David Pogue on Office 2011 for the Mac

He's not a fan. I really like his point about the ribbon and the loss of screen real estate.

Office for Mac Isn't an Improvement - NYTimes.com:

The new Office suite has gotten rave reviews from my colleagues at other publications. Clearly something must be wrong with me; I think that, in day-to-day usability, Office 2011 is a big step backward.

...
The Mac suite now includes the Ribbon, a horizontal toolbar that’s built into Office for Windows. What I don’t get is this: Last time I checked, computer screens were all wider than they are tall. The last thing you’d want to do is to eat up that limited vertical screen space with interface clutter like the Ribbon. Don’t we really want those controls off to the side, as with the Formatting Palette in the previous Mac Office?

...
Microsoft says that it’s aware of all the bugs I’ve listed here, and intends to fix them early next year. (Most of the missing mail commands, however, will remain missing.)

O.K., what? You *knew* about these bugs, but you’re selling this software anyway?

Sure, other companies do that. But that doesn’t make it any less sleazy when Microsoft does it.[emphasis added - MQ]