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Idlin'

All our work under the hood in Office 2008 has yielded a lot of smaller benefits that won't make any bullet lists on the back of the box. Random observation of the day – according to Activity Monitor, the (highly pre-release) build of Word 2008 running on my MacBook Pro is sitting here, loaded up with documents, idling at a chill 0.2% CPU usage. Word living light makes the PUM happy.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    PUM? People Under Mordor?

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Thats good news! I look forward to see it in action. Please update Messanger also!

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    ...love to hear something about Entourage!

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    If it's idling, it should be at 0.0%. Polling is bad.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    That's cute :) Now what about the other Office 2008 apps, Excel, PPT and Entourage?

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Great news! Nothing is more dismaying than having an idle application take cycles from other apps that might actually need the CPU.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    That's wonderful! I've often been annoyed at the amount of CPU Word uses when doing nothing. But, why 0.2% instead of 0%? Why is it using any CPU at all?

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Well, (depending on which Mac you're using) that's a big improvement, but the correct CPU usage for an idle background app on a modern OS is 0.0%. Just sayin'.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Please add some screenshots! Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    If it can keep that up for the full release, my Rosetta dogged Mini and sub 1GHz G4 PowerBook will be thankful. The biggest single reason I don't use Pages for much of anything.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    I'm so so jealous...

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Since there´s no update on iWorks (from my humble point of view a much easier text editor and elegant presentation maker for the average user) I´m really looking forward for your Office2008 for the previous version doesn´t work fine on my intel MacBook (and the application launching time is despairing). Messenger is also in need of a full revamp, it just doesn´t work fine and lacks lots of things to make communication fluid between users.

  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2007
    Nice news, but now please update Messenger... Personally I don't mind of AV functions, but it's really frustrating that you can't rename your buddies in the Messenger or see avatars in the contact list...

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    just two things, release date of office 2008, i don't know what is the problem of saying the release date, and 2nd thing some news of messenger 7 would be nice

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    YEAHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I have way too many processes stealing RAM and CPU on my 2 GB MBPro Core Duo.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    What about Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, how's that coming, I'm at my wit's end with the current version!

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    TjL - PUM is Product Unit Manager.  He reports to Craig, our new GM (General Manager).  Here in MacBU, the two PUMs are responsible for all engineering (development, test, program management, and user experience).  

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    I think it's great that Word 2008 will be a lighter app. One of the things that always frustrated me about most Mac OS X apps, and indeed, OS X itself, is that on older, slower systems with less memory, hard disc access is almost constant, and it's very difficult to get significantly great battery  life out of a mobile computer. I fixed this on my PowerBook G3 by simply reverting to Mac OS 9.2 and Word 98, but I'd love to see Word 2008 make it possible to achieve higher battery life out of mobile computers.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    "People Under Mordor"... heh. Mae govannen, mellon.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2007
    hey can u tell us or let us know if ur fixing the safari 3 msn webkit bug plz we have had no news from you!!!!:( Plz update!!:(

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2007
    It would be great if you made a plugin for iChat AV, so that mac users can use that to video chat with windows live messenger users. If not please can you put games, video and audio into a new version of mseenger for mac that also usewith windows live messenger users. Finally can we have some screen shots of office 2008 and the release date.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2007
    Nice, I dont know about other Mac users but I'm really waiting for this release. Please dont rush it, and its awesome to hear that Word is using as little resources as possible.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2007
    Please Entourage FULL support for Exchange.. this alone would be enough for me to upgrade..

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2007
    John S - Safari 3 is beta software.  This is a known issue between Messenger and the Safari beta.  We're working with Apple to get the issue fixed.

  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2007
    It´s pretty obvious that you´re ignoring all the Messenger questions (It really annoyed me that Geoff only bothered to reply a funny but pointless message instead of dealing with the more serious ones). I´m not asking you to promise Messenger 7 will have A/V support (it´s obvious that it won´t, ´cause if it would, you would have screamed it in every possible place), but at least give us some approximate release date. It feels like sh*t to have such as an outdated chat client as Messenger 5/6 have been. Don´t you understand that although we get along using Adium we want the real thing and in good shape? Thanks a lot.

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2007
    PLEASE release this software, Office 2004 does NOT run well on Intel Macs!!!

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2007
    Is there any shipping date planned yet?

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2007
    Please make word be a very "pre-release version" because we can't wait much longer!!

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2007
    Hey, give them a break. That 0.2% cpu is "Word connecting to the printer"! Meanwhile, I've moved on from moaning about Exchange support in Entourage (I think it's good enough, never mind that one Entourage user loads the Exchange server like DOZENS of Outlook clients) to now asking a question about Sharepoint services and Office 2008. Would anyone care to pass on some insider info about the GREAT piece of integration work that exists between Sharepoint 2007 and -say- Entourage 2008? Anyone? No? Currently, I post a lot of end-user FAQs in Public Folders. They're simple galley-style how-tos consisting of some text, a screenshot, some text a screenshot and so on. Simple but effective. Will I be able to put these onto Sharepoint in a way that means a Mac or Windows user can click on the article and see it INLINE in a web page (and not downloaded to their desktop)? Hope so...

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2007
    Many sys admins. whom support Mac environments are in need of a launch date for planning and rollout. I have scoured the web for a launch date, we need that info to report to our CIO's. What gives on the hush, hush...if delayed say so!!!! Thank you

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    can we get some beta invites sent out?

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2007
    I want to buy Office 2008 for mac. My office has some deal with Microsoft where I can get a discounted copy of any Office program I want, except I've been told today that I must place an order before 1st August 2008. Given that not long ago Word was a 'very' pre-release, I presume that it won't be out before 1st August? I'd love to get this but would be kicking myself if I miss on a good (valid) discount, and Office 2004 seems a waste when this is just around the corner. Any chance it will be out before 1st August or are you waiting for Leopard now?

  • Anonymous
    July 02, 2007
    Please make sure new Entourage can work through ISA server with OWA - see "You cannot access your mailbox on an Exchange Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909268/en-us Also, the Sharepoint blogs were very active with information prior to release of Office 2007. It would be nice if you were to follow their example and start communicatin gwith your community. That's the purpose of a blog. Look at how much activity there's been on this blog - very little.

  • Anonymous
    July 02, 2007
    So when will the new office suite be in stores?? Even a month would be nice

  • Anonymous
    July 02, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 03, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 03, 2007
    Kenneth - Office:Mac 2008 hasn't done away with your menus (or the Formatting Palette, either).   Your comment is a great reminder to finish up one of the blog posts that I've got half-written right now.  It's specifically about our user experience in Office:Mac 2008, and why our interface isn't identical to theirs.  

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 07, 2007
    Although I understand your position Kenneth, I actually feel quite the opposite. You see, I've been using the Office 2007 interface for a year now and have grown very accustomed to it; for me to go back to the older toolbar and menu interface would be exactly like you having to deal with a ribbon interface- I simply wouldn't do it. How do you get around this? I have no idea- maybe, as you suggested, offer both interface's as an option. Unfortunately, its far too late into development; anything we say here can't be  considered for Office 2008, but maybe the next release? I look forward to reading nadyne's post on user experience and hopefully it will include some screenshots so we can see exactly what it's going to look like. :)

  • Anonymous
    July 07, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2007
    Whoa. Strong stuff. Today's question about Entourage (yes! the comments on the "I heart Entourage" post are now locked) is... The bug between Entourage 2008 and proxy PAC files. Is it fixed? When are we going to see a list of "we fixed this..." for O2K8?

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2007
    My guess it will be out before 15th of August next month, When the Beta File converter expires :)

  • Anonymous
    July 10, 2007
    I'd appreciate if Messenger would follow the Windows version, e.g. 8.5 also for Mac at the same time and with the same features..... Mac Messenger 8.5! :-) Thank You Very Mac! :D P.S.: I love the classic menus, I don't like the ribbon.

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2007
    Speaking of idling . . .  since the latest Office Patch I installed yesterday, Word on my PBG4 is now consistently at 24%.  Even with no documents open.  Any idea?