EmiratesMac Has Preliminary Discussions With Microsoft About Collaboration

[Magnus]

We had a long and good conversation with a representative for Microsoft GCC today. We've been trying to get in touch with them for quite some time to just introduce EmiratesMac and what we do and so today it finally happened. There are really no concrete details to reveal yet but we hope we can bring you more in the coming months. It was a good conversation and if nothing else now we know we have a contact within Microsoft here, which is good.

If you have particular problems or issues or want to share your experience concerning Microsoft Office for Mac, we've set up a forum dedicated to issues with those applications: Microsoft Office for Mac - EmiratesMac. If you have any other questions, issues, suggestions, etc. concerning Microsoft post it on the site or send it to us and we'll bring it to Microsoft's attention.

We'd like to thank Microsoft for this opportunity to start some collaboration with them and hope that we can work on many things together. As Apple-fans we may at times make fun of Microsoft and particular Microsoft products, but most of us also use Microsoft products all the time. At least I know that's the case for me.

[iDubai]

That is great!

Next > APPLE

[DXB Law]

Originally Posted by Magnus

We had a long and good conversation with a representative for Microsoft GCC today. We've been trying to get in touch with them for quite some time to just introduce EmiratesMac and what we do and so today it finally happened. There are really no concrete details to reveal yet but we hope we can bring you more in the coming months. It was a good conversation and if nothing else now we know we have a contact within Microsoft here, which is good.

If you have particular problems or issues or want to share your experience concerning Microsoft Office for Mac, we've set up a forum dedicated to issues with those applications: Microsoft Office for Mac - EmiratesMac. If you have any other questions, issues, suggestions, etc. concerning Microsoft post it on the site or send it to us and we'll bring it to Microsoft's attention.

We'd like to thank Microsoft for this opportunity to start some collaboration with them and hope that we can work on many things together. As Apple-fans we may at times make fun of Microsoft and particular Microsoft products, but most of us also use Microsoft products all the time. At least I know that's the case for me.

It may be stating the obvious, but what we desperately need from Microsoft Office is support for unicode fonts and RTL scripts so that the Mac version of Microsoft Office will support Arabic.

[Magnus]

Originally Posted by DXB Law

It may be stating the obvious, but what we desperately need from Microsoft Office is support for unicode fonts and RTL scripts so that the Mac version of Microsoft Office will support Arabic.

It may be obvious but perhaps not to Microsoft. We'll bring this to their attention.

[DXB Law]

Originally Posted by Magnus

It may be obvious but perhaps not to Microsoft. We'll bring this to their attention.

Thanks. There was a great deal of optimism that Office 2008 would address this, but unfortunately it did not. I have decided to stick with Office 2004 for the time being because -- without support for Arabic -- I really don't see a reason to upgrade.

[fangpyre]

Actually, 2008 is better in regards to a few things.
It handles Arabic better than before, but not good enough.
It is also native so it is faster.
And of course a few other options here and there.

[DXB Law]

Originally Posted by fangpyre

Actually, 2008 is better in regards to a few things.
It handles Arabic better than before, but not good enough.
It is also native so it is faster.
And of course a few other options here and there.

Yes, I guess it's better than running 2004 under Rosetta and chewing up all my system memory. Other than that what do you see as the major benefits of 2008? Maybe I should reconsider and upgrade after all?

[fangpyre]

If you are using alternatives than it makes sense to stick with them.
However, if you are using Office then do it.

THis version is more of an Mac Office than any other MS Office.
It has better integration on many levels.
It handles graphics in a better way (but not as well as iWorks)
It also has some good graphing capabilities.
I also like that PowerPoint handles Arabic properly.
And of course, MS Word remains the best word processor, and for some people/projects there are no substitutes.

[DXB Law]

Originally Posted by fangpyre

If you are using alternatives than it makes sense to stick with them.
However, if you are using Office then do it.

THis version is more of an Mac Office than any other MS Office.
It has better integration on many levels.
It handles graphics in a better way (but not as well as iWorks)
It also has some good graphing capabilities.
I also like that PowerPoint handles Arabic properly.
And of course, MS Word remains the best word processor, and for some people/projects there are no substitutes.

I use Office heavily -- (1) Word for word processing (there is no substitute if you are in a business environment, since 96% of the world uses Windows and the vast majority of Windows users use MS Word), (2) Entourage for business email because I like the projects and categories, and I like syncing my calendar across my server, (3) Excel for those rare occasions when other people send me a spreadsheet, and (4) Power Point for presentations.

I own iWorks, and it's true that you can do some cool stuff with it but I actually find it much harder to use than MS Office. And, since the whole point of being a Mac user is the overall user experience, I see no reason to punish myself just to prove an anti-MS point.

Two questions about Office 2008 (both Entourage questions):

1) Does Entourage 2008 support the request of read/deliver receipts? Neither Mail nor Entourage 2004 allow this; so far Thunderbird is the only email client for Mac I've found that supports this function.

2) Does Entourage 2008 open .msg files created in Outlook? Entourage 2004 does not; in order to open these I need to use MS Office for Windows running under Parallels.

[fangpyre]

If you use MS Office just because of compatibility, I suggest NeoOfice.
However, like I said MS Office is THE best word processor.
But if you don't use its features, it doesn't make sense to shell out the extra cash.

However, I presume that you write extensive write ups.
And MS Office would be a saviour, especially if used correctly.
Something that most people overlook is Word's indexing and style features.

I agree with you about taking a bullet just to make a point.
To quote a friend "To spite cleanliness, he pissed in his pants"
Its just plain stupid.

But if you give many presentations, then you would be amazed what Keynote can do.

There is nothing like the projects and categories in Entourage.
However, I switched from Entourage, the single database file scares the kahoonas out of me.
And it puts a huge load on Time Machine.

Back to your questions.
1) This is what I got off Entourage Help Page

Return Receipts are not included in Entourage 2008
How can I request a return receipt from sent mails?
Go to Tools -> Accounts.
Under the Mail tab, edit the mail account you want to send from.
Click the Options tab.
Under "Additional Headers", add in a new header: Disposition-Notification-To
Under Value, type your e-mail address.

2) I don't have an MSG file to try it. If you attach one, i'll try it for you.
However, this website says it does.
MSG File Extension - Open .MSG files

I know a few people that use MS Office over parallels or Crossover, just to solve all of these issues.