Do I Really Need Office 2010?

Or even Office 2007[PC]/Office 2008 [Mac]? Dan Miller at Macworld doesn't think so. He has some less than kind words in response to the announcement of Office 2010 from Microsoft.

I have to admit I prefer iWork to Office, using Keynote, Word, and Numbers as my three primary "Office" apps. I also use OpenOffice now and again. My presentations have really benefited from Keynote and I've created some really stunning charts and tables using Numbers. I use Pages on occasion, but always fall back on Word, not necessarily because it's better - it's just comfortable, sort of like an old worn sweatshirt.

As for Miller's criticisms, I agree Office is over-priced and I'm still at a loss to explain why it was necessary to upgrade - other than to open those pesky .docx files. Speaking of those files, what benefit does the average user get from saving as a docx versus a doc file? I know I don't particularly care which format I use, so I haven't derived any tangible benefit from docx.

What do you think?

Tear down those Office walls, Microsoft

My first reaction to Microsoft’s Thursday announcement that it will release a new version of its Office suite for the Mac in 2010 can be summed up in one word: Why? The very notion of a software suite like Office seems completely out-of-date.

Miller's reasoning for a new version of Office, because the suite accounts for about 30 percent of Microsoft’s overall revenue.

while you might have plausibly claimed that Office’s individual components were the best in their respective categories a decade ago, that’s not the case today.

Microsoft’s products are aging badly. ... To me, Office’s apps are clunkier than ever.

And the proprietary Office file formats are looking sillier all the time. It used to be that everyone I worked with used Word, and we exchanged everything in .doc format.

The solution?

Rather than committing to one monolithic suite, I want a choice of smaller, interoperable tools.

... There are too many affordable (or free) alternatives for me to rationalize spending $100 or more, particularly when I'm getting tools I don't need.