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June 5, 2008

video

Apple offers free online seminar on ditching Microsoft, err, iWork ‘08

Posted Jun. 5, ’08, 1:14 PM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Video

iWork '08One thing I’ve seen many Mac users proudly proclaim is that they’re “100% Microsoft free.” This claim is generally heard of when the user in question finally ditches Microsoft Office and switches to open source or online alternatives, or to Apple’s own iWork suite. I swear, if Apple sold badges inscribed with that phrase, they would sell like hot cakes—especially if they squirted on being pressed. I’d get one for myself, that’s for sure.

If you’re on the cusp of deciding between Microsoft Office and Apple iWork ‘08, perhaps I could interest you in a free online seminar about the latter? Published by Apple, this video guides you through various features of the suite, showing you what all you can achieve with it, and then shows Rebecca Breitenkamp, CFO of a biotech company, demonstrate “how they use it to enhance their day-to-day business.”

Signing up for a free registration is required to access the video, but if iWork is the sort of thing that floats your boat, I’m sure you’ll be more than glad to jump over that little hurdle. Go ahead, the only thing standing between your being “100% Microsoft free” is a half-hour video—get this over with already.

[via TUAW]


8 Comments

Call Me Yo Daddy Author Profile Page said:

I just checked out this video a couple of days ago. It really opened my eyes to the capabilities of iWork 08. However, to make the switch even more easier I decided to order Apple Media Series iWork 08 for the Classroom, which is a step by step video tutorial of the finer details of using Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

Yes Apple offers an online tutorial at it's own site, However it is extremely basic and does not allow you to actually interact with it. Apple Media Series is much more thorough and only cost me $20 at Apple's site. It just arrived in the mail yesterday. :)

I can't say I'm Microsoft free because I have Parallels running Windows XP but from here on out my Office suite will be iWork. 

June 5, 2008 2:45 PM
Jas said:

Watched the video last night, actually. I was impressed by some of the features of iWork '08 that I'd yet to try out.

Was less impressed by the brief glossing over of the difficulties that are involved in transferring documents between iWork '08 and Office 2008. Breitenkamp mentions in passing that they convert their documents from Pages into Word format, send them to their patent attorneys, and then convert them back after they've been checked out.

Apparently those documents are nothing like the colorful brochures and annual reports that she shows off in the video that would look, quite honestly, like ass - if they were simply converted into docx format instead of, as most people will suggest, PDF.

Other than that glaring omission, it was a great video, not nearly so tedious as many sales pitch videos tend to be, and I actually learned useful tricks from the half hour invested in it.

June 5, 2008 2:46 PM
Walt Author Profile Page said:

I'm MS free. I still have office 08 sitting on my desk. Can I still say that? I haven't had the need to install it yet. Perhaps one day.

June 5, 2008 3:11 PM
Anonymous said:

It all sounds very nice, but until Apple does something to speed-up the dog-slow Numbers, I will remain stuck using Excel.

June 5, 2008 3:21 PM
Neil Anderson Author Profile Page said:

The iWork suite is fabulous. Numbers shows lots of potential. Pages has slick templates. Thanks for the heads-up tip on the Apple Media Series, too.

June 5, 2008 8:20 PM
Neil Anderson Author Profile Page said:

Cool new effects in Keynote are keeping audiences coming and asking me what the presentation was made with.

June 5, 2008 8:24 PM
Kelmon said:

iWork is fine as long as you don't need high-end features. Keynote is still better than PowerPoint, but the gap between the 2 applications has shrunk considerably over recent years. Pages is a capable application with great templates and page layout tools, but Word is still a far superior word processor. Numbers is, well, let's be polite and call it Excel-lite. As long as you only need the basics then iWork is absolutely fine. Unfortunately, if you need to be able to do more complex work, or you work with people who use MS Office, then iWork is not a great option. It's a rare day that I can open a file generated in MS Office in iWork, or vice versa, without warning messages and things looking odd in places.

Sorry to put a bit of a downer on things, but iWork is not a cheap version of MS Office. I've been running iWork 08 in the hope that it would be for the past year, and while it's capable, I still find myself having to resort to Office 2007 under VMWare for some files, particularly Excel ones. Number's ability to handle large Excel files is pitiful at best...

Personally, I'm mulling an upgrade of Office:mac but the reports I am seeing about its performance gives me sufficient concern that I'm still using Office under VMWare rather my existing Office:mac 2004.

June 6, 2008 12:13 AM
Anonymous said:

Ok, if no one else is going to say it, I am: that CFO is grrrrroowwwwlhawwt (I'll let the ladys comment on the spaced-out surfer dude)

June 6, 2008 10:16 AM

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