I’ve discovered that Microsoft is offering a $100 rebate on Office for Mac until January 16th, 2007. This is for Office 2004, the current version, but it also makes me wonder if Microsoft might be planning to release a new version soon. (I know that Office 2007 for PCs is on its way, but I’m not sure if Microsoft has similar plans for Macs.)
To be sure, the $100 savings isn’t the same across the product line — for instance, Office upgrades get a $50 rebate while academic versions get a $15 rebate. In any case, NewEgg has Office 2004 for Mac for $249; with an after-rebate price of $149, that’s not too bad. Then again, NewEgg also has the OEM version of Office 2004 for Mac for $184, so that may be an option if you miss out on the rebate but you're still looking to buy Office.
Unfortunately it looks like the new mac version of Office won’t be out until the second half of 2007.
Oh, ok. Then again, considering that MS Office was pretty much feature-complete as of Office 97 (HHOS), I don’t think I’ll lose sleep over having to wait for Office 2007 ;).
Office 2004 is actually an excellent package (even if it is missing an Access-alike), but the one area in which it really shows its age is the fact that it’s a PPC-only app, which means Intel-based Macs have to run Office applications in the Rosetta emulation layer. If you’re coming from an older model PowerBook (TiBook or earlier, like I did earlier this year), then you probably won’t notice any net gain or loss with regard to speed. But if you’re used to a faster G4 or G5 processor, you’re sure to notice the difference. Among major applications, it’s surprising that Microsoft (along with Adobe) are so late to release Universal Binaries.
All that said, the general concensus on the net is that unless you’re dipping into Word’s deeper featureset (and you absolutely have to have a spreadsheet app), Apple’s iWork suite might be worth a look. (There’s also a good chance that iWork will get an overhaul just in time for MacWorld SF.)
Good work Watson! Indeed, I hadn’t considered the Intel/Mac angle. Hmm.. In that case, maybe I’ll hold off after all :-/.