Microsoft kills off support for MacOffice 2004

There is an alternative, NeoOffice at www.neooffice.org is a FREE Office suite based on OpenOffice and is available for both the older PPC Macs and Intel Macs. It just needs 512MB Ram and about 400MB hard drive space so it'll probably run okay even on an old iMac G3.

Other than that OpenOffice.org 3 has a native Mac port for Intel Macs.

It's always worth considering before forking out shedloads for the next version of MS Office which will no doubt need a faster CPU and bags more memory for hardly any improvement in productivity!

Rob

what better way to prove your superiority Than by having to pay more and more and more.

The applebots should rejoice with this great news.

You know the support for Office 2003(windows) has ended too. Its part of the natural life cycle of the product.

Microsoft to not provide telephone support, and patches indefinitely with the only exception being Windows XP that they just can't kill.

if only pcs were so reliable as mac. the only program that works so bad on my mac is microsoft!

its been 9 months with a mac and i cant even remember why I kept pc before it crashes for the 1000 time..

Unlike phasing out support for Office 2003, phasing out support for Office 2004 means no support for the latest version of Office on the Mac supporting VBA.

Ello, :)

Yeah im well aware of that. What amuses me is those applebots that will turn right around and get the newest version of office for no other reason than what you just said.

Its at the end of its life, time to buy new.
Thats a heck of a waste of money in my book.
You and i know there are people who do that and like it or not applites are the worse of the bunch.

Hence my picking. :)

Fuck Microsoft. I went with OpenOffice a long time ago (for PC, Mac and Linux), and never regretted it. OpenOffice 3.0 is even native on MacOSX, so no farting around with X11 either. Works great, no muss, no fuss.

Just say no to the Vole.

Could someone explain WHY we have to upgrade when MS cuts off support? I can't remember ever needing support from MS. Office 2000 still works just fine and does all I want it to do. File format compatibility with newer versions is the only problem.

I have not encountered anyone that upgrades Office unless they are really forced to.
I know Windows users still running Office 97, and Mac users still running Office 98 on System 9, they see no reason to upgrade as there needs are Met.
This is not uncommon on any platform, no one is going to shell out £1800 every 18 months for a new Adobe suite nor £100 for slight cross grade to the next version of Office or any other software and it does not matter what platform the user is running as it is the same users no mater what platform they use.
Mac users, Linux users, Solaris user, and Windows users there all the same types of people that have the same money worries, mortgages, desires for holidays, and clothes. Having a Mac does not automatically mean that i will upgrade my software more regularly than anyone else.
I run Office 2008 and Adobe CS3 only because i did not have Office 2004 to begin with and its a 3 user license so i only need 1 copy.
I will not upgrade Office until there is a compelling reason to do so and i will not upgrade my Adobe suite until CS5 is out and i will look at the value for money once a trial is offered. My colleges share the same view that unless there is a compelling reason don't upgrade and i know many home users that have PC's or Macs that for the main part stick with the software that is provided and upgrade every 5 years and use the stock that the new computer provides.

Even the few comments here and people don't have a clue what this means and doesn't mean.

1) You can no longer call Microsoft when you have a problem with the software.

(If you think you are going to get 'support' with OpenOffice, you are insane. Your only support is online help, forums, user groups, and this will CONTINUE for Office 2004 just like it exists for OpenOffice's latest version.)

2) Only 'critical' security updates are maintained for the product. So no more updates, but if there is a severe security flaw, an update will still be available.

3) Apple themselves no longer offer support for OS X 10.3, released about the same time. In fact, Apple hasn't offered 'official' OS X 10.3 support for a couple of years. TRULY REQUIRING USERS TO UPGRADE TO GET UPDATES AND EVEN CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATES.

(How come it is news that MS drops support for an application, yet when Apple dropped support for the OS from the same time, nobody noticed, or cares?)

4) You don't have to upgrade, if you are happy, keep running it.
(Again Microsoft will still release critical security updates for the product and not REQUIRE you to buy the latest version, which Apple doesn't even do for 10.3 OS X users, and instead DO REQUIRE users to upgrade to a newer version to get something as basic as even security patches.)

As for comparing OpenOffice to MS Office is like telling people DOS is a good replacement for Linux. And that is also insane...

I actually like OpenOffice and use it on Ubuntu, but don't try to sell people that it is a 'real' replacement for MS Office.

OpenOffice doesn't even meet the features of something as old as MS Office95/98, let alone something like Office 2007/2008. There is a difference of literally over a thousand features.

me too

Apple do supply 10.x.x updates for previous systems and security patches though rare even 10.3 has had a security patch last year along with a 10.4 patch Apple just do not however have a such a good support package as Microsoft and tend to only support your OS for upto 3 years if bought with a system and extended warrenty.

I can say the same thing about any Apple software installed on my Windows PC.

I don't think ms require you to upgrade. You can keep using your current office if you think it's enough. I'm still using office 2003 now. Not planning to upgrade to 2007 cause i don't think i need to.
I think a free 5 years support is not too bad. I mean i don't expect ms is still giving support for my windows 98 now.