Office 2004 on Intel Macs

[laurencemayer]

I'm planning on purchasing a new Intel-based MacBook (announced
yesterday), but I also recently purchased Office 2004. I'm concerned
that Office will not be compatible or run poorly using Apple's Rosetta
interpreter. Is there any information out there from Microsoft or
otherwise commenting on this compatibility? Will MS offer free upgrades
to the universal binary versions?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm planning on purchasing a new Intel-based MacBook (announced
yesterday), but I also recently purchased Office 2004. I'm concerned
that Office will not be compatible or run poorly using Apple's Rosetta
interpreter. Is there any information out there from Microsoft or
otherwise commenting on this compatibility? Will MS offer free upgrades
to the universal binary versions?

MS press releases--

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/jan06/01-10MacWorld.mspx

Says, among other things:

Interim solutions, such as Rosetta, will enable Office for Mac and Messenger
for Mac on the new machines while we build universal binaries that will make
it possible to run these two products natively on PowerPC- and Intel-based
Macs. The next version of Office for Mac is being built for both machines to
ensure all Mac users have access to the best Mac productivity suite.

I would not expect any program described as a "next version" to be a free
upgrade, cause next versions usually aren't.

Another press release (seems less relevant):
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jan06/01-10Macworld2006PR.mspx

Smoothly? On the Word newsgroup, Elliott Roper posted:

 

[laurencemayer]

Thanks, Daiya. That's helped me decide to make my purchase. Hopefully
the MS universial binaries will be soon and free... but now I am
reasonably assured that MS is committed to getting office 2004 to run
on Rosetta.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Laurence,

Apple and Microsoft have been working together for a while now to make
sure that Office 2004 will run well with Rosetta.

The version of Office that comes after 2004 is the version that will
have dual binaries. "Soon" is relative. You'd need a Tiger powered
crystal ball to be able to say when the next version of Office will be
available.

There will be a free update to Office 2004 in March. But the next
version of Office won't be free if history is any guide.

-Jim