The one application that most Mac owners have been waiting for has been delayed. Originally Microsoft’s Office 2008 for Mac was rumored to be launching in August of 2007. Microsoft has just announced that Office 2008 has been delayed and should be available by January 2008.
It really is just a quality issue across the board,” Craig Eisler, general manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh business unit, said in an interview Wednesday.
The last version of Mac Office was in 2004, which not only is a long time in terms of software but also all of the new Macs include an Intel chip, and thus the Intel Mac owners have been eagerly waiting for a Universal Binary version of Office.
My Take
Since I am starting college in the fall I was fairly angry because I really need this application. I suppose I can live with Office 2004 for the first term, maybe I can even get into one of the open source versions like Neo-Office.
What I Suggest
If you are waiting for Mac Office 2008 and need an office suite in the meantime then I have two suggestions:
- Use Office 2004 or
- Get the free Neo-Office
NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.