Mac Office 2008 vs. Fusion/XP/MS Office 2007

[CalMin]

Still digging this MacBook Air I bought on Saturday.

Quick question though. I sent off for the Super Suite Deal and am waiting for my Office 2008 to come through. It looks like it will be a while.

I think that the Office 2004 experience, is inferior to 2007, and sluggish due to Rosetta. I'm having better luck using Office 2007 using XP via VMWare. With all the reports of Office 2008 being slow, I'm thinking that my current setup might be better than that too!

Anyone who's compared the the different setups on a MB Air care to comment?

 

[instant hit]

the winner goes to fusion+msoffice2007 imo. not only does it load faster, but also the ui in office 2008 overall feels "broken." the floating windows are a carryover from 2004, and setting options for those feel like a lame excuse to borrow from the apple pro apps look and feel. the ribbon is more intuitive in 2007 than 2008 (if there ever was one), and i spend less time looking for what i need in the former as well. the death knell is 2008 has formatting issues with 2003 versions of excel documents.

the only win out of the entire 2008 suite is entourage. that is what outlook should have been.

 

[BongoBanger]

2007 wins because of one word: Access.

 

[CalMin]

the winner goes to fusion+msoffice2007 imo. not only does it load faster, but also the ui in office 2008 overall feels "broken." the floating windows are a carryover from 2004, and setting options for those feel like a lame excuse to borrow from the apple pro apps look and feel. the ribbon is more intuitive in 2007 than 2008 (if there ever was one), and i spend less time looking for what i need in the former as well. the death knell is 2008 has formatting issues with 2003 versions of excel documents.

the only win out of the entire 2008 suite is entourage. that is what outlook should have been.

Wow! Strong words, but after spending the last two days running Office via Fusion, I can believe it. I don't have hands on with Office 2008, but the reports and reviews are alarming.

If any of you reading this are currently eligible for educational purchases, then you should know that Office 2007 is available for $60 through Microsoft. It's how I got mine, and now I'm really not that excited about Office 2008.

Here's the link - http://www.theultimatesteal.com/home.asp

 

[tofupancake]

deleted

 

[kanon14]

I go with the fusion + Office route. I installed TinyXP with Fusion so the xp doesn't take up as much space. The load time is very fast and program runs fast too. I don't have Office 08 so I cannot compare the speed.

 

[mctheriot]

Hmm, whats "tiny xp" ??!!

MT

I go with the fusion + Office route. I installed TinyXP with Fusion so the xp doesn't take up as much space. The load time is very fast and program runs fast too. I don't have Office 08 so I cannot compare the speed.