Next version of Office for Mac

[codywilliams]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Does anyone know when Office 2010 for Mac will be ready for the public to buy?

 

[Diane Ross]

Does anyone know when Office 2010 for Mac will be ready for the public to buy?

They are saying holiday season 2010.

 

[Justin]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Does anyone know when Office 2010 for Mac will be ready for the public to buy?

Would yo really want it? Considering Office 2008 for Mac was complete
crap I suggest you explore other options such as NeoOffice.
I'm an accounting student and that's all I use.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Would yo really want it? Considering Office 2008 for Mac was complete
crap I suggest you explore other options such as NeoOffice.
I'm an accounting student and that's all I use.

Hi Justin,

There are plenty of good reasons why people plunk down money for
Microsoft and Apple products when Sun Microsystems provides OpenOffice
and Google provides Google Docs for free.

The free products offer only a subset of the features of Microsoft
Office or iWork, and the free interfaces are geeky by comparison. For
people who need only basic functionality and compatibility, the free
products may be adequate. Based on the marketplace, the vast majority of
Mac users prefer the Microsoft and Apple offerings even though they are
not free.

Right off the bat you don't get the Microsoft fonts, templates, or clip
art with the free products. Charts don't work the same way. Object
formatting is primitive by comparison. The free stuff is free, but if
you expect people to switch to the free stuff it has to be at least as
good if not better than what they have now. The free stuff is OK, but it
has a long way to go before it can compete with Microsoft and Apple
offerings.

Sometimes open source has great alternatives to commercial products.
FireFox and Audacity come to mind. I don't think OpenOffice, NeoOffice
or Google docs are competitive with Microsoft Office, which continues to
evolve for the better in many ways.

-Jim

 

[Justin]

Hi Justin,

There are plenty of good reasons why people plunk down money for
Microsoft and Apple products when Sun Microsystems provides OpenOffice
and Google provides Google Docs for free.

The free products offer only a subset of the features of Microsoft
Office or iWork, and the free interfaces are geeky by comparison. For
people who need only basic functionality and compatibility, the free
products may be adequate. Based on the marketplace, the vast majority of
Mac users prefer the Microsoft and Apple offerings even though they are
not free.

The vast majority of people on the Mac side think they *need* MS Office
to be compatible with everyone else.

Right off the bat you don't get the Microsoft fonts, templates, or clip
art with the free products. Charts don't work the same way. Object
formatting is primitive by comparison. The free stuff is free, but if
you expect people to switch to the free stuff it has to be at least as
good if not better than what they have now. The free stuff is OK, but it
has a long way to go before it can compete with Microsoft and Apple
offerings.

I understand where you're coming from and what you're saying makes
sense, however I don't think you're entirely correct.
The fonts - I haven't encountered any fonts that others have and I
don't. Wouldn't Microsoft fonts by definition only be available on
Microsoft systems? If one used a standard font, it shouldn't matter of
they're running Windows and Office, Linux and OoO or (Snow?) Leopard and
iWork. Arial and Times New Roman are on here. I question the
usefulness of Windings - although I may turn in my next assignment with
a few smiley faces and yin-yangs scattered here and there. Either
she'll fail me or laugh.

There are plenty of templates available outside MS Office - down
loadable from anywhere.

You're right about the interface, however geeky is a strong word. I
think the term spartan fits.
As an accounting student I did some research and found several medium
sized accounting firms that use OpenOffice rather than MS Office and
they do some pretty intensive hard core accounting - from inventory
valuation, to international taxes, to shareholder reports. I even know
three law firms who use nothing but Apple, Linux and OoO. Some of both
firms respective clients are Fortune 500 - so you know they have to be
on their game. So I don't think an "OK" product would cut it for them.

I'm trying to find out some things MS Office '08 can do that OpenOffice
can't.

Sometimes open source has great alternatives to commercial products.
FireFox and Audacity come to mind. I don't think OpenOffice, NeoOffice
or Google docs are competitive with Microsoft Office, which continues to
evolve for the better in many ways.

-Jim

I think Open Source deserves more credit, but there is still work to be
done and room for improvement.

In closing, don't get me wrong. I am not anti-Microsoft. I believe in
the free market. So I believe choices are key to customer security,
technological advancement, and the betterment of mankind in general.
Some Microsoft products I like, IIS, Server 2008 (fewer problems than
the linux servers I ended up building).

One last thing, do you agree that there are more problems (per capita)
with the Mac side of Office than Windows?
I had a problem recently (before I went to Neo) that destroyed a day's
worth of work. You should find a post about it in this ng.

 

[Justin]

They are saying holiday season 2010.

Which holiday?

 

[Diane Ross]

Which holiday?

They don't say, but I would assume that it's in December or early January.

 

[Justin]

They don't say, but I would assume that it's in December or early January.

Sounds like Microsoft is ignoring the Muslim world.
Infidels!

 

[codywilliams]

Do you mean this coming December/January or next year's?

 

[Diane Ross]

Do you mean this coming December/January or next year's?

2010

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

The vast majority of people on the Mac side think they *need* MS Office
to be compatible with everyone else.

I don't presume to know what the vast majority of people on the Mac side
think. However, if you are correct about their motivation, then I think
the reason is a valid one. Microsoft Office on the Mac is far more
compatible with Microsoft Office on Windows than any of the free
applications.

I understand where you're coming from and what you're saying makes
sense, however I don't think you're entirely correct.
The fonts - I haven't encountered any fonts that others have and I
don't.

Let's start with the default font for Office 2007 and Office 2008. I
think it's Calibri, which comes with Microsoft Office. Without the same
font, OpenOffice and Google Docs will look slightly different.
Spreadsheets may produce #### instead of cell values because the column
widths might be off. Minor, but annoying and some people won't know why
their documents don't look exactly the same or how to fix these minor
differences.

Wouldn't Microsoft fonts by definition only be available on
Microsoft systems?

No. Microsoft includes fonts with Microsoft Office on both the Mac and
the PC. It's part of what you pay for.

If one used a standard font, it shouldn't matter of
they're running Windows and Office, Linux and OoO or (Snow?) Leopard and
iWork.

If the standard font is one of the Microsoft fonts (and it is -
Calibri), then whenever an office document is opened in an application
on a computer that doesn't have the Microsoft font, then the application
wlll substitute a font from whatever font family it thinks is closest.
Apple, Microsoft, and LINUX provide different versions of the same fonts
(Arial is one) so even if the font has the same name it could be
slightly different from one OS to another. I bet if you run the Font
Book application on your Mac you'll find several duplicate, yet
non-identical fonts. By providing fonts with Microsoft Office, Microsoft
is taking steps to ensure that documents will look identical on Macs and
PCs. If only there were such a thing as a "standard font" this problem
could be reduced. Adobe and Microsoft have collaborated to create
OpenType fonts that should display the same on Macs and PCs, but they're
not free, either.

Arial and Times New Roman are on here. I question the
usefulness of Windings - although I may turn in my next assignment with
a few smiley faces and yin-yangs scattered here and there. Either
she'll fail me or laugh.

She'll laugh. And you've picked the safest 2 fonts, Arial and Times New
Roman are the best to use for compatibility, so your chances of font
issues cropping up are quite small.

There are plenty of templates available outside MS Office - down
loadable from anywhere.

This is a good thing!

You're right about the interface, however geeky is a strong word. I
think the term spartan fits.

I think of it as a blending of Microsoft Office versions 3 through 5.

As an accounting student I did some research and found several medium
sized accounting firms that use OpenOffice rather than MS Office and
they do some pretty intensive hard core accounting - from inventory
valuation, to international taxes, to shareholder reports. I even know
three law firms who use nothing but Apple, Linux and OoO. Some of both
firms respective clients are Fortune 500 - so you know they have to be
on their game. So I don't think an "OK" product would cut it for them.

I'm not sure if OO now supports the same number of rows and columns that
Excel does for Excel 2007 and 2008. A popular thing is 366 columns (one
for each day of the year including leap year). OO used to simply ignore
extra columns and destroy data and formulas without warning in the past.

I'm trying to find out some things MS Office '08 can do that OpenOffice
can't.

Project Gallery. Project Center. AppleScript. Automator actions. Special
effects on pictures. SQL GUI (Micosoft Query), VBA add-ins (Office 2004)

I think Open Source deserves more credit, but there is still work to be
done and room for improvement.

Although Mac Office 2008 doesn't support VBA, Microsoft has seen the
error of their ways and is restoring it next time around. OpenOffice has
minimal VBA support, and they have some hard-headed ideas that will keep
their version of VBA from ever being useful. VBA is for automation.
OpenOffice will not all allow AUTO-OPEN or calling of one VBA routine
from another because they have declared these two actions security
risks. Without these two things, VBA is nearly useless. I think the OO
concerns are exaggerated to the point where if it were phobia about
diseases, then I would call OO VBA phobia a mild disease in itself. The
set of VBA that OO supports only works with spreadsheets, not word
processing or presentations. VBA has been a critical aspect of Microsoft
Office for nearly 15 years. The OO folks don't want to be compatible
with VBA.

In closing, don't get me wrong. I am not anti-Microsoft. I believe in
the free market. So I believe choices are key to customer security,
technological advancement, and the betterment of mankind in general.
Some Microsoft products I like, IIS, Server 2008 (fewer problems than
the linux servers I ended up building).

And I'm not anti-OO or Google docs. The concept is fine, but there's
just not enough "there" there to make these products worth bothering
with, yet. Sun doesn't have the cash to make OO the product it needs to
be to defeat Microsoft Office. They spent millions on OO only to come up
short with an inferior product.

Google, on the other hand, has lots of cash and plenty of ambition.
Google docs makes you pay for their products with privacy sacrifices
rather than cash, so it's hard to say how the marketplace will react.
Microsoft is not sitting by the sidelines, and they have the upper hand
right now. If Google doesn't bring their on-line offerings up to
Microsoft Office functionality, I think they'll wind up like Sun and
will have wasted a lot of money for a tiny slice of the market pie. I
think OO is a better deal for the consumer than Google docs right now.
OO has more functionality and keeps your private stuff private.

One last thing, do you agree that there are more problems (per capita)
with the Mac side of Office than Windows?

I have no way of knowing for sure. I'm not even sure you could come up
with a way to measure this. Windows users who come to the Mac seem to
think they made a wise decision, so I suspect the Mac version is a lot
more stable than the PC version of Microsoft Office. No version of any
of these Office programs are trouble-free. Office programs are among the
largest and most complicated of any software products available.

I had a problem recently (before I went to Neo) that destroyed a day's
worth of work. You should find a post about it in this ng.

Then you're not using Time Machine and/or AutoRecovery. These are very
good features of Mac OS and Office.

-Jim

 

[Howard Brazee]

The vast majority of people on the Mac side think they *need* MS Office
to be compatible with everyone else.

I don't "need" a computer. But it would be very nice if the
spreadsheets I use at work would run at home. And those spreadsheets
use VB macros.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

 

[Howard Brazee]

Which holiday?

Hopefully, New Year's Day, although I might be able to wait until
MLK's birthday.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I don't "need" a computer. But it would be very nice if the
spreadsheets I use at work would run at home. And those spreadsheets
use VB macros.

I agree completely! What you use at work ought to work at home. I am quite
certain that this is a major goal of the next version of Office. HOWEVER,
the authors of the macros that run in windows will HAVE to consider that the
macros will also need to run on the Macintosh platform. If they have hard
coded "\" for path delimiters and used other poor coding practices, the
macros may not run on the Mac without change.

 

[Howard Brazee]

That's an excellent analogy!

But it doesn't work for me. The reason I have Office for the Mac is
so that I can edit the same documents on my Mac that I edit on
Windows. I want to go back and forth, which means, no translations,
just open them and edit them. If I can't do that - it's not easy
enough. (For spreadsheets, that means VB macros).

....

No. You have it exactly backwards. It is Windows users who covet the Mac
interface. Microsoft Office came out on the Mac 5 years *before* Office
for Windows. Windows Vista and especially Windows 7 owe a lot of their
improvements to Apple's Mac OS.

What difference does it make which interface came first? Users get
used to one or the other.

While Windows is not quite caught up to OS in ease of its interface,
it does have a couple of things that I think work better - possibly
because it was designed later.
Better:
1. In Windows, I can click on a new window and paste immediately.
On a Mac I have to click on a new window, wait for the focus to
arrive, and then paste.
Arguably better:
2. In the Mac, the application's menu is at the top of the screen -
a design that seems to be made for single-tasking. Only one menu is
visible. This saves on real-estate. And it also fits the idea
that in Macs, apps often have multiple pop-up windows. But this
design may be the cause of #1 above.

What is the Orb interface? Do you mean the ribbon in Office 2007?

I bet he does. I know that I spend lots more time looking for simple
menu items than I used to before the interface was upgraded. I think
I have Office 2007. I'm on my Windows machine right now, and I just
spent some time trying to find the "about" option to verify my
version. This fits the argument above - we get used to some
interface and we don't like to re-learn it. The new interface is a
huge time-waster to someone who already knew how to do stuff the old
way.


--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

 

[Howard Brazee]

I agree completely! What you use at work ought to work at home. I am quite
certain that this is a major goal of the next version of Office. HOWEVER,
the authors of the macros that run in windows will HAVE to consider that the
macros will also need to run on the Macintosh platform. If they have hard
coded "\" for path delimiters and used other poor coding practices, the
macros may not run on the Mac without change.

Same thing happens with HTML links in my browser - I need to figure
out where to put stuff and how to state stuff such as my browser's
home page:
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/brazee/My%20Documents/Home/home_page.html

I want it to work the same at home and at work (my bookmarks are
synchronized).

Although real smart software could have a feature to translate these
on different computers.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

 

[Diane Ross]

Same thing happens with HTML links in my browser - I need to figure
out where to put stuff and how to state stuff such as my browser's
home page:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/brazee/My%20Documents/Home/home_page.htm>
l

"Easily open Windows UNC paths in Entourage using WinShortcutter"

<http://tinyurl.com/cw678m>

 

[Justin]

Justin wrote:

That's an excellent analogy!

Indeed it is.

There's a bit of truth to Don's font analysis in this video:

Generalizing & paraphrasing: Using one font over and over all the time
indicates you are boring and apathetic.

Go download Microsoft's financial statements and K-10.
Business is boring.

If you're a sign maker than yes, fonts can become an issue.

If you love new fonts and enjoy variety in life and hope for better
cross-platform compatibility then you applaud the new fonts. If you are
a cynic in search of conspiracy you might say Microsoft is doing it to
lock you into their product because the exclusive font makes Microsoft's
product less compatible with competing products. The new fonts are nice
and they are the default so most people use them.

Based on what I'm seeing that's not unreasonable. MS Dumped Arial for
something proprietary.
They are the default because MS basically forced it on them.

Click on one of the fonts in the list, then use Apple+a to select all of
them. Then use the Resolve Duplicates command in Font Book. Then click
the triangles of the fonts to reveal any duplicates that were found.
Caution: Font Book will enable only one version of each font name in
this process, but you can right-click or control-click on individual
fonts to enable, disable, or remove them.

You mean Command+a?
I found a dupe - Calibri.
That must have happened when I was forced to reinstall Office thanks to
the crashing and work loss incident.

Well, there are even different versions of Arial that have come out over
the years just from Microsoft. In MS Office on the PC, the Arial font in
2003 has glyphs that are slightly different from previous versions and
in Excel some cells won't display the same as with older Arial. I think
Snow Leopard has an even newer version. The font situation is pretty
messy at the moment.

The plot thickens.
So Microsoft modified the Arial font. Why? Even you have to admit it
sure looks like MS wanted to sabotage it.
PennDOT wanted to outsource maintenance of the PA Turnpike to a private
company.
How would drivers feel if they decided to make the white lane divider
lines bright purple? I don't think it would affect safety, but there's
no reason for it.

It's a very handsome font.

That and its cool to say.

There's still no formatting palette, and OO tends to mimic Windows
Office more than I would like.

Who needs a floating palette? Those things consistently get in the way.
I spend more time dragging them off my view then actually using them.

That's like lumping mashed potatoes together with chives. They're
completely different things, although they can be good together.


Also Omni Group makes project software.


But OO could come up with an equivalent that leverages Spotlight like PG
does, but they don't.

They don't because there are already online solutions outside of OOo
that would probably work with MS Office as well.

Very true. Microsoft supports it. OO does not.


Automator is not part of Office. It is part of Mac OSX. Microsoft Office
can use Automator actions. OO can not.


What's Orb?

The circle in the upper right of (Windows) Office 2007.
At least that's what I thought they were calling it.
Or is that the Windows Vista Start Menu?

It isn't so much that you can add special effects to pictures in OO, you
can. It's that OO does not take advantage of the built-in image effects
available to it via Mac OS X. Microsoft does take advantage of this on
the Mac.

How compatible is it?
(I reinstalled MS Office on here just for you - give me an assignment
and I'll find a way to send the file to you)
I'll do it in OOo and Office '08.

ODF support begins with Office 2010 on the PC. No mention has been made
about specific features for the next version of Mac Office except for
the announcement about VBA.

I checked on my Vista machine running Office '07 - it can save as OD*
but I forgot to test opening.
I did my first (simulated) corporate tax return last night my mind was mush.

Much to the chagrin of OO supporters, the new Microsoft XML formats are
indeed the new ISO standard. ODF is also an XML open format, but was
judged to be less desirable and open than Microsoft's offering.

I have to disagree with that. If there somewhere I can read about that?
MS only released their XML standards in 2008.
Now if they would release it for FAT64/EXFAT so I can transfer my 30GB+
DV files on a USBjumper...
I edit video too - on both platforms.

Neither ODF or Microsoft XML cure the font issues. They are independent.


You missed my point. There's no SQL graphical user interface in OO, but
there is in Microsoft Office. Both rely on the same ODBC query
mechanism, which is independent of both Microsoft and OO and relies on
3rd party ODBC drivers.

Are you sure about that?
If the ODBC connection is visible to the machine it can connect.
I can't do a screens hot right now because I'm getting ready for class.

All true, but OO doesn't have a SQL GUI and Microsoft Office does.


Microsoft at one point announced that VBA would be phased out. MacBU
(the Microsoft Mac business unit) included phase-out plans in Office
2008 to follow the planned phase out in Office 2007 for Windows. When
Windows customers made a large fuss about the discontinuance of VBA,
Microsoft backed off their phase-out plans for Office 2007. On the Mac
side, MacBU got hit with a major change in OS version and at the same
time had to deal with Intel instead of PPC professors, which caused the
VBA compiler to be useless on Mac Intel machines. MacBU faced a similar
fuss from their customers, but not in time to get VBA included in Office
2008. Personally, I think the decision not to include VBA in Office 2008
was the most costly, dumb decision MacBU has ever made.

But VBA on OSX shouldn't be necessary.
How about an interpreter rather than an executor on the OSX side?

That is correct!


Microsoft decided to support Apple's programmability offerings in order
to be as Mac-like as possible. VBA support is important for
cross-platform compatibility with office for Windows. VBA and
AppleScript can pass variables back and forth and can call each other's
routines. Microsoft made VBA work with Apple technologies, and vice-versa.

That must have made for some interesting meetings.
Was security on hand to break up fights?

You'd have to ask Apple. It's their product. If Apple chose to do so,
they could make Applescript work on Windows.

That's right. and MS could make VBA work on OSX - but they seem slow
and fraught with bugs.

I know of only one or two VBA Macro viruses. The problem is that VBA is
sort of old and only allows 64,000 or so characters in a module. You can
have lots of modules, so to get around the character size limit you can
call routines in succession. Also, it's a good programming practice to
modularize, which makes calling various subroutines from executive
routines a good idea. The larger issue is compatibility. By leaving out
key functionality, OO VBA does not work in most cases, making OO not
compatible with Microsoft Office to a significant degree.

Great so they're implementating an obsolete language on a new platform.

ODF did not become the ISO standard.
ISO (International Standards Organizations) rejected ODF in favor of
Microsoft's XML .docx .xlsx and .pptx

Then why does it have a number?
ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications
There is no "the" standard.
http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485

I don't see anything there saying its no longer in favor.


I have to stop here - class.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

But it doesn't work for me. The reason I have Office for the Mac is
so that I can edit the same documents on my Mac that I edit on
Windows. I want to go back and forth, which means, no translations,
just open them and edit them. If I can't do that - it's not easy
enough. (For spreadsheets, that means VB macros).

Yup. MacBU learned that lesson the hard way, and the fact that it comes
up daily means that MacBU is paying for their bad call with lost
goodwill and sales. The return of VBA is a big deal for MacBU and for
many Mac Office users. "Holiday 2010" is the expected delivery date.

What difference does it make which interface came first? Users get
used to one or the other.

At one time there was an effort to make the interface of Office
identical (Office 4.2.1) on Mac and PC. Mac users hated it. They
revolted and sales were hurt as a result.

While Windows is not quite caught up to OS in ease of its interface,
it does have a couple of things that I think work better - possibly
because it was designed later.
Better:
1. In Windows, I can click on a new window and paste immediately.
On a Mac I have to click on a new window, wait for the focus to
arrive, and then paste.
Arguably better:
2. In the Mac, the application's menu is at the top of the screen -
a design that seems to be made for single-tasking. Only one menu is
visible. This saves on real-estate. And it also fits the idea
that in Macs, apps often have multiple pop-up windows. But this
design may be the cause of #1 above.

Apple's user interface guidelines call for real menus. As you point out,
these are characteristics of the operating system that Mac Office goes
along with.

I bet he does. I know that I spend lots more time looking for simple
menu items than I used to before the interface was upgraded. I think
I have Office 2007. I'm on my Windows machine right now, and I just
spent some time trying to find the "about" option to verify my
version. This fits the argument above - we get used to some
interface and we don't like to re-learn it. The new interface is a
huge time-waster to someone who already knew how to do stuff the old
way.

I have to use the ribbon a lot in my work. Although it's been around
several years, I still can't get used to it. I still try to insert a new
slide instead of the new ribbon way of "homing" a new slide.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Indeed it is.

Well, I'm jealous. My analogies don't work nearly as well.

Go download Microsoft's financial statements and K-10.
Business is boring.

If you're a sign maker than yes, fonts can become an issue.

Don't pick on the font-loving people. They're pretty powerful.

Based on what I'm seeing that's not unreasonable. MS Dumped Arial for
something proprietary.
They are the default because MS basically forced it on them.

You can choose to believe that the font changes are for sinister
reasons, but the newer versions have more glyphs to support more
languages. I think is the main reason why they have been updated.

You mean Command+a?

Yea. I'm old-fashioned.

I found a dupe - Calibri.
That must have happened when I was forced to reinstall Office thanks to
the crashing and work loss incident.

I win! LOL. Time for an ice cream.

The plot thickens.
So Microsoft modified the Arial font. Why?

Add more glyphs to support more languages and special characters.

Even you have to admit it
sure looks like MS wanted to sabotage it.

The people who wanted improved language support might disagree.

PennDOT wanted to outsource maintenance of the PA Turnpike to a private
company.
How would drivers feel if they decided to make the white lane divider
lines bright purple? I don't think it would affect safety, but there's
no reason for it.

New York does that with I-90. It worked well for 30 years until 1996
when Mario Cuomo needed some cash and diverted millions. Now I-90
maintenance money pays for the high-tech Erie Canal and other follies
and the organization that's supposed to maintain I-90 is forced to do
other roads for free.

The circle in the upper right of (Windows) Office 2007.
At least that's what I thought they were calling it.
Or is that the Windows Vista Start Menu?

You mean the upper left. Microsoft calls it the "office button."
Everyone I know calls it the "pizza button." It goes away in Office 2010.

How compatible is it?

Once you've applied a special effect to a picture it's still a picture.
It's as compatible as any other picture.

(I reinstalled MS Office on here just for you - give me an assignment
and I'll find a way to send the file to you)
I'll do it in OOo and Office '08.

If it's bad compatibility you seek, make some graphs and customize them.

I checked on my Vista machine running Office '07 - it can save as OD*
but I forgot to test opening.
I did my first (simulated) corporate tax return last night my mind was
mush.

I know Microsoft made a special effort to make ODF compatibility a
priority in Office 2010. That's the version I would use as a benchmark.

I have to disagree with that. If there somewhere I can read about that?
MS only released their XML standards in 2008.
Now if they would release it for FAT64/EXFAT so I can transfer my 30GB+
DV files on a USBjumper...
I edit video too - on both platforms.

It's a long story. This is a good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Office_Open_XML_ISO_Standardization_Ballot_Results

Are you sure about that?
If the ODBC connection is visible to the machine it can connect.
I can't do a screens hot right now because I'm getting ready for class.

I don't think you can drag and drop headers and joins in OO. I would be
delighted to learn that I am wrong about that if I am incorrect.

But VBA on OSX shouldn't be necessary.
How about an interpreter rather than an executor on the OSX side?

The complication was that the Mac VBA compiler is hardware specific.
Without a PPC chip, the existing compiler was useless. MacBU is building
a new compiler for the Mac Intel platform. Here's some background from
one of the MacBU folks involved with the VBA decision:
http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/08/saying-goodbye-to-visual-basic/comment-page-1/

That must have made for some interesting meetings.
Was security on hand to break up fights?

LOL. Not really. You'd be surprised to learn how much Microsoft and
Apple work together on Mac Office. They have an efficient, cordial, yet
arms length process to iron out bugs.

That's right. and MS could make VBA work on OSX - but they seem slow
and fraught with bugs.

It's coming back. Be patient!

Great so they're implementating an obsolete language on a new platform.

OO recently made a significant effort to improve their VBA
compatibility. At least they heard from users how they would like it to
be. Perhaps they will change their minds about what is desirable.

Then why does it have a number?
ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications
There is no "the" standard.
http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485

I don't see anything there saying its no longer in favor.

ODF is still a favorite of OO fans, and it's a fine format, but it is
not the format that the ISO went with. Wikipedia has more details about
this.

-Jim