Mac Office sales soar on Apple's gains

While Apple's market share gains are cause for consternation for many in Redmond, one unit is clearly benefiting.

Microsoft's Mac unit is set to disclose on Tuesday that copies of the new Office for Mac 2008 are flying off the shelves at three times the rate of its predecessor. The company wouldn't disclose sales numbers, but said the sales are the highest in the 19-year history of the unit. That continues a trend that has been going on for some time.

Senior marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre declined to give all of the credit to Apple, but said of the increased number of Macs, "Of course that's one of the components that is helping us."

The company also said it was ready with the first "service pack" update for Mac Office 2008, adding things like reliability and performance tweaks, as well as some changes aimed at boosting security. The update will be available Tuesday for download and will also be pushed out through Microsoft's AutoUpdate system, Lefebvre said.

Finally, the company announced that, for the next full release of Office for Mac, it is bringing back support for Visual Basic scripts. That feature was in Office 2004 but was pulled in the current version as Microsoft worked to add support for Intel processors and new file formats.

Lefebvre wouldn't say what any of the other features planned for the next Mac Office will be, but said the company is looking to get back on a cycle that would have it releasing new products every two to three years. (Office for Mac 2008 took four years.)

For those still using the last release of Office, Lefebvre said that, after several delays, Microsoft is on track to release by the end of June the converters that let that product work with the XML file formats that are part of Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac.

"We're on track for that," she said. "We're happy to be getting those off our plate and developing for the future."

[kool_skatkat]

It seems, everybody benefits...

[No invasion of privacy]

It's just a shame that this is the worst version of Office on the Mac since the last one... er, I mean version 6. The sloppiness of the coding in this version is simply unacceptable for what MS is charging for it. The lack of VBA support is utterly despicable. The fact that its performance is somewhere between abysmal to shocking (and often slower than the non-universal versions on Intel Macs) is a complete disgrace. But, hey, its MS so stupid old me for thinking that it would be anything other than total tosh.

[rajeshmail201]

Absolutely right! I am an apple fanboy. I love Steve. I hate Bill. I am so cool!

[jhoeforth]

I bet some fanboy will turn this story into MS bashing... oh wait, someone already did.

[Thomas, David]

Try out the two copies yourself.

[saffroncapital]

Well its good to see that VBA support is coming back, at least. Can't comment on Office 2008's speed or stability as I haven't bought it - will skip it and buy the next version, if it really does have VBA support included.

Redmond canned VBA support in Office 2008 because the code was so old a creaky that it just couldn't be ported to Intel.. guess MSFT has received a bit of a shock given the amount of vitriol and trashing it has received from dumping VBA... So now they have to go and fix the code, or do something to get VBA to work in the next version of Office for Mac...

One thing is clear from all that I have read about MSFT code in general. its creaky and still based on code written 20 years ago back in the days of DOS!! Apple managed to break with the past and keep backwards compatibility with Rosetta - and it 'just worked' to borrow a phrase from the mighty Steve... I just can't see why MSFT can't pull the same sort of trick. I mean, Apple managed to do it so it can't be that hard can it??

And no, this isn't a fanboy giving MSFT a bit of biffo... I just can't see why MSFT is so locked into making lame software decisions...

[expatincebu]

Why does anyone buy MS Office when OpenOffice is free and just as capable? A fool and his money.....

[richto]

Because Open Office is 'Just as capable' as a crippled Office 98 with half the enterprise functionality removed. You get what you pay for...

[Penguinisto]

Good question - NeoOffice (the Aqua-native OOo version) does everything one needs for 99% of all office suite uses. As for the MSFt fanboy saying it's "crippled"? Pfft - I guess we'll always be cursed with idiots...

[kirkules]

In my work I have used Microsoft Word, NeoOffice(Mac only), and OpenOffice. I would love to tell everyone to go out and get the fr*ee OpenOffice/NeoOffice. For most folks doing simple things back and forth or OpenOffice to OpenOffice is not an issue. However if you have a client who does something really complex in MicroSoft Word like a newsletter, OpenOffice will not render everything as it should be.

[smokified]

If OpenOffice was just as capable...people would not be buying MS Office for as much as they do. You should really take the time to learn about things as they apply to everyone as opposed to how they apply to you only. You can then avoid sounding retarded in public.

[rcrusoe]

". . .the next full release" is always Microsoft's fix for their software. Office for Mac 2008 was once "the next full release". Vista was the "next full release". I'm glad that Office/Mac is selling well, some companies think they need it. While waiting for O/M 2008 we started using NeoOffice on newly purchased machines. Now we're testing OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta. So far, it looks like we won't be buying Office for Mac 2008, or the the next full release.

[richto]

A fool and his money..... Get a Mac apparently.

[The_happy_switcher]

A witless and pointless Window's user posting are inevitable.

[setgo]

A fool and his money..... Get a Mac apparently... while the others hang around Mac related forums when the could be working or date a real live girl.

[DrtyDogg]

http://gizmodo.com/390269/apple-perceived-as-gay+friendly-samsung-not
Evidently they aren't interested in girls.

[kelmon]

Well, without doing a feature-by-feature comparison it is hard to say whether OpenOffice is just as capable as MS Office. However, I can say for definite that Excel 2007 supports more than 65,000 rows in a spreadsheet whereas Calc does not. For me that is pretty important but your own mileage may vary. I do not know how many other feature differences there may be but at least for myself your statement is not accurate.

[JadedGamer]

OpenOffice, prior to the 3.x beta, was an X11 application on Macs and thus did not look "right" on a Mac. NeoOffice was a native port that was done by a third party.

iWork, now... that is a beauty. That tries to do something else than those Nth sequels to VisiCalc and Wordstar that Microsoft and OO.o push.

Oh, and if you need more than 65,000 rows in your spreadsheet you are SO using the wrong tool. Look into something called a "database" instead of trying to use a spreadsheet as one.

[jumpjetta]

Office is bloat. I need so little of what it does. OpenOffice has always seemed like Frankenstein's Monster... all clunky and rough.

Basically, Apple's iWork is a nice balance of simplicity, features and fluid function for me.

[driven01]

I use OpenOffice for most things I do that require MS Office compatibility. I use iWork for the rest. For the few things that don't translate well into OO (for example: Marked up or commented documents) I simply load them in Office on my Boot Camp partition using VMware. (It's a work license, so it doesn't cost me anything to have it there.)

I keep hoping for the day to do a clean break from Windows. :-(

[hal Summers]

Can you say $49 Black Friday special?

[ittesi259]

I have Office 2004 for Mac only because it was bought as a gift by my parents and I didn't have the heart to return it. I do not like how it only wants to use half of my screen natively and to do otherwise I have to drag the screen and zoom and all other manner of crap to get it semi functional. I have no intention of EVER getting a new version of Office for my Mac and will be OpenOffice from here out when version 3 goes final and releases.

MS states they aren't selling more Mac sales don't account for higher Office sales....are you kidding me? Its the many people like me who switched to Macs in the last year that are buying it, long term Apple users most likely are not.

[benjiernmd]

ittesi259 is right. Those who just made the switch to Macs might still be using MS products, and the long-term Apple users most likely are not. They could be using iWork, OpenOffice, and/or NeoOffice that are "better alternatives" to MS Office. The last 2 are even free to download. Why waste money for MS Office?

[bgnm]

My experience is that 2008 is noticeably faster in many key areas, e.g. PPT slide changes, massive Excel calculations. Unfortunately, it's very buggy. It's always annoying to see the bugs from the previous version go unfixed, but this time, there seem to be whole new classes of bugs. At least they left the interface largely intact. My Windows compatriots almost universally complain about 2007, with the gratuitous interface changes receiving the most vocal comments.

Of course these new sales records are due only to the Mac's success and not the quality of the new Microsoft suite. Can you imagine how many more would be sold if Office for Mac 2008 was any good? It is still a poor step-child to Office 2007. In particular, Entourage is still lacking true Exchange & Blackberry integration and many of the basic features that make Outlook superior. In fact, I've had to switch back to using Outlook in Parallels. It's "great" that it's native Mac for Intel code, but criminal that Microsoft delivers such a poor version compared to what they make available for Windows users.

It's hard not to presume that delivering sub-standard products for the Mac is part of an intentional strategy to drive business users back to the Windows platform even though Vista's stability and overall performance is so disappointing.

[frank bruce]

The last version of MS - Mac Office I bought was version X. Since then I have found really no good argument to upgrade. Since I bought the Al iMac I bought it with iWork 08, and it fits the bill very well for most of what I do and need at home. The only application from MS - Office I will probably buy is Entourage because of its functionality. This gives me enough time to go out and have a life out of the virtual world.

[richto]

I guess you must be using the Open Office grammar checker

[cyclelogicpress.com]

iWork 08 is a thing of beauty. The templates are professional-looking and easy to use. NeoOffice is free and okay for basic use.