Day: March 27, 2015

While I’ve been using Microsoft products for years. I don’t often find reason to say thanks to them. I guess its time I did.

There are some versions of Windows that I absolutely hate, and there are some aspects of even the versions of Windows that I like, which are just annoying as crap.

That being said, as one of the most ubiquitous operating systems found in business, I’ll give credit where credit is due. I like Windows 7 since I upgraded to the 64 bit version.

However, the products that I’m thinking about today are those contained in the Office suite.

Even though I use Mac, I’ve had a version of Microsoft Office on every Mac I’ve ever owned. It makes sense, the first Macs, remember the Classic, ran Microsoft office. Albeit, Office was a word processor and a spreadsheet.

As Office has grown and changed on the PC,  Microsoft has in general, kept the suite up to date on the Mac platform too. Notice i said, “in general.” There have been long delays between updates, most recently a period of about 2 – 3 years. 

Microsoft has in that time, released a number of products and left Mac product development languishing in the wake of Windows, Office 365, and game console development.

I’m not a big fan of the subscription software model.

This has been especially true with Office. As a Mac user, if I’d subscribed to Office 365, I’d have gotten the same version of Office I already owned subscription free.

This is about to change, and I’m taking another look at Office 365 subscriptions.

Earlier in the week I became aware Microsoft had made a version of the new Macintosh Office suite available. This is a “Preview,” it is time limited, but fully functional.

It’s very nice.

I really like the new Word and Excel. Outlook has some odd things that I’m confused by.  

Outlook talks to icloud which allows email to be retrieved, but doesn’t link up with the calendar or contacts.  That could be a deal breaker for me since I rely on those items being up to date all the time.  

As an aside, I look forward to the day when manufacturers get over the childish creation of proprietary file formats and realize that producing and maintaining superior software is what wins, and keeps customers. Microsoft is listening and Apple is listening to that message too.

The level of completeness in this “Preview” is impressive, and makes it easy to forget this is not the final product.

Working with Word, and Excel I’ve been impressed and daunted. Some things have moved, others are more easily found, the interface is different from my Office for Mac 2013.

I’ll have a slight learning curve. More so than Windows users this time around since they’ve had the updated menus for a year or more.

From what I’ve read, Microsoft is making the tools, menu items, and shortcuts the same whether you’re using a Mac or Windows.  For someone like me that moves back & forth, this is welcomed and very much appreciated. I’m a boomer, my gears are stripped a little more easily than they used to be!

I like the interfaces. They’re clean, with few if any distractions. I even like the opening screen that presents the most recent files, or allows you to choose a document template. In Office 2013 I found a similar screen an annoyance but this one presents immediately useful information.

All of which is to say that I’m rethinking the subscription model.

Office 365 offers, or will offer fresh up to date applications at a reasonable price. $99 a year for 5 licenses that include my tablet and phone is a good deal.

Especially when I consider I’d like to have office running on my PC and my Mac and that there are two other Macs in the house that need licenses.

So Microsoft, Kudos and a big Thank you.

I look forward to the final product.