who would probably be surprised by that.


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## MACinist (Nov 17, 2003)

G-Mo said:


> Easy tiger... Word was released for the PC in 1983 and for the Mac in 1984! Excel was on the Mac in 1985 and the PC (as Excel instead of Multiplan) in 1987...


Office was introduced by Microsoft in 1989 on Mac OS, with a version for Windows in 1990.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

G-Mo said:


> Easy tiger... Word was released for the PC in 1983 and for the Mac in 1984! Excel was on the Mac in 1985 and the PC (as Excel instead of Multiplan) in 1987...


Assuming your dates are correct, I stand corrected, particularly about Word. But at least your own figures confirm that Excel was on the Mac a long time before it was on PC/Windows.


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## zmttoxics (Oct 16, 2007)

MacAndy said:


> OpenOffice... FREE
> 
> OpenOffice.org: Home
> 
> Who needs MS Office?


NeoOffice (based on open office) is even better with Aqua support instead of the nasty x11 overlay!


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

chas_m said:


> Ooh that makes me sooo angry. One of my HUGE pet peeves is morons who are selling Mac products who don't appear to know that MS Office *started* on the Mac platform and has *always* been on the Mac platform.
> 
> Word and Excel were on the Mac _three years_ before the PC version came along!


And it was on DOS before that. But where it was 20 years ago doesn't really matter anymore. _Now_ there are millions and millions more copies of Office for Windows in the wild than for Mac, and _now_ the development/rellease cycle for Office Mac is a year(ish) behind Office for Windows.

Sure, we still get some things first (wooo non-contiguous selecting) but Microsoft is _always_ going to pay more attention to it's home court first.

That the average sales guy at the bigger box stores/chains doesn't know the storied history of Office on the Mac does not make them a moron. As long as they know it is available _now_ is all that really matters.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

zmttoxics said:


> NeoOffice (based on open office) is even better with Aqua support instead of the nasty x11 overlay!


Has NeoOffice been improved in the last year or so?

I tried it out once, but it was miles behing MS Office in capability - and I'm not really a power user of Ofice applications, just the basic stuff.

Any assessment/comment how usable iWorks is for typical home and basic office use? Seems a lot more reasonable in price than MS Office - price for the Student edition is still almost $200.-


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## zmttoxics (Oct 16, 2007)

As far as I know, NeoOffice has a custom font rendering engine which makes its document compatability better then OpenOffice. I could be wrong though, but I remember reading about it.

In terms of comparing it to MS for MS compat, thats hard. But I would say it does way better then the OSX version of Open Office. It also loads a lot faster then MS Office 2k4 and Open Office, but the price makes it a winner in my books.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

krs said:


> Has NeoOffice been improved in the last year or so?
> 
> I tried it out once, but it was miles behing MS Office in capability - and I'm not really a power user of Ofice applications, just the basic stuff.


It's still like all the open source stuff -- it's free, yes, but it's SLOW and it's UGLY.

But it *does* work.

Personally, I think the best substitute for Office on the Mac is iWork. It's $79 and includes three apps. The best of these is Keynote, it absolutely blows Powerpoint out of the water. No contest, no question.

Pages and Numbers are REALLY different from Word and Excel, and if you're well-versed with the "MS" way of doing things, learning Pages/Numbers is a challenge, because it requires you to UNLEARN the "MS" way of doing things. However, the effort pays off handsomely -- you will (you WILL) produce documents of exceptional elegance and pleasing design that you COULD NOT have made in Word or Excel. I love Pages, and let's just say that Numbers was good enough to actually make me DO a spreadsheet -- I have avoided Excel like the plague all my life.

There's a 30-day trial of iWork available from Apple's web site. Check it out.


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