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Microsoft drops VBA in Mac Office 2007
slashdotwriter writes "Macworld features an article stating that the next version of Office for the Mac will not include Visual Basic scripting. From the article: 'Microsoft Office isn't among the apps that will run natively on Intel-based Macs — and it won't be until the latter half of 2007, according to media reports. But when it does ship, Office will apparently be missing a feature so vital to cross-platform compatibility that I believe it will be the beginning of the end for the Mac version of the productivity suite...'"
Apple couldn't begin even approaching the level of functionality of Office. The current iWork package is a rip-off.
Pages is a home layout package. It will never stack up to big canons Adobe Creative Suite or QuarkXPress. It's not a professional tool.
Keynote is actually good, but presentations alone aren't enough to hold a business together.
If anything, Apple would need to pick up the work on NeoOffice, the "less bad" OpenOffice derivative as far as UI is concerned, and do a lot of work on it to bring it on par with Office. That is, if it actually cared to make NeoOffice look and behave like Office Mac.
Now, that is not impossible.
But iWork being a competitor to Office, is.
"Remember Mac users expect things to 'just work'. You can accuse them of being spoiled, but this is the markert you have to cater for."
I disagree with that statement. I don't think the open source applications need to cater for anybody. In fact I think the spiled brattiness of Mac users are an actual discouragement for open source programmers. Even if the open office guys end up with a native Mac version they will be continually harraunged and pissed on by spoiled mac users who will complain bitterly that it doesn't "just work" or that the colors are not right, or that the icons are off by a few pixes or something. Needless to say the same people who bitch won't lift a finger to help in any way whatsoever. In fact they will actively try and discourage others from using the open source version of open office.
The mac users are prefectionsits. I think trying to port an X application to cater to them is a foolish task. They won't appreciate your efforts and nothing you do will be good enough for them. Remember these people are not programmers and they have no idea what goes into making a port for a mac. All they know is that the green isn't lickable enough and that makes them upset.
evil is as evil does