Plain and simple. Office 2008 on the Mac sucks. Yeah, I can edit my documents just fine, but it still sucks. Office 2007 in Windows introduced the “ribbon” bar, something I’ve accustomed to and grown to like, whereas Office 2008 for Mac, adds these panels on the right hand side of your screen, similar to Photoshop or Dreamweaver… Except, more painful.

So Office 2011, at first glance, excites me. The ribbon has come across to the Mac, hooray!

I’m a bit behind in the times here, seems it was announced back around February of this year, but now Office 2011 for Mac is actually available on the shelf. Will I rush out to buy it? No… But I want it.

Microsoft’s Office for Mac page lists some of the new features, including my favorites:

• the ribbon (insert happy face)
• Visual Basic (insert bigger happy face)
• Outlook Integration
• coauthoring

Visual Basic is a massive add here. Excel on Windows really is the ducks nuts because of Visual Basic, being able to program complex macros and what not. Now I can write my macros on my Mac!

Unfortunately, Office for Mac, is still missing Access and Visio…

A massive plus, however, is the change from Entourage, to Outlook. Along with this, comes the ability, to finally, import PST files. No longer do I have to use my Windows virtual machine to read old emails! Thank you Microsoft