iWork vs. Microsoft Office

What office suite do you use, and or think is better on the Mac? iWork or Microsoft Office? Please feel free to speak your opinion.

Permalink Reply by jamesjimmy23 on January 18, 2009 at 7:40pm: I would probably used iWork if it was available for Windows since it's a lot cheaper and it seems like the things you can do with iWork look more professional than Office (maybe that's just because I've seen so many bad PowerPoints).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Matt DeFazio on January 18, 2009 at 7:49pm: Agreed.

Presentations done with Keynote instead of PowerPoint usually look more professional, even when they're done by a child in grade school... Not even joking.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jamesjimmy23 on January 18, 2009 at 8:02pm: Yeah, really.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Huan22 on January 19, 2009 at 12:09am: The matter of which is more professional looking lies on the one that uses the program, as far I know both keynote and powerpoint have features that allows you to make very good presentations. But to which I am most likely or prefer to use, I would probably say, iWork, because it consumes less resources and as James said it costs much cheaper.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Matt DeFazio on January 19, 2009 at 8:20am: When you think about it, the low price for iWork and iLife are kind of ironic...

Considering the fact that Apple charges quite a bit of dough for their computers and software.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jamesjimmy23 on January 19, 2009 at 9:22am: Apple charges a lot less for a lot of their software, which I guess the only other thing is Mac OS X Leopard. Leopard is way cheaper than Vista and comes in 1 version, which Microsoft hasn't figured out that that's what they need to do so they don't confuse the consumer!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by AdamR on January 19, 2009 at 9:46am: Not to get off topic, but if you look at the actual development costs of Apple's software vs how much revenue they make from software, they come pretty close to breaking even. They don't make nearly enough profit to sustain the company. Essentially 90% of Apple's profit is made from hardware.

Microsoft on the other hand is a software company. They don't make hardware with which to inflate prices. This is why their software is much more expensive.

Don't be fooled thinking Apple's software is cheaper. You're just paying for it in a different form. ;)

- Adam; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben on January 19, 2009 at 12:11am: i like iwork better. The only thing I use Office for is Entourage for work email.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Youngbull on January 19, 2009 at 4:07am: Well if you're looking for cheep, I know that Open Office is out for mac OS X, and in my opinion Open Office is really good at a lot of things. Then again I also believe that you have to have some basic skills in order to use it.

One of the common pitfalls is the open format that isn't compatible with iWorks or MS Office and have led schools and public administration to abandon the use of OO entirely, which is really sad since with a click of a button you could get any format you wish for from OO and it is one of the areas that I think Open Office is great at.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian Walker on January 19, 2009 at 4:10am: I have never used iWork in much depth so I prefer Microsoft Office :)

Take care.

Ian; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben on January 19, 2009 at 7:19pm: u really should play with iwork more once you get into it it totally blows Office out the window; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by IMPMAC on January 19, 2009 at 5:02am: iWork is makes more professional looking documents and keynote kills powerpoint for me. Overall i think iWork is better. And its cheaper. and its more stable when using numbers. although none of the products do good when doing serious number crunching. They both fail; ▶ Reply to This