I’ve been using a Mac Book Pro running OS X Leopard as my main PC for about 2 weeks now, and my goal was to adapt without Windows (either via Parallels or Boot Camp) using native software. Browsing, well Firefox and all the plugins I use work in OS X. iTunes? Well…iTunes. Video/Codecs? VLC. FTP? Cyberduck. Office 2007? Well, there’s Office 2008 for Mac.
Everything seamed like a smooth transition until I started using Word, Excel and Entourage. Everything looks different. Tool bars and menus are totally different from their Windows counterparts. It is not easy for Mac-switchers as it is, getting used to not having a taskbar, jumping icons and what not, but why oh why does Word for Mac have to be completely different from regular Windows Word? Why is Entourage the complete opposite of Outlook? I mean, its the same program in essence that does the same stuff, but these having different UIs is confusing and just plain stupid. If Adobe can do it with evey single Creative Suite program Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) why isn’t Microsoft doing it?
My guess is that Microsoft doesn’t care about Mac-switchers and they aren’t the core target. They care about providing Windows-Word like compatibility to Mac, same for Excel and Outlook (or Entourage). If I can open and edit Word documents using non-Word apps on a Mac, then what is the incentive for me to even purchase Word for Mac? I ended up installing Parallels and getting my Office 2007 via Coherence. Call me weird, but I love Office 2007’s ribbon.
I guess that is it. My first Mac-rant and I end up criticizing Microsoft….typical Apple!
One Comment
I personally don’t use the Microsoft Office suite on my Macs (Google Docs only), but I remember thinking the same thing when I first tried to use Internet Explorer for Mac. I learned at the time that the software was not a port of Internet Explorer to the Mac, but a completely different piece of software, written by a different team from the ground up.