Apple has a mountain to climb in terms of iWork. Most of the professional industry in this domain is using Microsoft Office / Google products, and cross compatibility is a must for all platforms. For Apple to compete in this space, they need to not only support non-Apple OS but also offer equivalent features across the board. They have historically stumbled in horizontal expansion in application software. The ROI on this for growth is probably not as significant compared to the other 2 industries you’ve mentioned
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Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?
- Thread starter Benz63amg
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Apple has a mountain to climb in terms of iWork. Most of the professional industry in this domain is using Microsoft Office / Google products, and cross compatibility is a must for all platforms. For Apple to compete in this space, they need to not only support non-Apple OS but also offer equivalent features across the board. They have historically stumbled in horizontal expansion in application software. The ROI on this for growth is probably not as significant compared to the other 2 industries you’ve mentioned
I think this also tells you that Apple embraces the audiences that use Excel vs Numbers.
Just bought Office 2019 for my M1 MBP. Tried to use Pages, and while I don't know all the complexities that MS Word has over Pages, I'll just be frank and say I just don't like Pages. Call it petty I guess, but its just not the same. I use Microsoft Office at work so much that I literally expect to see it on any primary computer that I use.
If you’re talking about when you insert a picture in a Word document I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve done this but I remember how much of a pain it was. I will check when I get home 😂
In my own case, I bought Office Mac 2016. It no longer gets updates, security or otherwise but being used purely for personal use at home, I see no reason to quit using it. I don't share any documents over the internet and I'm darn sure I'm not going to buy a subscription service. Besides, if it gets to the point it doesn't do what I want it to, LibreOffice to the rescue.
FYI, Microsoft still sells a version of Mac Office 2019 that you buy once, not rent.
If you're associated with a non-profit organization, you can get a license for 2019 Office for $39 through Tech Soup...makes it a no-brainer.
Again, I see no reason to pay for a newer version. 2016 does everything I have needed and probably will ever need.
I think he was just saying that there is a non-subscription model, as you had mentioned you wouldn't pay for a subscription based service.
For me, I couldn't use my 2016 anymore on my new MBA M1, so I opted in for O365 since I got it for $65 CAD for 1-year...Not sure what I'll do after that though.
Because you don't want to pay for Office and you barely use it? Why pay for something you barely use when there's an actual free version? Have you tried it? Does it lack features you need?
The problem is not Word, the problem is 1 company is dominating the market. We don't want to get to a point where there is no other solution. This is why monopoly is illegal.
George Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire(Game of Thrones), said he uses WordStar 4 on DOS to write his books. In fact if you go all the way back to Office 1998 it will probably still do most if not everything you want to do today. I am not sure what "new features" they added over the last 20 years I guess mostly bells and whistles. I would say even Word 3 on Windows 3.1 is sufficient.
I come from the age where when an image was 128KB you would compress it and cut it to make it more reasonable 35KB to load in a browser, so learning that you can run a full app in a browser blew my brains out of my skull but...
Native apps will always be more reliable, faster, solid, with more features. Its a great option though, it really is I am surprised Microsoft give it for free as it does what 90% of people want. I wonder if you can run it offline.
you are correct on the ROI, and this is why we can't have nice things. Businesses aim to make "maximum profit" and once they notice that a company has enclosed the market they move on to other things leaving an oligopoly where products are never challenged and the industry is not disrupted.
Some examples: Search engines, web browsers, telecom, gaming consoles...
Microsoft did it thanks to competition from Google Docs, which is good enough for most people imo.
I haven't tried it offline.
In reality, the regular MS Office/MS 365 is overkill for normal users. What we have is conformity to the old habit and training of using MS Office, so we simply think we must use it.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I don't NEED a newer version of Office so why pay for it at all! What I ALREADY have works just fine.
It makes sense. If only 1000 people at Apple "need" the capabilities of Excel (vs. Numbers) and it would cost Apple $80M to improve the functionality of Numbers to match Excel, Apple would rather spend $50K per year (MS licenses for those 1000 people), vs. investing $80M with zero ROI.
Easy there John-Boy... I think you're reading too much into it. I think it's more of a general explanation than directed at you specifically.
I use Microsoft Office 2016 daily on my Macbook for work. I'm too worried to try another program, especially when emailing and sharing docs with others just in case a change I make is incompatible or not viewable/editable by others.
A little info from the early days:
When I first started in Corporate PC support, there were a few executives who insisted on Macs instead. The primary reason they wanted Macs was for the ability to install and use Microsoft Excel. Ashton Tate (of DBase fame) tried selling a spreadsheet for Mac also, and I don't remember if Lotus ever did a Mac version of their industry leading 1-2-3.
At any rate, Microsoft used Windows as wedge to get their Excel program introduced to PC users, and their Word and Powerpoint programs as well.
Excel killed off the industry leader in spreadsheets, Lotus 1-2-3.
Word killed off the industry leader in word processing, WordPerfect
Powerpoint killed off the industry leader in presentation software, Harvard Graphics.
Access eventually killed off Borland Paradox, Ashton Tate Dbase, and a bunch of other PC-based dbs...
The fight to kill 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were gigantic, with a lot of user/industry pushback by loyal followers.
On the corporate/institutional side, Excel and Word have huge inertia that a Mac user simply cannot avoid.
When I first started in Corporate PC support, there were a few executives who insisted on Macs instead. The primary reason they wanted Macs was for the ability to install and use Microsoft Excel. Ashton Tate (of DBase fame) tried selling a spreadsheet for Mac also, and I don't remember if Lotus ever did a Mac version of their industry leading 1-2-3.
At any rate, Microsoft used Windows as wedge to get their Excel program introduced to PC users, and their Word and Powerpoint programs as well.
Excel killed off the industry leader in spreadsheets, Lotus 1-2-3.
Word killed off the industry leader in word processing, WordPerfect
Powerpoint killed off the industry leader in presentation software, Harvard Graphics.
Access eventually killed off Borland Paradox, Ashton Tate Dbase, and a bunch of other PC-based dbs...
The fight to kill 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were gigantic, with a lot of user/industry pushback by loyal followers.
On the corporate/institutional side, Excel and Word have huge inertia that a Mac user simply cannot avoid.
Most of the work world uses Office.
Therefore, the question - even if you have, and use, a Mac (as I do), - is not "which is better" but, rather, which is more easily and readily compatible with what most of your colleagues, interlocutors and professional contacts use?
They have to be able to access, read and use material that you both work on without difficulty, or problems, or inconvenience.
Understandable, and this is exactly the problem for me. I don't like that a proprietary format is the standard. Someone should do an open standard for this stuff like JPEG and PDF, then you can use Microsoft Office or whatever app you like.
I remember the 1990s, when some of my avant garde friends had Macs, and nothing they wrote could be accessed (let alone read, or presented in an attractive or legible format) by anyone using a Windows machine or device, which was personally and professionally frustrating, both for those who wrote the material and those who were expected to read it (and comment on it).
This fact alone meant that some of them decided to stay with Windows.
And I certainly would never have switched to Mac were it not for the fact that I could use Office for Mac, despite the fact that the chap in the Mac store who sold me my first Mac, all of twelve years ago, kept telling me (I don't doubt correctly) that the Apple versions were better, and pleading with me, entreating me, begging me, to use them; they may have been, but everyone else needed to be able to read what I wrote without stressing themselves.
The fact is that almost everyone in my professional world uses Office, and what I write must be completely compatible with what they use in order to be able to read it.