- Develop professional documents with Word building blocks and commonly-used business templates
- Build informative, accurate spreadsheets with easy-to-use, preformatted Excel formulas
- Manage e-mail, daily appointments and tasks with Entourage
- Apply SmartArt graphics to create polished presentations and reports
- Connect with others through Microsoft Office Exchange Server support
Product Description
Whether you have a Mac or an Intel PC, you can swiftly manage your entire business with Office 2008 for Mac. This product includes user-friendly business softwareAmazon.com Product Description
Your business is everything to you–an extension of your life, an expression of your passion. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition is packed with all the tools and features you need to make your vision a success. Get core Office applications to help you man… More >>
Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 Business Edition
Tags: 2008, building, building blocks, Business, business edition, core office, Edition, Excel, exchange server support, formulasManage, intel pc, Mac, Mac Business, Microsoft, microsoft office, Office, office applications, office exchange, Product, professional documents, templatesBuild, Word
#1 by CallMeB on June 1, 2010 - 8:43 pm
First, I had a tendency to hate microsoft products and hence my view of looking at this software may be a little more deviant from a regular user. I already have iwork and also open office3, but I had to work with refworks for my research work and hence required this product.
Forget the pros, I have a lot of cons:
1. Who puts “help” item as the first in a right click menu? When you go around correcting spellings, the first choice is help, instead of the correct spelling. Yes, Microsoft thinks I am dumb, and I think they are dumb!!
2. Almost all users using this software are long term mac users. The menu and shortcuts are different from all other applications. For instance, font is CMD + D and not CMD + T.
3. Launch speed is terrible.
4. The working speed keeps you waiting sometimes. [I have a 4GB ram]
5. You have to perform updates often.
6. From a usability point of view, powerpoint has a hundred different issues that any lame user can point out.
7. It costs a lot.
8. For god sake, it cannot search backwards, and it gives you an annoying alert at the end of the search. CMD + G is not find next, but GOTO.
9. It crashes!!
Nutshell : If some one is paying you for this, take it. Paying out of your own pocket does not sounds like a good idea for this product.
Open office has many problems too, for instance bad launch time, and compatibility issues.
Iwork [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0014X2UAK?ie=UTF8&tag=fall09laptops-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0014X2UAK ] is not perfect either, but it is definitely a better deal than Office, and is way cheaper.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by G. Ware Cornell Jr. on June 1, 2010 - 9:10 pm
Software is not shiny boxes or fancy ad campaigns. The basic office suite applications, Word, Excel and Power Point, are only millions of ones and ohs put on a DVD that can be reproduced exactly like the preceding one. Once the first unit is developed, each subsequent unit essentially costs the software developer nothing. Consumers are a different story however. The developer can stimulate demand and sell millions of copies of that one original for lots of money. Microsoft Office is an example of such a software product.
But what happens when everybody already has copies of Microsoft Office on their PCs and Macs? The answer is simple-make slight modifications of the product and rename it. On the Mac version alone in addition to Microsoft Office for Mac Business Edition, there are a Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition, and a Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, all with prices significantly higher than the competition, but with the most expensive program costing several times the cheapest.
At the end of the day what justifies this price differential? The answer is nothing. These office suites, with minor variations, are essentially the same ones and ohs that were created for the the original unit. What is changed is one word on the box-”Business”. That is a lot to pay for that word. A businessman will get as much utility out of the cheapest of the Microsoft Office suite as from the most expensive.
But that is not the end of the story.
In office software there are three prices-expensive, moderate and free. A moderately price office suite for the Mac is iWork ‘09. It is pretty comparable to Office for Mac, only substantially cheaper than Microsoft’s least expensive version. Free however is the wave of the future and Google Documents offers free word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software- the components of the modern office suite. Moreover Google documents can both read and export to their Microsoft equivalents (as can iWork 09). It lacks many of the bells and whistles Microsoft loads into Office. But do you really use those bells and whistles? Most users don’t know they are there and have little need for them in any event.
How many times will Microsoft go to the well with the Office name before we all wise up? Hard to say but they are betting on it lasting a few years longer.
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by memoiai on June 1, 2010 - 10:39 pm
People here have commented enough on the good and the bad about plenty of hardware and software issues regarding Office 2008. There hasn’t been a lot said of Excel 2008 for Mac (in this business edition). I feel, for many reasons including, but not limited to: accounting, statistics, projections, etc, Excel is the keystone of the MS Office business oriented programs. It’s numbers, it’s business, period.
Hence, a bit of a comparison. Those of you who “grew up” with Excel 2000/XP (Yes, I was a PC user) probably loved it. XP/2000 had a plethora of options, coding capabilities, and easy access to what you needed.
So, how much has changed with Excel 2008 for Mac? A lot. Or, should I say, too much. This is a ridiculous and useless program as far as I’m concerned. I have absolutely no idea what Microsoft was thinking with this version. I’m left almost speechless. The programs (all, not just Excel) have been dumbed down to a bunch of pretty pictures that have left “old” users like me wondering where the heck anything is placed (I like to say that it’s “just hidden”). If you can get past the ridiculously simplified menu options and actually find (yes, you need to search for things now, I wonder what menu options were for before???) what you need you’ll note how deep inside, Excel 2008 is a useless software. While basic computational abilities are still there, macros are gone (VBA support is gone, that is). Really? So, why not just take out my TI-89, it does just as much, if not more, and it’s cheaper!
I would NOT recommend this version to anyone (or Excel 2007 for PC’ers out there). Save your money, don’t buy, force Microsoft to actually start coming out with more quality products in spirit of pre-2007 levels (Vista and Office 2007/2008 have been complete failures).
Rating: 2 / 5
#4 by Jose Horwitz Feliu on June 2, 2010 - 1:00 am
Received it well, but still prefer office 2007 because of ease to use for pivot reports
Rating: 3 / 5
#5 by Shevi on June 2, 2010 - 1:25 am
The first time I installed the program took a very long time…and then my iMac crashed. The second time also took a a long time, but I did manage to get it up and runnning.
At first I was surprised. I opened Word, and it didn’t look like the Word I’m used to. In some ways this program seems a little more user friendly than MS Office for the PC–and it should be, because the Mac is a more user-friendly computer. But if you’re used to Office on the PC, you might have a hard time figuring out what’s what. I still haven’t figured out how to access all the features I’ve taken for granted when it comes to MS Office for the PC, because the interface does look so different. But it seems to do more, in some ways, than Word for the PC does, in terms of streamlining with other programs. I say seems to, because I still haven’t quite got the knack of the Mac version of this program. There is definitely a learning curve.
In the end, I think it will prove to be worth having, if only so I can send Word docs and the like from my Mac to PCs and vice versa. Is it the best program to do these tasks, better than iWork ‘09 or Corel WordPerfect 3.51 Combined/Competitive Upgrade for Macintosh? I don’t know. It takes some getting used to.
Rating: 4 / 5