News on Office for Mac and the effect of the move to Intel-based Macintosh.
With Macintosh computers moving to use Intel chips the whole question of software compatibility arises. As usual, we received some questions from concerned Office users and looking at the public statements from Microsoft we find it easy to see why those users were so concerned.
The Microsoft system requirements for Office 2004 for Mac don’t mention Intel chipped Macintosh computers at all.
Since our original enquiry to Microsoft there is now a special FAQ on the topic which makes it clear that Office 2004 and Messenger for Mac will both run on Intel based Mac’s. But Virtual PC (included in the Office for Mac Professional edition) will NOT work on the new Mac’s.
Most existing Mac programs (including Office for Mac) will work on the new machines because of ‘Rosetta’, a part of OS X that converts the PowerPC based software commands into something that the Intel chips understand (and vice versa). One of the big selling points for the move to Intel based chips is the increased speed but those speed benefits are reduced because of Rosetta. Adding an extra layer of complex interface between software and hardware is bound to affect performance.
The preferred solution is to make software ‘universal‘ which means it will work on both types of Macintosh computers natively. The next full release of Office for Mac will be a ‘universal’ program – but not Office 2004.
The result of all this is that you can run Office 2004 on an Intel based Macintosh, but don’t expect the sort of increased performance that Apple hype is touting for their new hardware.
There’s no word on when and how Virtual PC will be ported to the Intel based Mac’s. If you use or think you’ll need Virtual PC then don’t move to an Intel based Mac yet.
