MS Office slow to load and quit. Pinwheel spins.

[Stockton]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Hello all,
My first post. I have a new 15" MBP 2.8, 4GB with Office 2008 and iWork. When I open or quit out of Word or Excel it takes about 30 seconds or more. iPage applications open and close within just a matter of 5 seconds.

Is this normal? I saw a new base 13" macbook open and quit out of MS Office much faster.

Thank you