Hi Glenn,
There was a Mac PowerPoint viewer for Version 4.
There are alternatives to using a PowerPoint viewer. Some of them involve
saving files in different format. As you pointed out, there's an option to
Save As a QuickTime Movie (Mac only). Both Mac and Windows have the ability
to save as a web page. This requires IE to play properly. The web page
feature works pretty well most of the time. But you could argue, "It's just
not the same" and I wouldn't disagree.
There's another option that is being strongly touted at work, and this to
use OpenOffice as a player for PowerPoint presentations. Be sure to try your
presentations out in this product before you recommend using it. IMHO
OpenOffice has a long, long, long, long way to go before it can claim to be
compatible with current versions of Office.
The best option to play PowerPoint shows is the obvious one: use PowerPoint.
Not only do you get to watch presentations you get the ability to create
your own. Plus the very nice people who put PowerPoint together get a little
$$ and then the MacBu can continue to make new versions. One of the key
problems with a viewer is that cuts into sales. Without Macintosh sales,
then there's no Mac PowerPoint. There's only a handful of people who make
PowerPoint. Would you want them to spend their time making a viewer or
making new features? Personally I prefer new features. New features will
sell new copies of PowerPoint. I don't think a free viewer will have that
effect.
That being said, if you would like to suggest to Microsoft that they
reconsider making a Mac version of the PowerPoint viewer there's a URL set
up for exactly that purpose. Suggestions are read and tracked by product
managers, although you probably won't get a personal reply.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/feedback/suggestion.asp
This may be the first time I've urged anyone to *not* send feedback on a
topic. I had an opportunity to see Office 2004 demonstrated at Macworld. The
new features are very worthwhile. I can't wait for 2004 to be released. I
know that if Microsoft had spent time making a viewer, then we wouldn't be
getting as many new features. If I could urge you to wait a few weeks, try
PowerPoint 2004 and then use that link to suggest even more cool features to
add to PowerPoint. I am hoping (and trying to persuade you to my view) that
you will agree with me that a viewer ought to be secondary to new features.
Remember, there are thousands of programmers working on Office for Windows.
There are 160 people in the entire Mac Business unit and only some are
programmers working on Microsoft Mac applications. When you see what the
tiny handful of programmers have done with Office 2004 I think you will be
wowed.
