T3: Why Spend Six Times More on Microsoft Office Suite When There’s Apple iWork?

Haje Jan Kamps of T3 takes a look at Microsoft’s Office Suite 2008 for Mac and wonders if we really need it, when there is Apple iWork? It is true, he admitted, that “you’ll struggle to find a company that doesn’t run on Microsoft Office: Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel makes the business-world go ’round.” Although it is admittedly unsexy, it is software that many of us require in order to function successfully in our work world.

Microsoft’s ‘08 version of Office does offer some new features — new functions for students and scholars which make keeping track of bibliographies easier. There are more options for better newsletter designs. Excel stays the same, with a few new templates. But why change a winning formula Kamps asks, since “Excel has pretty much been king of the hill when it comes to spreadsheets for the past, oh, 20 years or so.”

The fact that Powerpoint remains “the de-facto standard for presentations” is something Kamps finds depressing, “considering that…Apple has Microsoft well and truly licked: Keynote runs circles around Powerpoint in just about every way.”

Kamps points out that the “Office market has hotted up quite a lot”, and that there are a few cheap and free options, like NeoOffice, StarOffice, or Google Documents, Zoho Suite and ThinkFree Office. But most importantly, Microsoft’s competition is coming from Apple’s iWork, “which retails at only £55 - a sixth of the price of Microsoft’s office.”

Kamps feels ripped off by Microsoft: “…if Apple manage[s] to charge fifty quid for a software package, so can Microsoft - especially because the latter ha[s] the economy of scale to pull it off.”

Is there a reason to buy Microsoft Office? Kamps says that there is only one: Excel. There are those who can’t do without it, “so we’ll begrudgingly stomp off to the shop to fork over our hard-earned, muttering curses under our breath.” But for the rest of us, he says, “If you don’t need Microsoft Excel, buy iWork instead, and spend the money you save on an iPhone…”