The best PC for Microsoft Office? A Mac
If getting maximum efficiency from Microsoft tools is key to your business, an office full of Macs could be the way to go, according to FSB's tech columnist. What do you think?
From Michael Mullins, Boston MA I made the switch 6 weeks ago. The Mac Office 08 apps work fine, but they basically threw out the windows office GUI that 80% of us are proficient with. The result is major headaches and frustration with the lack of common hot keys – an unbelievable oversight/flaw. This could be easily solved if MSFT and Apple would develop a windows-style office interface a la windows classic view in XP/Vista… Doesn't sound that hard, does it????
From Jim, Columbia, SC I have a MacBook, 2.2 GHz Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM. Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4. I am running Office 2008 Student and Home Edition.
My experience is that the Mac versions of Office are easier to use, but may have less features or different features than their Windows counterparts. For example, OneNote does not exist on the Mac. However, there is a "Notebook layout" feature on Word that provides a limited version of the same functionality. However, "Notebook layout" notes are bona fide Word documents, while OneNote requires an export. Completely different methods of providing similar functionality.
Office:Mac 2008 is a big improvement over Office:Mac 2004. The biggest improvements are support for the new Office 2007 file formats and Intel native binaries. (Office 2004 had to run under PowerPC emulation.) Early versions of Office 2008 were extremely buggy, but most of the more glaring bugs have been fixed by now.
Mac has a huge advantage over Windows that few people realize and that is the huge amount of free open source software, often originally developed for Linux, that will run on the Mac. For example, Mac users disappointed with Entourage's lack of support for exchange can download Gnome Evolution free of charge and get connected. The downside is that these programs are probably not as easy to use as their Windows or Mac native counterparts and will usually require some work in the Terminal to get them installed.
In conclusion, my experience has been that the Mac OS is a better system than Windows, but due to certain limitations, including a lack of software support from many vendors, it may be inappropriate for many users to switch.
From Eric Bacher "You need Microsoft's crazy-expensive Exchange servers. I've seen figures of $50,000 for a business with, say, 25 remote employees. And that's without adding in all the attendant nickel-and-dime licenses and arcane yet costly issues that crop up with remote connectivity."
Since when is it $50,000 for this product with 25 employees? Did you mean 2500? I have just priced this out for 200 users and is $10,000 with the CAL's? You got bad info. You should correct that. Also what is the arcane issue with remote connectivity? Ever heard of VPN or ActiveSync that is currently on the iPhone? IMAP, POP3? You are far from being the right person to write about Tech, end users should keep their trap shut when they have idiot techs running the show. My Exchange server has been up for 3 years without a reboot! It doesn't take much. Wise up fool.
Thanks
Eric Bacher
From Matt Morris Not sure what you're talking about when you say that Excel for Mac doesn't support pivot tables. I've been using them on a Mac for about 5 years, in the various incarnations of Office for Mac that timeframe encompasses.
-MwM
From Patrick Foley Hi there … for companies wth 25 people, there is a very good chance that a hosted Exchange solution would be a better fit than buying it and running it on their own. Check out http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/catalog.aspx.
The first partner listed charges $300/month for 25 people, which seems pretty doable for a business of that size.
From JustStopIt Stop using CNN's website as a promotion for MAC computes. I hope APPLE is filling up your swiss account with cash for all this free promo.
From John Antanies I own a small software company that supplies an Excel addin to automate data mining from programs called data historians (basically flat file databases that store manufacturing data forever, indexed on time).
Excel 2007 is a complete dog! Our application runs faster on Excel 2003 w/500 megs of RAM than it does on 2007 with 4 gigs of RAM. The graph object model is completely changed – something MS didn't really talk about – which is going to cause many companies to have to rewrite spreadsheets used to produce reports. The Excel files themselves are no longer binary files, but a series of compressed XML files.
Our application allows users to create pictures of graphs instead of graph objects. In 2003 we can generate about 3200 pictures before the file gets to be too large (80 mb or so). In Excel 2007 800 pictures produces a file over 100 mb – and at that point it stops running.
Why do find Excel 2007 so immpressive?
From cass n. Do you have any tips or info on upgrading from MS Office for Mac 04 to 08–is it difficult, buggy, a no-brainer? thanks in advance.
From Pedro Cruz To whom may concern
In the Blum on tech column titled "The best PC for Microsoft Office? A Mac" Jonathan Blum  writes that Excel version 12 in the Mac does not support pivot tables.Â
I quote Mr Blum:
"Small businesses that do lots of calculations should stay away: Excel on the Mac is just awful. Visual Basic script is, amazingly, not entirely supported, nor are the powerful pivot tables found in Excel running on a PC. And considering how fabulous Excel 2007 is – I consider the 64-bit incarnation of that program the best thing to happen to spreadsheets since the spreadsheet – there is no reason for quants to mess with Macs."
The statement that Excel in the mac does not support Pivot tables is not correct as I have used and created pivot in the office 2008 excel version. I would be glad to provide a sample pivot table created on the mac to Mr Blum. Furthermore Visual Basic for office is mostly designed and used to automate tasks in office such as creating data entry screens that work more as a windows or mac applications automator is a very suitable replacement for this functionality.Â
I would like Mr Blum to perhaps take a look again at what he wrote about excel for the MAC and reconsider his statement about being awful and that he base his observation on using Excel by trying some of the many small business solutions available in the Microsoft website for Excel.Â
Best Regards,
Pedro Cruz
From Karthik Hi,
Why do you allow articles with no substance in them to be published?
The article doesn't say why it is good, what is good about it, just keeps throwing peripheral tidbits of numbers around the central topic and concludes with by saying Mac on Office is great.
I don't know if Apple is paying for this or if your team found some fresh Mac aficionados.
Karthik
From Stephen Lardieri This author makes so many factual mistakes that it eliminates the credibility of the rest of the story.
There is no 64-bit version of Excel for either Mac or PC.
The IMAP protocol has nothing to do with making email searchable or fast.
Etc.
From phil swenson regarding your comments about the way the mac does the web (pages don't render). I assume you are talking about Safari. I don't use Safari, but I've been using Firefox since I switched to Mac in March and I don't recall having any issues. Only ones I can think of are sites that use Windows Media Player. Most sites use flash instead these days…
From Paul, Sacramento, Ca , "Everybody keeps talking about the MAC over a PC and all this other stuff, but in hindsite, where do you think MAC got it’s ideas from, it certainly wasnt a brainchild from its CEO." – Posted By Sonny, Little Rock, AR : August 9, 2008 2:27 am ,
You got it all backwards brainiac… Windows came after the mac… the Icon came from the mac… fonts were created and introduced by Apple… The earlier versions of windows were all based off the mac and when apple switched to a unix OS (OS X) Microsoft went and coppied that too… Vista is a pitiful excuse for the 5 year old OS X 10.1 that Apple created and has since improved several times over…
One other thing brainiac… When small businesses grow, guess what, thier revenue increases and it generally has nothing to do with thier computers (unless they are doing graphics).
Grow a few brain cells.
From Mike Gruhlke, Idaho Falls, Idaho Big deal! I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 with Open Office and it blows away Microsoft Office from the get go, and even faster than OSX. More MAC hype from someone who has tunnel vision. Linux is the way to go!
From Howard – Ohio does anybody in the PC group do TCO analysis for hardware … Macs easily outlast PC's 2-to-1 in length of service analysis … and get this … you can get $$$ for them 4-5 years later … trying that with your Dell
From Howard – Ohio this guy is an idiot … if you like PC then keep using them … if you want more time and more productivity without ever having to see a tech again … get a mac
total cost of ownership way less … Mail blows away Outlook or Entourage and Excel is simple to use … try figuring out the design of Office 2007 …. they complicated a good product to get more $$$$$$ out of you … the PC sucker game goes on and on
why this FSB thinks this guy knows anything about usability is beyond any of us
From Tammy B, Barberton, OH I switched 3 years ago to a Mac. I could not be happier. If you are worried about the cost, Apple sells refurbished products on their website. With warranty. Not too shabby if you are thinking of Macifying yourself.
From Don, Salt Lake City, UT Excel is not "awful" on the Mac. I have extensive experience using Excel on both platforms and prefer it on the Mac. All Excel tools and utilities, including the advanced data analysis module, work flawlessly.
Pivottables also work fine on the Mac version – where did you get the idea they didn't? Apple's Numbers program lacks Pivottables, but not MS Excel.
From Amy, Greensboro NC I switched to Mac back in 2000. I had no trouble at all with the transition from Windows. I find the Mac to be more user friendly than a PC.
Use of keyboard commands including option and command keys actually improve productivity because my hands leave the keyboard for the mouse less often. Also, Mac apps usually require far fewer clicks with a mouse to accomplish the same task on a PC.
Note to Sonny: Microsoft got its ideas from Apple, not the other way around. Gates literally STOLE the mouse from Steve Jobs back in the 80's. Windows 3.0 was always inferior to the early Macs, and didn't improve substantially until the release of Windows 95.
From Eric, Cincinnati OH "You need Microsoft's crazy-expensive Exchange servers. I've seen figures of $50,000 for a business with, say, 25 remote employees. And that's without adding in all the attendant nickel-and-dime licenses and arcane yet costly issues that crop up with remote connectivity."
Since when is it $50,000 for this product with 25 employees? Did you mean 2500? I have just priced this out for 200 users and is $10,000 with the CAL's? You got bad info. You should correct that. Also what is the arcane issue with remote connectivity? Ever heard of VPN or ActiveSync that is currently on the iPhone? IMAP, POP3? You are far from being the right person to write about Tech, end users should keep their trap shut when they have idiot techs running the show. My Exchange server has been up for 3 years without a reboot! It doesn't take much. Wise up fool.
From Sonny, Little Rock, AR Everybody keeps talking about the MAC over a PC and all this other stuff, but in hindsite, where do you think MAC got it's ideas from, it certainly wasnt a brainchild from its CEO. The almost bankrupt Apple Corp, had to change it's approach to the personal PC business if it wanted to surved, hence we now have the watered down version of a PC and Microsoft office, created by the same people who designed the PC and Microsoft Office. More than half those developers are PC and Microsoft designers, and believe it or not most still use a PC and Microsoft office over a MAC.
I would still rather have a PC, and IBM Lenovo at that, rather than a MAC anyday. I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 I bought back in 2005, and it runs like a champ, with Windows 2007, which I use for my business, and Just last year we bought new HP's for the office with Vista Ultimate, and Office Enterprise, Love every bit of it. I've seen a small businss set up with MAC's, and after a year of having them, he sold them, cut his losses, and spent more money for the better HP's. Since then his Revenue is 3x's what is was, and his office is running way more efficient.
From Tony,Lake Station, In., I'm 90% pure Amiga computer user since 1990 and will never go over to the dark side!
From Ray, Fort Wayne, IN Your problem with needing the keyboard when using a Mac to work on the Web has a very, very simple solution: a multi-button mouse. I use a $15 trackball mouse with the more usual 2-buttons (actually, it has 4, and the other 2 are useful to me – as I have them set up). Yes, a Mac can use a Windows mouse! And it uses one in a very Windows-like way…
From Stuart Koford Cincinnati Ohio We have been using Mac's to run our manufacturing and engineering business for 20 years. We use Office mostly so that we can read Office files that customers send us. It all works fine on a Mac. For our own use we prefer Appleworks to Word, and OS Mail to Entourage. Less keystrokes and less time to get a given piece of work done. Also the spam filter on OS X Mail is much better. We do use Excel and it works fine.
From RH, BC, CA I started reading this story and thought – hey, this guy has got it all wrong.
I have been a windows programmer, and use small business server in my line of business. I just puchased a MacBook Pro and an 24" iMAC. I know of others who have signed up to the Mac way of life and, as I, just love it.
Right out of the box, my Mac's were able to surf the Internet on my WI-FI, try doing that with VISTA.
I have never had a problem with web sites, well – I do with windows when using media rich sites.
Anway, as other have commented, the reviewer needs to have another look at the Mac. I don't consider the Mac a computer, but an appliance.
From KD, Madison AL "…unless it’s the lowest end Dell that can be purchased, which shouldn’t be in an office anyway. "
You must be joking. Did you see the outdated computer hardware/software some of those businesses are running on?
Let me clue you in, Larry. I work for fortune 500 company that due to tough economic times is saving on everything. We have cheap Lenovo PCs that have 500MB of memory- not nearly enough to run the apps I need. My monitor is 17 inch CRT, which probably was outdated ten years ago. It has gotten to point where people buy their own equipment because company won't pay for anything extra.
For the smaller businesses, rising cost of fuel, healthcare, borrowing and etc make it even harder. I’m hearing that a lot of smaller businesses are switching to openoffice to cut down the cost.
So, if you have small business that generates enough cash to buy pretty Macs, I congratulate you. But as previous poster noted you are probably in that less than 1% group.
From Ashley Grayson, Los Angeles, CA Mr. Blum may have been on too short a deadline to properly research or write this article, but it indicates, as the police understand about eye-witnesses: they often don't know what they saw or recall the details correctly. Most wrong is his idea that Automator is somehow a wonderful aspect of MS Office when it is an OS X system wide tool that does work with Office but also with all other aspects of the Mac. Amid Mac virtues he focuses on what seem to him to be quirks of the Mac and presents them in odd ways. He also seems to believe that Windows users are incapable of learning the simpler, more intuitive Mac. Some are, but they are less interesting to interview in a world where reporters look for JayWalking loons rather than thoughtful opinions.
Switching to a Mac is like having a cast removed from your leg. Blum is looking for ankle weights that will enable the healed sufferer to maintain the pain.
From RDW I think the mac people just run out of things to talk about, so they come up with a mac vs PC article.
Seriously, they pay you to write this stuff?
From Brad Cathey We have benn an all Mac shop for 15 years when we dumped the Dells and Gateways. Yes, Macs are a bit more money, but one savings you didn't mention was replacing Office with iWork. I would bet that in most offices you don't need the more powerful Excel. And Pages is so much more intuitive than Word, there are savings there. Keynote is brilliant. And all import and export Office documents.
From Nelson May Jr,, Charlotte, NC I went MAC because I am in the film and video business. I hesitated on Office for MAC, because so many PC users talked it down. It is seamless and I can't crash it. It is very intuitive. I also like the interface. It is very easy to get to any tool without having to spend minutes seeking it out. I am not impressed with Entourage, but hey, MAC Mail works fine for me
From RC, Palm Desert CA Yawn…. Another shockingly sophomoric article written by a standard dunce.
From the absolutely stupid comment about the cost of Exchange services (or lack thereof) to the useless comparison to bargain pc’s purchased at Wal-Mart prices. I just don’t see the point of the article.
Macs in business? I have been doing just that since the early 1990’s. Is that so shocking?
RC
From Orac, Seattle, WA A clarification. Automater is an Apple product and comes with every Mac. The article implies that it's a part of Office for Mac and that isn't true.
From Larry, South Euclid, OH The posting from VENKY is ridiculous. 99.8% of the planet's business is not everything over 12 to 15 people. Small business is the driver in our economy. Also, Macs don't cost $400-500 more per desktop unless it's the lowest end Dell that can be purchased, which shouldn't be in an office anyway. Are you even a business person?
From venky, Ft. lauderdale, FL This is such a pointless article. First off this who article has so much inconsistecies.
Though the author is trying to write about Mac Office 2008, he is flawed about practically everything else.
According to the author of this article…
"For the right business – say, a 12- to 15-person firm that manages heavy digital content, that works remotely across the country or deals with iterative graphics such as constantly updated presentation materials – Office for Mac offers a tantalizing upside."
This drops out 99.8 % of the rest of the planet's businesses.
Here is another piece of incorrect reporting
"You need Microsoft's crazy-expensive Exchange servers. I've seen figures of $50,000 for a business with, say, 25 remote employees. And that's without adding in all the attendant nickel-and-dime licenses and arcane yet costly issues that crop up with remote connectivity. "
This is like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Such a small company should simply use a hosted Exchange solution that is available for practically $20/mailmox per month. The savings on server, power and security management costs outweigh the need for such a small company to keep infrastructure for a commodity solution like e-mail.
This author is simply quoting stuff through a sleight of hand.
Additionally for a typical small business who wants to pay a typical $400-500 more per desktop just to have a Mac?
For smart small business CEO's who are in the profitability and freeer cash flow businesss, Mac do not seem to make any economic sense.
From James Smith, NYC, NY I have supported PC based Office on Wall Street and I use Mac based at home. I love the Mac version in the way you have floating windows. Something about it seems to flow really well. That being said, for financial matters, Excel is your work horse. I would ask these testers to evaluate how well the various financial service add-ins work (i.e. Bloomberg, Reuters, Ilx, etc) Most big house write their own addins for the pc based on macros far more complex than what the "automator" sounds like it can handle.
If you can't get excel to crush numbers as opposed to just merely crunching them, then you just have to stick to PC-based. Also whether or not it can handle complex formulas, pivot tables, vlookups, etc.
What a shame to have a 64 bit operating system and not be able to get more out of excel.
From Mark M, Indianapolis, IN Many web sites are developed for proprietary Internet Explorer. There should not be any problems addressing google and other web sites. Just down load Firefox (free) http://www.mozilla.com and use both Safari and Firefox. Both are the best and one of them should do the trick. By having both you can access web sites simultaneously. Microsoft Internet Explorer is one of the biggest targets for viruses. Use all the Adobe product readers to address different media. http://www.adobe.com
-
Wireless electricity and invisible speakers -- see what's coming from entrepreneurs in 2010. More -
These 6 businesses took advantage of crashed real estate prices to trade up. More -
These 7 entrepreneurs are bringing tech, medical research and design jobs to the Detroit metro area. More -
Arson. Scrappers. Blackouts. It's part of business for the last tenant in Detroit's Packard Plant. More -
Inventing is the easy part. Marketing? Trickier. Experts tell how they'd advertise 5 hard-to-tout products. More
I agree with Mike. Why pay for Apple software and/or MS Office when GNU/Linux and OpenOffice are completely free and (in my opinion) significantly better?
Ignorance is slavery.