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It's been a pretty cool inaugural week for our team blog. I've seen lots of links to our blog from all over the place. It's awesome to know that you guys are interested in what we have to say.

I've noticed that we've gotten a lot of feedback about our products (current and past). There's a lot for us to say about this kind of thing, and you'll see it in the upcoming weeks as this blog continues to take shape. I've got a couple of posts brewing in the back of my mind as a result of some of the comments that I've seen here.

It would be immensely helpful to us if you also submitted your ideas for new products, feature requests, and everything else like that to our product feedback website. That way, we can aggregate these requests all together and use that data to help us make our decisions about what features we should add, whether we should port a product from WinOffice, and so much more. The data is very important to us.

Someone actually does read all of the feedback that we get there. Actually, several someones do. I'm one of them. As a user experience researcher, I go through that product feedback to see if there are comments in there about the user experience.

Your feedback helps me to guide the various application teams through providing the best user experience possible. Tell us what you like about our products. Tell us what you don't like. Tell us how you use our products in cool ways. Tell us what you wish we'd do (even if it involves a long walk and a short pier).

For example, we get a lot of feedback about Remote Desktop Connection. One of the pieces of feedback that we get about RDC the most often is a complaint from users that they can't resize their window. Technically, this isn't correct; it's just that we buried the option in a place that you can't find it. (For a more thorough discussion about some of the feedback that we've gotten about RDC, including instructions for how to resize your window, check out my post over in go ahead, mac my day (my own blog) titled discoverability). When we started talking about making the next version of RDC, fixing this issue was one of my main UX goals. After all, it doesn't do us any good to make functionality available to you if you can't find it. When we release the next version of RDC, you can tell me whether I was successful.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't comment here! Comments spur discussion, both with us and with other people who read this blog. I just want to make sure that requests like 'give me Visio!' get counted properly, so that we can make the right decisions based on the best data available.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    FYI, the feedback form is also accessible on the right-hand side of this page, under "More Resource Sites".
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    First. Great blog. I never was a great fan of Microsoft software on the pc, but office on mac really rocks. Please hurry up with a ub version and please change these ugly icons on entourage...else keep up the good work
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    Please please please do something about the interface in entourage! Its better than the outlook interface but that isnt saying a lot.

    Think along the lines of "less is more". The whole thing looks like you had a bucket of buttons and just threw them at the screen.

    Universal binaries would be great too, and im sure these are already in development.

    Word for mac is incredible compared to the pc version... even the 2007 beta ive been using! But can you tell me if the ribbon interface used in 2007 will ever make its way to the mac version?

    Loving the blog, its a good insight into fellow developers who actually work for one of the biggest companies in the world. It sounds like you guys really enjoy your jobs.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    This is a great blog -- I added it to my list of RSS feeds almost instantly. The team's posts are interesting, and funny.

    Before reading the list of common misconceptions that Joe posted yesterday, I always thought that Office for Mac was nothing more than a direct port of Office for Windows, so I never even gave it a try.

    Reading about you guys and the stuff you're doing gives me renewed faith in the software that you're producing.

    Keep it up!
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    So here is my feedback. I think, that this blog is nothing more than a little part of markting activity. I can't belive that this blog has any other intention other than distracting everybode from the big problems office still has. You are writing about Remote Desktop Connection. Yes thats really the killeraplication everybody uses. How about talking about Word, saying that't it's not able so save a document, even no document is open? Talking about the small problems (like Remote Desktop Connection) is hiding the big ones ...
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    To start with, this blog is mostly fluff.  For instance, the category with the highest number is "working i MacBU". Hmm, writing a bit too much about ourselves are we?

    how about some real info?  Like when are you coming out with a new version? Will the next version of Entourage-Contacts not eat my data?  Will you guys get the project/opportunity/relationship management concepts and tools down cold—like your competitors already have?

    It's really too bad, You folks truely have so much to offer, but deliver so little, so late.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006

    When is Office for Mac going to be released as Universal Binary?  

    Is there a Beta program for this ?  If so I would love to participate.

    I can't really use Powerpoint becuase it is much too slow under Rosetta.

    Thanks,

    -- JM.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    I like the idea of this blog. Maybe it's because of it's multiple ownership, however, it sure does look aesthetically "less than exciting." I hate to say it, but Mac Mojo looks like a...<i>Windows</i> blog.

    C'mon, someone take a few minutes and show the world at first glance that this blog really is run by Mac people.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    First of all I want thank all of you for reaching out to us, even if some here are trolls, I do believe the majority of people greatly appreciate the work you guys have done.

    Not that you guys can't or shouldn't do better but I believe this is a great first step.

    I will definitely buy Office 2007 if and only if you release a good product, which I hope it is, then you will probably get some feedback from me. :)
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    Kudos on the blog! Looking forward to reading it on a regular basis!

    So you want feedback, eh? Well, I've got some:

    - Why does the window that is spawned by either creating a new event or opening an existing event in Entourage 2004 [v11.2.5 (060620)] go to the maximum size available for the screen?

    So little information is entered for this sort of thing, it should spawn a window no larger than the "About Entourage" window (and, of course, keep it resizeable).

    Thanks, and keep up the good work!
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    The feedback form needs a pulldown field for "new product suggestions" or something of the like. I had a request for better Windows Media support, and there was no category for it.

  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    Suggestions for the next version of Mac Office:

    1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Add support for using of PKI Certificates AND DOD CACs when accessing Exchange 2003 webmail via Entourage. This is BIG problem US Government/DOD Mac users.

    2) Provide an option to dock all the buttons bars into the application (word/ppt/excel). The floating button bars can really be annoying. Not all Macs users like them


    3) Add support for Out-Of-Office enable/disable in Entourage

    4) Add support for searching the GAL via Exchange 2003 webmail in entourage.

    5) Open Document Format import/export support

    6) Office XML file format support

    7) in Entourage it should remember the search type used for each folder. For example, I like to search by from in INBOX and to in Sent Items

    8) Word with Reviewing mode (Final w/ Markup) turned is very slow in bot PPC and Intel Macs

    9) native intel mac support

    10) separate the message store files for "Folders on My Computer" and your server mailboxes. I have a 8GB message store file and its difficult backup and repair.
    8) add Word like bulleting to PPT. Powerpoint bulleting mechanism (on Windows and Mac) is kludgy compared to Word.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
  1. Port MS Project to Mac

    2) Port Visio to Mac
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    the ability to have multiple identities in Entourage at the same time without having to to a manual switch. Should work similar to the way Apple Mail does when you can select "who" to send the mail as from a drop in the message composer window.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    thanks for the link to the product feedback page, but why is it so hard to find. I don't see it on the Mactopia home page or on the support page.

    You do want feedback, right?
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    Excel has MANY frustrating things about it, which may spring from its having such a long history, but they're not very Mac-like. Like, the command A never works the way it does on every other Mac program, not selecting all the contentes of a cell. This is why I've always actively searched for an Excel replacement, but have yet to find one.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    If you are going to fix RDC, please please make it have the ability to connect to multiple servers at the same time.  Just having one at a time is not very useful.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    I too like this blog and immediately added it to my RSS reader.

    All I can say is that if you are indeed doing good work, keep it up. If not, do it.

    And fix messenger. If freelancers can make a better MSN client than the folks behind MSN itself, well, that's just sad.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    Nick, here's how you can find the feedback page on MacTopia:

    go to http://www.mactopia.com/
    click on the words "Contact Us"  about 1 inch down from the top and in the center of the window.
    (its in the row of items right under the word 'mactopia' at the top!)

    And, as Nadyne said, you can always leave comments on this blog or any of our personal blogs.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    I'm the Creative Director for the IT communications group of one of the Big Four accounting firms and, believe me, it hasn't been easy holding on to my PowerBook. But thanks to RDC, VPC and the x-platform prowess of Office, I am allowed to be happy, creative, and productive. (Though I DO have to cover up the brightly lit Apple logo on the PB lid...if you can believe it!)

    As such, I'm with Boyd; port these Win apps over to Mac:
    • MS Project
    • Visio

    Doing so would be two easy ways to allow Mac users to stay Mac users in a Windows shop.

    Question: I've built several Word templates for my group (both on my Dell at the Office and my PB at home). Many hours and years spent with Visual Basic. Where is Office 2007 and the next Mac version of Office headed in terms of template compatibility/usability? I understand Win version will be using an iteration of XML; how about Mac? Will there be any converters? Will I have to learn a new programming language?

    Thanks. I love the blog...keep up the great work!
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2006
    Mark - We will maintain file format compatibility, and will be able to both read and write the new file format.  Additionally, as we announced at WWDC, we will release converters for Office:Mac 2004 after the release of Windows Office 2007 so that our users can read files that are sent to them from users of the new WinOffice.
  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2006
    (Sorry, Charles.)

    Hiya folks!&amp;nbsp; I'm Erik Schwiebert, one of the development leads here in the...
  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2006
    Some folks would rather die than go without Excel; I'll chime in that without RDC, I don't know what I'd do. GREAT stuff.
  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2006
    Great blog guys.  Unlike most Mac Fans, I do think MacBU is capable of doing some great software.  However, when I read you were dropping VB support in the next version of Mac Office I was horrified!!!!  It's just no possible to have 100% file compatibility without it, particularly if you rely on complex Excel based apps as we do in our office.  As for features how about .oft compatibility in Entourage.  After about 2 years of try, I finally managed to get my powerbook hooked up to our Exchange server, only to find Outlook forms don't work.  Arggggghhh!!!!!
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2006
    I just switched from Windows to a Mac. The only thing I've found troublesome (so far) is that I couldn't load my back up email PST file from Outlook 2003 into Entourage 2004. This is a pretty big drawback as I can't revert back and retrieve my previous emails since I had Outlook set up to download my messages from my email account. I'd really like to see full 110% backwards compatabily here. Being able to import all my email, folders, rules, calendar, etc from Outlook PST into Entourage without any hicups would really be amazing. I know it will take alot of work, but the end result would be worth it in my opinion.

    Tool bars (or ribbon?) can't you build them into the main window like in the Windows version instead of having each little bar float around on its own? My job requires me to have Office on my Mac, but I found NeoOffice Writer to look, feel, and behave much like Microsoft Word XP/2003 better than Word for Mac (X, 2001, or 2003). Also Visio would be great if it was brought over. As well as the OneNote. I know Word for Mac has a notebook feature, but It just doesn't fit my needs 100% like OneNote used to.

    Also, will there be a Beta version of Office for Mac sometime in the next year or so? I would love to try it out and see what everyone has been working on for the next (and hopefully better) Office for Mac will be like.

    Keep up the great work everyone!
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2006
    Matt - What did you like about OneNote that the notebook view in Word:Mac doesn't give you?
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2006
    The pros and cons of being dugg.
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2006
    What about Access for mac? Really needed!
  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2006
    Why can't the Office update tool for Mac resume interrupted downloads? It's really annoying.
  • Anonymous
    September 07, 2006
    It would be wonderful if you guys can get Access, Publisher, and Microsoft Dynamics to work on the Mac.
  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2006
    I would gladly post my comments and feedback regarding Messenger 6 using the feedback form, but the highest version number it knows about is 5. :)
  • Anonymous
    October 03, 2006
    Hi Indrek, The feedback form has now been updated to include Messenger 6. Thanks!