Comments on: Microsoft delays Office converters for Mac

Company pushes out by several months tools enabling Mac users to read new Office file formats. Limited Word-only converter is available now.

[FellowConspirator]

FOSS converters already exist...

OpenOffice and NeoOffice already read/write those formats.
They can be used as a conversion tool, if needed.

It's peculiar that MS is allowing itself to fall behind in support of
it's own Office Suite and file formats. You'd think they'd show a
little love to Office users - it's 1 of the 2 products that they net
profits from, they should throw the customer a bone rather than
get them to download an open-source office suite that now has
better MS document format suport than MS' own products.

[jelloburn]

Ah,

cruel irony. Can't wait for a universal binary Office though.

[catch23]

They do not

Please give a link. Neither program supports them natively, and I can find no third party plug in.

The only thing not peculiar is a fan boy making up stuff at random in an ignorant attempt to make MS look bad.

[KTLA_knew]

LOL!

"it's 1 of the 2 products that they net
profits from"

[irondog1970]

Fortunately for most Office users?

?this won't be a problem. I am a tech writer & get lots of documents from lots of different sources. So far, I haven't seen one .docx file yet.

From what I gather, it will be quite some time before the new office takes over the old.

[RompStar_420]

yep - open source is better and free

At home, I use the free office versions, there are several of them available, word like programs, excel, db and all that works just as well and are free, why would I open up my pocket book and spend $600 for a full version ?

I understand maybe if a corporation wants to upgrade, but a lot of small businesses and other individuals, unless they do a lot of work related tings around it and make a living from that, I think would care less about at this point.

[dagwud]

I used to think that...

and then someone else in the office sent me a docx document that they had received and could not open.

And we're in education, not tech writing.

[BobHannan]

Monopoly ?

Who says there's no monopoly. The EU has it right - only they're
too lenient with Microsoft.

[FutureGuy]

HahaHAAhaha

Apple more the deserves it, after all the company makes its living making negative ads targeting MS.

[MacVet]

FutureGuy?

... No, more like PASTguy, as in, Microsoft's peak of domination in the industry is in the PAST.

[MacVet]

"... the company makes its living..."

And Microsoft tries to make its living from Vista by having Bill Gates LYING PUBLICLY that Vista is first with parental controls (2 years old in Mac OS X)and "security guys break the Mac every day..."-- this last quote not even worth the dignity of ANY retort...

[rcrusoe]

It wasn't a big deal in 97, and it's less of one now.

We went through this same game when Microsoft released Office 97 with new file formats.

No one rushed out to upgrade to O97 and those that did ended up having to Save As the old formats when their customers, etc. returned the files as unreadable.

A lot more people use MS Office now than in 97, and since there hasn't been a single featured added in the last 10 years that most users want or need, very few people are in a rush to buy the latest Office versions.

Besides, a growing number of goverments and businesses are requiring documents in Open Document Format, not Microsoft Open Office XML.

It will be years, if then, before anyone really needs to be able to read Microsoft's new formats.

[Lindy01]

Umm

I dont think you have used Office 2007. It is by far the best version yet. I know of many companies making the switch.

I also think any current Open office product compared to Office 2007 is a total joke.

[catbus99]

A shareware rescue?

The Mac has always been supported by a rather brilliant developer community. After this announcement, I wouldn't be surprised to see a more elegant third-party solution arriving within weeks. I work in a fairly large college computer lab and we've only seen a couple of docx files come through so far.

[No invasion of privacy]

There already is one...

as pointed out earlier in the thread, NeoOffice has been able to
open Word OpenXML files for over two months now.

[anarchyreigns]

That's okay, Microshit, we're all using NeoOffice/OpenOffice anyway!

<eom>

[RompStar_420]

yep, we are!

Neo Office is cool, I use that, open office is cool too, but takes longer to start, because X needs to start first, either way, it all works just as good and is less annoying.

[RompStar_420]

yep, we are!

Neo Office is cool, I use that, open office is cool too, but takes longer to start, because X needs to start first, either way, it all works just as good and is less annoying.

[Penguinisto]

Exactly

I have zero use for MS Office on the Mac, and haven't for about seven years now.

I think during that whole time there have been about five Word-built .doc files that I couldn't open; none of which had any real importance.

I can happily continue using NeoOffice on the Mac and OOo on Linux, thanks much.

/P

[jesmac418]

Microsoft and delay's go together

I am getting used too delay's coming from Microsoft. They eather
have too optimistic of a schedule or their programmer's find out
they screwed up in the last month's of a project. I actually think
their is another Vista floating around Microsoft that could not be
completed.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Delays are commonplace

OSX was delayed so that Apple could focus on a cell phone instead of their computer users. This isn't uncommon in the industry. You set priorities and work with what is there.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Delays are commonplace

OSX was delayed so that Apple could focus on a cell phone instead of their computer users. This isn't uncommon in the industry. You set priorities and work with what is there.

[RompStar_420]

who cares

There are so many better products out there for the Mac from the Open Community and they are all free. Who needs a half baked product anyways.

[RompStar_420]

who cares

There are so many better products out there for the Mac from the Open Community and they are all free. Who needs a half baked product anyways.