iWork ‘08 Vs. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac!
Well, I’m thinking of buying a MacBook and Sumesh suggested me to buy the basic MacBook (I.e. 2 GHz processor one) and said that I should go for an extra 1 gig RAM along with it. I thought that not a bad deal, considering that I can get cheap RAM for MacBook and install it myself.
He also said that I should re-think about my decision as piracy of Mac applications is nil (well, he just warned about it although he himself is against piracy and believes in Open-Source. You should check his techzilo blog for sure!). I don’t use pirated stuff but still the statement got me wondering that how come it is possible that the underworld is leaving the Mac applications behind, I just couldn’t digest the statement.
So, I thought of running a test and searched for torrent for iWork ‘08 on various torrent search engines and guess what I found them too! However, the strange thing was that there were no seeders and no leechers!
Well, that made me curious and I decided to search for the torrent of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and guess what! I found the torrent and this time someone was seeding it and some one was leeching it too!
Now, the question arises that is that the people want to only hurt Microsoft or is it that they believe that Microsoft office is much superior software that iWork ? What do you think about it ?
Other Important Articles
- Piracy is good for everyone : Trust me, it is!
- Office on Demand – Box.net integrates with Office!
- Get Microsoft Office Ultimate for only $ 59.95!
- Zoho gets better with Microsoft Office!
- Finally Ulteo listened to me – Takes the right approach!
Vinod
January 24th, 2008 at 6:35 am #
Congratulations on your thoughts to buy a Mac. You won’t regret it!
Btw, You don’t have to pirate iWorks’08. Most of the time , it is preinstalled on the Mac. If you decide to buy it , you buy the serial number online from the Apple store using credit card or buy the CD on the retail store. The Microsoft Office 2008 is not available as a separate download. It is pushed as a ‘System update’ on the Mac. Hence you see a lot of people seeding the installation file for it for easy download.
ReviewSaurus
January 24th, 2008 at 12:44 pm #
@ Vinod : well, I don’t use pirated stuff as I mentioned in the post. I get all the serials for free…that’s the power of blogging :)
The mac will come only after 2 months from now… :( Anyway, I saw people on the torrents seeding MS Office, So I’m guessing that it is available as a separate download too
Vinod
January 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm #
How do you get all serials for free by blogging?!.. I’m curious.
ReviewSaurus
January 24th, 2008 at 1:02 pm #
@ Vinod : Well, that’s a secret :P
Well, nothing like that. Because I write review of products, so it becomes easy for me to get the serials. I get approached by companies and they give me serials for reviewing the products. Sometimes, I just approach the companies and ask for the serials.
However, I would also like to add that I still keep my reviews unbiased :)
Roberto Carlos Moscoso
January 25th, 2008 at 12:37 am #
Congratz on the mac buy :} if you’re talking money, iworks is only 89 dollars vs MsOffice which starts on 200, ok with that said, if you use macros, and work with a lot of different functions on excel and are one of those who just loves excel, numbers (in iwork) wont do it for you, but if you like to do things that just work, clean, easy and fast, specially fast and clean, numbers is sweet! for an unexperienced spreadsheet user, it’s the best experience you can get, and it comes cheaper, besides, the full version of office has a few things like the mail program and some others I don’t remember nor do I use! for an office suit iworks just cuts it right, save you’re self from pain, agony and loss of money and just buy iworks :D its worth it.
ReviewSaurus
January 25th, 2008 at 5:59 am #
Thanks Roberto for taking time to leave the comment :)
Well, I’m really not worried about much things. I just wanted to test that how pirates are dealing with different companies. I mostly use Google docs but I love zoho a lot and probably will shift to that only. It not only gives me the flexibility to stay online but I don’t have to worry about lot of other factors.
Neo office always there as far as advanced spreadsheet is concerned. I’m live on free and open source stuff.
However, as you are suggesting iworks, I’ll definitely give it a try and if I find it as you are suggesting…..I’ll buy it too :)
Sumesh
January 25th, 2008 at 11:24 am #
I’m thinking of buying Keynote(isn’t it the presentation app?) plus download Neo office when I buy the MBP/MB.
Keynote can make beautiful graphs and charts, like those on Problogger poll results. That alone is enough for me to spring and buy it!
And yes, like you Mayank, I too live on free open-source stuff, except some times like KeyNote.
Judgewest
February 4th, 2008 at 6:53 pm #
I suspect the reasoning behind Office 2008 being easily spread via torrent and iWork not being, is that people want Office 2008 and probably are not very much interested in iWork.
When you look into the piracy of the Microsoft OS World, you will notice that Windows XP is still largely in demand, more so than the Vista counterpart.
Is this because Vista is harder to crack so piraters have stayed away? No. It’s simply because people WANT Windows XP and don’t want Vista. If people won’t steal it, what chance is there of people buying it???
Time will tell for the iWork suite compared to Office, but I believe this round has gone to Microsoft. Bring on Round 2… or 3… or …?
ReviewSaurus
February 4th, 2008 at 7:03 pm #
@ Judgewest : I’m glad!!! Atleast there is someone who’s talking in favor of Microsoft, normally I don’t get too much visitors who are supporter of Microsoft! Sir, You certainly rock!
The points you said are what exactly I was hoping that someone will write and it’s good too see that my wishes got complete before they died :)
As far as bringing on more rounds are concerned, I’ll definitely think of doing that :)
Vinod
February 4th, 2008 at 7:41 pm #
Yesterday I bought a copy of iWorks ‘08. I have been evaluating Microsoft Office 2008 and iWorks’08 for last couple of weeks. Office 2008 runs a tad bit slow on iMac. iWorks with its limited feature set worked quick and well for me.
Mog
February 5th, 2008 at 3:15 am #
hey do you know where to get cheap iwork in australia, melbourne. And what is the best program to create really good presentations on mac. Are there any good fps games too?
ReviewSaurus
February 5th, 2008 at 4:28 am #
@ Mog : I’m not sure about where you can get it cheap or discounted copy of iwork in melbourne, australia (physical at least), however I searched about iwork on ebay and found that there were lot of sellers selling iwork (box packed) at discounted prices.
However, there was no one selling it for cheap at ebay australia. But, if you can get it shipped from US/Canada, then this link should be able to help you : http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=iwork&category0=
ReviewSaurus
February 5th, 2008 at 4:32 am #
@ Vinod : So, What do you think that iWorks is a better choice or MS Office ? I guess it’ll be MS Office for power users and iWork for users who don’t want to do much with office apps..right ?
Anyway, how was MS Office 2008, is it similar to normal Microsoft office ?
Dilip P
February 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pm #
I’m using both iWork ‘08 & Microsoft Office ‘08 for MAC. To be honest, they are both good in their own ways. Keynote kicks ass and beats Powerpoint hands-down. Pages in iWork is great as well, the templates in them are pretty good compared to the one’s in Word. Now for one good thing in Office that beats iWork. Office has a application called the Entourage. Entourage is a mail client/calendar/project manager All-in-One.
Mail & iCal is nothing compared to Entourage. I don’t see a slow-down in computing while working with Office applications. Now that should be something in support of MSFT :)
Vinod
February 19th, 2008 at 9:52 pm #
@ReviewSaurus:
My thoughts are exactly similar to Dilip’s. Entourage was really stable but unfortunately I cannot connect to office VPN.
renzo11
February 28th, 2008 at 1:30 am #
Thanks for all the comments…..I am new to Mac…just bought the MacBook Air this week after my PC laptop was stolen. I work on Excel often and Word all the time. I have a trial version of iWorks that seems to work great and is much cheaper than Office 2008. My main question is simple – many of the people I deal with use the steadfast MS Office 2003 version and not everyone has upgraded to Office 2007. If I transact using either iWorks or Office 2008 for Mac will others using older software be able to open my documents? I would hate to drop $400 on Office 2008 and be the only person that I can send stuff to.
JG
March 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pm #
renzo11 – I am in a similar situation. It’s all workable, but a pain! I use Office 2007, iworks and Mac Office 2003, all exchange files just fine. The main problem is versions, Keynote is great, exports to PowerPoint etc. You just need to keep a check on how you save the files. The real bug is the occasional loss of formats when saving as 2003. Interesting that Mac software will save as an MS equivalent, MS won’t.
Brando
March 5th, 2008 at 11:11 pm #
I became a mac user over a year ago, and before then I was a pretty big pirate. After becoming a mac user I have had less of a desire to pirate. I think there are a few reasons why: 1. Mac’s come with some great starter software so there isn’t much that needs to be pirated from the start. 2. Apple programs are much more reasonably priced, and are much more user friendly. I don’t mind shelling out the money for apple programs because I think they are worth it. I think a lot of people would be more willing to pay for the software if it was more reasonably priced. 3. I think mac users have more pride in Apple than windows users have in Microsoft. (ask each about Vista and Leopard) Oh and iwork is much better than Word 08… I couldn’t be happier.
Chrules
March 24th, 2008 at 5:03 am #
#renzo11 congrats on the MBA.. I mysellf just bought a Macbook, and i get it in 2 days :p
I know that in Office 2007 you can choose to save you files for the older version. I think this also is for Office 2008. As far as for iWorks i don’t know yet what format it saves the Office documents in. But you shouldn’t be worried, cause there is a lot of software out there to convert 07(08) to 03 (ex: meaning from docx to doc)
File converter for windows: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en
For Mac: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab66b5bf-37c3-41bb-945e-784782fc582c&DisplayLang=en
Andy
June 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm #
I just bought a MacBook Air two days ago and absolutely LOVE the thing in comparison to my Sony VAIO HDTV/PC. I mean, I like both for different reasons, but I have to admit that OS X really kills Vista in the long run. All my computers except for one run Windows Vista… and the one that doesn’t has had Windows swell so bad that it has nearly annihilated the poor HD. :(
I have both iWork ‘08 and Microsoft Office ‘08 for Mac installed on the MacBook Air and both work just fine. Like others have said, iWork has much more… attractive templates than its MS counterparts, but all in all, when I need to open MS Documents with exclusive MS formats (as in Excel), it comes in handy.
Although I have to say that Macs are hell of a lot more attractive than PCs and to add to it, the graphics functionality of a Mac is about 40 times better than that of a Windows Vista enabled PC. I say this because my Sony VAIO running Vista Ultimate can’t even BEGIN to produce the results that Mac OS X Leopard has produced using the Adobe Creative Suite CS3. :)
Chris Reig
June 29th, 2008 at 6:53 pm #
I have been using iWork 08 for four months now and I think it is great. I started using iWork when I switched to Mac, having been a Microsoft / Office combo user for many years, and with the pain of Vista, I decided that I had had enough. I’m in my last year of school, so it has mostly been for my assignments and reports, but I have done a lot of other things with it.
I have used Pages to do some very, very nice flyers and A3 colour posters for a school musical I had a lead role in, I haven’t used Numbers very much as I haven’t needed to as yet, however on the time I did for a Geography assignment involving a lot of surveyed statistics, it worked extremely well at managing the data and presenting it. And Keynote I have used to present some oral presentations for English and Business. People told me that it “Looked really good…. better than their Powerpoints”.
For me? It works great, especially for the price. For a tax analyst or something along those lines, I would imagine not so great. But if you are like me: a student that has basic, student needs, then iWork is definitely the product for you…. if you have a Mac, that is.
christopher
July 16th, 2008 at 2:17 pm #
i have a question for this viao software stuff.. Can you use pirated software for Vaio laptops?? some people say that Vaio have this ditector for pirated software.. but i’m not sure about it. wat do u think?
thx
nik
August 12th, 2008 at 1:48 am #
Well the reason why there is no iWork 08 is because you can basically download the entire version (even though its trial) off Apples website, then just search for iWorks Registration key on any torrent site, you’ll find one for sure. Why download iWork off a torrent site, when you can download it off Apples’ high speed server!
Scott LaShay
August 17th, 2008 at 5:08 am #
Iwork doesn’t come installed with new macs. But it is much cheaper that even MS office home edition, and I think Pages and Keynote absolutely blow away their MS counterparts. But, I’ve heard alot of people having a hard time switching over to numbers.
Rick Harris
August 18th, 2008 at 11:53 am #
Does anyone have any idea when Apple will be releasing the next version of iWork? I bet by then, Apple will have come up with a new and better version of Numbers that will make the whole iWork vs. MS office question obsolete.
ELBSeattle
September 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am #
I upgraded to Microsoft Office 08 for the Mac a few weeks ago. I have to say that I do not like any of the ‘improvements’ Microsoft made on Word, which is the element of Office I use the most. The documents are clunky, slow, and littered with all kinds of stuff that is hard to navigate or get rid of. (The new ‘Elements Gallery’ toolbar is in every new document whether you like it or not. And… I don’t like it.)
I downloaded a trial version of iWork, and have been working with Pages. What a big difference! This seems to be put together with much more thought and style. I can export Pages documents to iWeb, or as Word documents, or rtf files. Plus, adding artistic elements to a page is not only easy, it’s fun and very creative. Just the way Apple likes it.
I am going to ditch Microsoft Office 08 and spring for iWork. That’s my 2ยข.
Ann Landau
December 12th, 2008 at 8:28 am #
I bought an aluminum MacBook, the lower price model. I am not a power user. Perhaps for that reason Apple sales person sold me Office for Student/Home because he said you are used to that. However, in my fear of having a Microsoft product mess up my Mac or make it very slow, I have not installed it. In the meantime, I have downloaded the trial version of iWork. I sent a letter from iWork as an attachment to an email to my daughter-in-law who has a Windows machine. She said she could open it but it came compressed…she had to unzip it and it came with other files…but she said she could do it. She also has home an student version of Office but not sure which year. I still think I will spring for the iWorks and keep everything on the Mac all Apple. I would return the Office to the store but I took the cellophane off. Not smart.
tom gow
January 8th, 2009 at 6:06 am #
whats the crack
encryptedGuy
January 13th, 2009 at 8:32 am #
Well, personally, I think Excel is one of the best pieces of software by MS, and I guess most hardcore excel users (which I am not) will just never switch to Numbers.
However, I like Pages more than Word. I think it makes diagramming easier and it offeres more possibilities to compose "pro-looking" documents.
But, as much as Excel might be the best in its field, Keynote is LIGHT YEARS over Powerpoint. No possible comparison.
So.. you would probably benefit of having both. In my case, iWork is a natural decision.
shamrock
January 24th, 2009 at 10:45 pm #
So if I am an advanced Excel user at my job and want to be able to work on Excel files at home on my Mac, would you get iWork or Microsoft Office Home?
shamrock
January 25th, 2009 at 9:48 pm #
So if I am an advanced Excel user at my job and want to be able to work on Excel files at home on my Mac, would it be best to use iWork or Microsoft Office?
LIZHOU
February 10th, 2009 at 11:22 pm #
Currently, I am tend to buy a MacBook. From what u guys saying, I think I have made an absolutely right decision. Looking forward to use it.
asha
March 7th, 2009 at 9:53 pm #
can someone kindly give me the serial number for iwork 08…??
iMacdonalds
April 14th, 2009 at 6:03 am #
Bill Gates has some money to lose, why not just take it from him.