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There's a crowd of Mac users who enjoy jeering at Microsoft every chance they get. You know the type. They stand up to boo every time the image of Bill Gates flashes on the screen at a MacWorld conference, or they spread jokes about the Microsoft chairman in newsgroups.
Now, I admit, it's great fun to poke a stick in the eye of a giant, especially if you're out of its reach. But let's face it, folks. Microsoft is terribly important to Apple and the Mac. The company remains the single largest developer of Mac software. Its word processor and spreadsheet programs are even more dominant in the Mac world than they are among PC users. All of us better pray Microsoft continues to take the Mac seriously.
The good news is, if the latest version of Microsoft Office is any guide, the company still does. Due out in October, Office 2001 for Mac is still very much a work in progress. Nonetheless, the early versions look impressive. Microsoft has worked hard to incorporate the best of Apple's new technologies into Office.
NEW LOOK. As with its predecessors, Office 2001 is a monster. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software, and a new personal-information manager. There's no way I can do justice to all these programs in one column. So I'm going to review Office in pieces over several columns in coming weeks, starting with an overview of the highlights. I'll focus first on features that work across the Office 2001 suite.
With Office 2001, what you'll initially notice is the striking new look. In the past, that would have meant yet an additional row of buttons to clutter up the screen. But not this time. Microsoft has actually gone in the opposite direction, tidying its busy interface. The program now sports a clean, if not dazzling, look that's easier to understand and use. (I'm not sure Microsoft, an engineering company at heart, can do "pretty.") Office 2001 even gives you the option of setting up the program to run without any buttons or toolbars.
Office 2001 has also finally incorporated the look of the modern Mac. Its windows are the same understated chrome coloring of the Apple operating system. And the suite even sports some of the look of Apple's forthcoming new operating system, OS X. As in OS X, you'll find that windows in Office become transparent as you drag them about the screen.
OLD COMPLAINTS. Being a Mac enthusiast in a PC world has never been easy, and one of the biggest pains is sharing files with others. All too often, a PC user can't read a document written on a Mac and vice versa. Office 2001 tries to solve this problem, letting you save a Mac file in a way any PC using Office can read. You do it by clicking a button in the Save As dialog box added to every Office 2001 program. This adds the three-letter extension that PCs need to identify a file. Microsoft has also made it easier to share files with many Mac applications, including the biggest, Apple's own AppleWorks suite of programs.
One of the longest running complaints against Office has been that it's confusing and overwhelming to use, especially for newbies. They'd wonder, "Gee, do I use the spreadsheet or the word processor to create an invoice?" Microsoft has finally heard those complaints and is addressing them with a new feature in Office 2001 called project gallery. What project gallery does is present you with a collection of detailed templates for standard documents such as newsletters, expense forms, and birthday cards. Click on the template, and Office 2001 selects the right programs for the task and gets you started. If you've made your own template, it can be added to the project gallery for quick access.
These are all much needed improvements. But they're only the beginning in Office 2001. Many of the big changes are within individual programs, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I'll take a look at the alterations Microsoft has made to each of these popular programs in coming weeks. But it looks like Mac fans have another reason to be grateful to Big Bad Bill.
Haddad, Atlanta-based correspondent for Business Week, is a long-time Apple Computer buff. If you're one, too, follow his weekly column, only on BW Online Edited by Beth Belton
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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