Morning all,
Thinking of moving to Apple, but as well as the computer cost, I'll have to figure in software. Will their own software "iworks" be readable by MS users (thinking doc's and spreadsheets) or will I need MS Office. I know I'll already need to buy Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop, so it's starting to look a bit costly!
Seems a shame to load all the MS stuff onto a Mac!

iwork can read/save office docs but I end up using Office most of the time because that's what I'm used to/everyone else uses.

I have 'trial' versions of Office and Illustrator/PS – depends how you feel about such things.

Don't be precious. 🙂
Use either bootcamp to dual boot into MS, or, better still, Parallels or Fusion to run your existing packages until you can afford the mac versions.
iwork is compatible with Office, but I'm not sure of the limitations, if any.

My imac came from John Lewis and they threw in a free copy of MS Office. Problem solved.

I use openoffice
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/

Oh, and virtual box from Sun is a free PC emulator – seems just as good as Parallels/Fusion.

I use NeoOffice its free and better than MS Office 🙂

http://neowiki.sixthcrusade.com/index.php/NeoOffice

anotehr vote for open office. one of the great things about macs is the range of OS software available. I used to have one where I worked last and everything i ran (apart from Komodo) was Open source

I'd get Mac Office if you are doing lots of work on the Mac. It's usually better implemented on a Mac – I'm speaking as a former tech journo who has commissioned long features on both versions.

As Vinny says, if you have a PC at the moment with the correct licenses and software, simply put it all into Bootcamp or Parallels. Bootcamp's more user friendly (as you'd expect for an Apple utility) but Parallels is very easy to use too, and a lot more powerful.

I use both a Mac and a Windows PC at present, and am far happier on Mac – if I had a choice of one or the other, it'd be Mac every time.

OS is fine if you dont want to do anything complicated.

OpenOffice spreadsheet has significant functional shortfalls comepared to Excel. I really wanted to have a stab at moving over but it just couldnt do the technical stuff that excel can.

Im sure OpenOffice Spreadsheet it was just invented for female secretaries to make colourful tables in which SHOULD ALWAYS BE DONE IN WORD YOU DAFT BINT!

😉

Gonna try open office, didn't realise it was available for Mac now. NeoOffice is ok – pretty annoying the way it constantly wants you to download updates though.

OS is fine if you dont want to do anything complicated.

LMAO

Yep, no-one does anything too complicated with BSD. 😆 🙄

Grumm: it's been possible to run OO on OS X since the early days if you were willing to install X Windows – it's all Unix, basically. That said, I've always preferred MS Office, mostly 'cos I'm a stick-in-the-mud, but also because my employers make extensive use of Word's templates and formats.

Only problem i found running mac office on my mac is that you can't get publisher which means you need to setup a windows office publisher in parallels… yes i know there are better publishing programs on the mac, but that doesn't help if all your old files are .pub and you don't want to rewrite them all from scratch.

Im referring to the Excel clone under OO rather than all OS software generally…

🙄

Beg pardon – you might want to be a bit more explicit in future.

OS = Operating System

OO Spreadsheet = Open Office Spreadsheet.

Problem i have is Macros, MS Office on Windows and MS Office for mac do not agree when it comes to macros, Office 2004 is simply crap at Macros and 2008 just doesn't do macros at all.

Example, i recently completed an application form, Word format with a few macro tick boxes. Office 2004 barely coped and Office 2008 just laughed walked away and wasn't interested. Tried Pages and it screwed all the formating up as well as failing to cope with the macros.

Other than that Macs are a more pleasant experience.

Hmmm,
it's still looking a wee bit too expensive considering what I can see Dell is offering in the performance per £ stakes and I won't need new software.
Small business+cashflow+workrates* = Apple will have to wait me thinks.
*re-learning how to use a new OS would slow me down – I think.

make colourful tables in which SHOULD ALWAYS BE DONE IN WORD

😯

Hmmm,
it's still looking a wee bit too expensive considering what I can see Dell is offering in the performance per £ stakes and I won't need new software.
Small business+cashflow+workrates* = Apple will have to wait me thinks.
*re-learning how to use a new OS would slow me down – I think.

It is really easy to learn – it is very intuitive. You'll be able to work faster on a mac once you've got used to it.

Open Office is rubbish, really couldn't recommend it. Only used the database and word processor, but Stoner's comments about the spreadsheet tie-in pretty closely with my opinion on those!

I switched to Apple about 18 months ago. I have made back any additional costs in hardware and software by not constantly having the blue screen of death, rebooting, freezing and other crap. I'm not one of the Apple fanboys, but I do recommend it to you for very pragmatic benefits 🙂

Plus you look cool 😀

by not constantly having the blue screen of death, rebooting, freezing and other crap

my PC is on 15 hrs/day & I seriously can't remember the last time it did any of that

MS Office for Mac is relatively cheap considering you get three licences to spread around your (ahem) family. Apart from that, the old argument about the price of compatible software is negated by having more or less everything you need right there to start with. The only thing that's caused me hassle is MS Project, so if I REALLY need to do that, I use bootcamp. Do remember though that you need a copy of XP or whatever for that, but we had spare licences anyway from a junked old PC at home

aviemoron, have you actually read any of the replies? If you use Bootcamp, which comes free as part of OS X, there are no extra software costs. You use your existing software. Even if you use Parallels or VMWare, a good Mac dealer will often do a deal and install it as part of the purchase. It's only around £50 anyway. You get all the other OS X stuff free, like iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, Garageband, iTunes…
I don't see what other costs you could be talking about. If you have fairly recent periferals like printers, Snow Leopard auto scans them and installs drivers ready to go.

This bootcamp thing I need to research it. If I can sort this softwarething out I could see past the initial high purchase price. I think my biggest worry is leaving my known MS comfort zone, however I have played with the Snow Leapord OS and really like it.

If its any help i put of getting a mac when I got my last PC laptop about 5 years ago now. Same argument as you are saying… I thought the price of the computer would be ok, but once I added in changing all my software it would just be too expensive..

Having made the leap this year I just wish I had changed before, haven't had any software problems and have easily sourced all the programs i needed. Only pain i have had is with bootcamp / parallels. You need to purchase a copy of windows to make this run, and as far as I can make out, it you run both you need to buy 2!!! copies of windows.

The mac intuitive approach that i heard people rave about before i got it this year is totally true… you could say i have been converted

This bootcamp thing I need to research it. If I can sort this softwarething out I could see past the initial high purchase price.

There's not much to it. Bootcamp simply lets you use your mac either woth osx, or with windows- you just reboot to switch between operating systems.

Fusion and Parallels let you run virtual Windows machines in a window when you're running OSX- effectively the Windows session is just another app. The big advantage of this is that you can move files seamlessly between OSX and Windows, which you can't do with bootcamp.
So, you can have a file stored in your home directory on the mac, work on it in Windows, then just save it- with bootcamp, the two filesystems (Mac and Windows) aren't accessible by each other.
So with Fusion and Parallels it doesn't matter whether you've got Photoshop for Mac or Windows, they're both equally usable under Fusion/Parallel.

And second/third Stoner's comments regarding Open Office. Free is not necessarily best.

been down this road myself

I use a lot of engineering software and it did take a while to get this sorted but in essence im running a mac pro dual processor for a desktop (and it flies)and a dell m6400 for a laptop, considered the mac but hardware wise the dell kind of just tipped it in its favour

however they are lovely i couldnt buy an equivalent dual nehalem desktop for the same money as i got the mac pro for so the rumour macs are more expensive depend on what you are using it for

honestly the mac pro was always running bootcamp untill a birdy told me i could still run windows without it or osx ….parralells for my kind of usage is a hog….but for the average consumer it does mean you get the best of both worlds and its worth it for that flexibility alone

i would love a little 13 in macbook pro however they just seem so small and covetable