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I think I'd rather have compatibility than 64 bit Cocoa... It isn't the ideal solution (that would be to have both), but it isn't awful. Granted, I'm writing this comment on MacBook that is only running Windows 7 Ultimate (no Mac OS X partition at all), so I'm not sure my opinion really counts for much, in this case.

While the move to 64 bit is good, making sure its done right is much more important. I would rather MS take it's time making the best office for Mac it can than rush a 64 bit version out. Office is a MASSIVE code base, so slow and steady is fine. Looking forward to this coming release.

My 2x1O^E15 page book I was writing will have to wait for the next version of Word I suppose. *sigh* On a serious note, the beta I had of it was much faster starting up than Office 2008 was. Seemed to launch as fast as the Windows version.

Edited 2010-06-09 18:36 UTC

> While it won't affect users in any meaningful way (unless you use gigantic spreadsheets or something)

Completely. It's a non-issue. With Office bloatware, 32 or 64-bit is the least of anyone's worries.

Honestly I think MS should make their office software run as slow as Apple's software runs on Windows. C'mon, a dual core windows 7 machine with 4GB of ram should not run as crappy as iTunes does.

its amazing

As Apple continues down its road to alienate and lock-in users, Microsoft starts to seem more and more like a company that really cares about its users and listens to what they ask for.
This article shows the juxtaposition superbly!

Microsoft is doing real work to improve inter-operation with Linux, they are making real contributions to open source software, making sure OSS runs on Windows, and even listening to their users to find out what enhancements are most important!
Yeah, they've still got their faults, but once you put them beside Apple, the faults are a whole lot easier to overlook - and what they're doing well really stands out.

It wasn't that long ago that I'd have trusted a politician more than Microsoft, and thought Apple slightly better than the industry average. Now its Apple I distrust, and Microsoft looks about the same as all the other big players in the industry.

PC was always the more likable character ... now Microsoft looks like the more likable company.
Who'da thunk?

So does this mean that once the transition to cocoa is complete then giant excel documents won't grind the system to an (almost) halt? Cos that would be great.

In any case, focusing on compatability with the windows version is the best strategy... us mac users do have to live in a world of windows users and it can be very frustrating when documents change when you open them up on windows (particularly powerpoint... getting halfway through a presentation and then finding a slide where all the images are scrambled is frustrating).

I do hope that they put enough effort into stability and crushing millions of bugs that current exist in office.

Edited 2010-06-09 20:36 UTC

Compatiblity, speed and stability, Outlook and the ribbon are all way more important than the switch to 64-bit. Way to make it happen MS! This could be the first version of Office for Mac that is up to the same standards as its Windows counterpart.

Edited 2010-06-09 21:57 UTC

Apple should be lucky it still has Office in any form after all their attacks against Microsoft.

I'm sure that, by the time Apple has a real 64-bit operating system, Microsoft will have a real 64-bit version of Microsoft Office.

Microsoft hasn't even been able to provide a 64-bit version of VisualStudio, which is more likely to actually make use of the larger address space.

In fact, at work we've been running into cases where VS2010 runs out of memory on a 4GB system just building Silverlight apps.

MS still seems to consider 64-bit to be in the "server" realm. Supporting their 64-bit operating systems with 64-bit apps would, of course, be easier if they supported a "fat" universal binary format, like OS X does.

I was really disappointed when Apple announced that 10.6 would be 64bit on select machines, despite that nearly all of their modern laptops and desktops were running of 64bit chips. It made me regret buying my 13 inch white macbook despite the fact that it could run 64bit just fine if they wanted it to. So the fact that Microsoft has opted to ship a 32bit version of Office doesnt hurt my feelings at all, and even though it's not their fault, I feel like I'm now even with all those 64bit users out there (at least when it comes to office).

Does not seem to be the case this time. Microsoft does not want Office to work well on Apple's OS and Apple does not want iTunes to work well on Microsoft's OS. Both are saying "If you want to use this app then use our OS". Competition also delivers dirty tactics.