[Love Calm Quiet]

From this evenings MacNN stories:
"CNET: Apple office software seems likely:
A small Macintosh software developer has renamed an application it had been calling iWork, lending credence to rumors that Apple plans to introduce office software of the same name, reports CNET News.com. IGG Software, which has marketed a time-billing application as iWork, has changed the program's name to iBiz. The change, which is reflected on the company's Web site, follows reports on rumor sites that Apple plans to offer its own suite of word processing and presentation software."

1) Who believs the rumor?
2) Who believes it'll be the death of the Mac (because the death of MS Office?
3) Who believes it'll be the resurrection of the Mac in the business world?
4) Will it be THE story of MWSF?

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
From this evenings MacNN stories:
"CNET: Apple office software seems likely:
A small Macintosh software developer has renamed an application it had been calling iWork, lending credence to rumors that Apple plans to introduce office software of the same name, reports CNET News.com. IGG Software, which has marketed a time-billing application as iWork, has changed the program's name to iBiz. The change, which is reflected on the company's Web site, follows reports on rumor sites that Apple plans to offer its own suite of word processing and presentation software."

1) Who believs the rumor?
2) Who believes it'll be the death of the Mac (because the death of MS Office?
3) Who believes it'll be the resurrection of the Mac in the business world?
4) Will it be THE story of MWSF?

Why not add to the other 2 page thread, instead of starting a new one?

[HOMBRESINIESTRO]

Originally posted by CatOne:
Why not add to the other 2 page thread, instead of starting a new one?

Yes, he could add there, but although I also want to get one thread for a topic, I actually started the other thread to talk about the NeXT origins of Pages. This is another question. I'd love it to be discussed here.

[Millennium]

1) No.
2) Probably, which is why I don't believe it. Jobs is an insane fool, but he's not completely off his rocker.
3) No. Businesses have been quite hostile towards the concept of moving away from Office, even though there are plenty of good alternatives with decent compatibility.
4) If it happens, then yes, it will.

[cpac]

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I think it may be more appropriate here.

I don't believe iWork will be the sort of application that competes directly with M$Office - rather, I see it as a document creator that easily lets you take specific content and change it's form from presentation to memo to web page using "Themes" like Keynote's but on steroids. You can read my other post for more details.

but so in response to your questions:

(1) yes - I believe it will be announced, but not as a traditional office suite of applications

(2) it won't kill or even compete directly with MS Office on the Mac. (and even if it did, businesses and even schools are too dependent on MS compatibility for it to ever really take off)

(3) iWorks won't resurrect the mac in the business world - if anything will, it's just having a headless cheap-o workstation machine itself. Businesses are far too invested in MS file formats/templates/macros/training to just dump MS Office entirely. Whatever inroads Apple may make into corporate land will be in either enterprise level hardware/software (xSAN, xServe), or in making the switch as seemless as possible (so that you could plug a "wMac" into the network, load it with Office, and have the user not have to re-learn anything.

(4) I think the wMac as hardware, rather than iWorks as software, will be the story at MacWorld. Think just how much more affordable setting up a small business would be - keep your monitors (or buy some that are cheaper than Apple's very nice, but expensive displays), pay $500 a seat for wMac workstations, and buy an xServe to run everything. Not too shabby...

[macsfromnowon]

I've done a forum search on iWork, but don't find anyone giving specifics on what evidence (details) are out there about this ?suite?....

The link to Think Secret didn't have much specific. Have they hushed because of the law suit? Anyone want to describe the nature of the speculation?

(Or is all speculation about "Pages" supposed to be referring to same ?suite? as "iWork"?)

[BuonRotto]

1) Who believs the rumor?

Yes in general, but I the thing will be different from people's assumptions. As you've noticed, there's almost nothing specific known about it though Keynote is a good indicator what what to expect.

2) Who believes it'll be the death of the Mac (because the death of MS Office?

Nope. Not an Office Killer, and more importantly, people won't stop buying Office for Mac just because this will be included. People only trust Office for Office file formats.

3) Who believes it'll be the resurrection of the Mac in the business world?

I think it will help SOHO businesses pick up Macs, but not bigger offices.

4) Will it be THE story of MWSF? [/B][/QUOTE]

I think it will be because while I think the iMac mini rumors have some validity (again, in general, the concept of the thing might surprise people), I don't think it will come out next week.

I'm convinced that iWork is the sibling of iLife. I believe it will be a suite of a few apps, though aside from a word processor and maybe a souped-up version of iCal, I'm not sure what else would go in it. Maybe a basic database app, maybe just something for tables and charts, maybe something for diagramming. I think the apps will be much like Keynote in their UI and in their approach to creating documents: theme-based with included sets of themes and elements and the ability to add more packaged themes. They will probably emphasize their graphics savvy and will look great with very professional results, but they won't have all the high-end features or flexibility of Office or other more traditional productivity suites, and will work together for. I think they will make up for this somewhat with Applescripts and Automator actions once OS X Tiger is out.

Anyway, you know as much as we do at this point.