![]() ![]() ![]() And considering how fabulous Excel 2007 is - I consider the 64-bit incarnation of that program the best thing to happen to spreadsheets since the spreadsheet - there is no reason for quants to mess with Macs.įor the right business - say, a 12- to 15-person firm that manages heavy digital content, that works remotely across the country or deals with iterative graphics such as constantly updated presentation materials - Office for Mac offers a tantalizing upside.Į-mail and calendaring in Entourage is simply unparalleled. Visual Basic script is, amazingly, not entirely supported, nor are the powerful pivot tables found in Excel running on a PC. Small businesses that do lots of calculations should stay away: Excel on the Mac is just awful. ![]() And that's without adding in all the attendant nickel-and-dime licenses and arcane yet costly issues that crop up with remote connectivity. I've seen figures of $50,000 for a business with, say, 25 remote employees. But there's a hitch: You need Microsoft's crazy-expensive Exchange servers. An application called Project Center ties together essentially every document, e-mail and piece of content your business has in collaborative ways that could reweave the fabric of your business. Office for Mac offers powerful collaboration features. That's just the start of what you'll spend. Talk back: Have you tried MS Office on a Mac? Though not as expensive as they once were, iMacs, MacBooks and Mac Pro machines will still cost you at least $1,100 per computer at rock bottom, and likely more. That runs $399, though there is also a $499 version optimized for media companies creating video. Though a home and student edition is priced at $150, the version you want includes crucial support for the Microsoft Exchange server and the powerful Automator program (more on that in a minute). It's probably the most expensive office suite you could install. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is not for every small business. But in my testing, this riff on the Microsoft flagship flourishes in the current Apple OS X Leopard environment. The code optimizes for Macs the now-ubiquitous line of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and e-mail and calendaring tools (for the Mac, Entourage takes the place of Outlook).įor the most part, Office 2008 for Mac simply emulates Office 2007 for the PC. Still, I found one business application at which Macs consistently excelled: running Microsoft Office.Įarlier this year, the Macintosh Business Unit, one of the oldest teams at Microsoft, released Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac - not to be confused with Microsoft Office 2007, which runs on the Windows Vista and XP operating systems. In my testing, pages just sometimes wouldn't load or render properly. And if you use Web-based office productivity tools like Google ( GOOG, Fortune 500) Apps, Basecamp or Zoho, expect trouble. I found connectivity to non-Apple mobile devices like RIM ( RIMM)'s Blackberry or a smartphone to be particularly treacherous. Also, major compatibility issues still lurk. You basically never stop fiddling with the control, option and command keys. In several months of side-by-side testing of iMacs and PCs, I found that gains in speed can be offset by user confusion in mastering Mac's approach to the Web. Integration of the Intel ( INTC, Fortune 500) processing chips and other bits of electronics, the popularity of the iPhone and the iPod, and the emergence of virtual desktop environments such as VMware ( VMW) means the Berlin Wall between all things Mac and all things PC is nowhere near as treacherous as it was just a few years ago.īut turning the newly plays-nice-with-others Mac into a real ROI generator in your shop is no slam dunk, if you're accustomed to working with Windows machines. Macs, used as they are intended in their full 64-bit glory, are blazingly fast. The Apple ( AAPL, Fortune 500) line of personal computers and peripherals offers the small enterprise a tantalizing - if frustrating - set of risks and rewards. (Fortune Small Business) - How's this for the ultimate digital-age, small-business irony: Want the best possible environment for Microsoft ( MSFT, Fortune 500) Office? Try running it on a Mac. ![]()
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