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Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Amazing, isn't it?

Microsoft does everything they possibly can to DIScourage people from continuing to purchase their products.

Maybe. Or maybe they just want Office:Mac to look like Office for Windows closely enough that corporate IT types can show that there's nothing the Mac version can do/has a better UI for -- so why not just use Windows huh?

That said, I think MS is basically just trying to pull the strings together on their apps: one UI to test with, train on, rule them all.

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Originally Posted by besson3c 

Yeah, but I don't care about having an optimal experience when I need a word processor, I'd personally rather use something sub-optimal than pay money for iWork or MS Office. I rarely need a word processor, when I do I don't need anything terribly fancy, and when I do I'm not looking for an ideal user experience, it's just a matter of finding something that works and will get the job done so I can get it done and move on.

Surely there are others like me in this respect.

I'm sure there are: for a heck of a lot of folks they don't need a WP program: they just need email, or something to take notes with, or some other niche thing. Writers don't need/want WP's either: the content is the message and apps from folks like Mariner work a lot better for writing books, screenplays, and so forth.

Stoodents probably still do, somewhat. And some lower-level-middle-management types. Maybe the WP is going to be the "first" of the classic (not Classic) applications that ends up redundant.

But that said, a WP app that has a simple, powerful, logical and enjoyable interface is much better than anything with a crappy UI, MVS set-up -- which I'd say TextEdit, Pages, myWritings, Bean and others have -- such as Office and it's clunts.

[Spheric Harlot]

The less I've needed a word processor for, the LESS prepared I've become to wade through Microsoft's bullshit.

Bought iWork '09, downloaded NeoOffice, and blew Microsoft Office off the hard drive after twenty years (I learned Word 4.0/5.1 by trying out literally every single command and building entirely custom menus back in high school - MS added tons and tons of features since then, not a single one of which has been relevant to my usage).

[besson3c]

The only feature I can think of that would be useful would be cloud based collaboration, but this seems like a whole new product rather than just a tweak or two to Office, and it's not like they haven't had years to implement something like this if they deemed it worthy and doable.