Apple office software seems likely

[Mac Reporter]

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.

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.

Enthusiast site ThinkSecret reported last week that a product from Apple called iWork would include an updated version of Apple's presentation software, Keynote, and a new word processing program, which the site says will be called Pages. The site predicted Apple would unveil the product at next week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

Such a program would be an interesting move for Apple, which has for years kept its office software ambitions limited, counting instead on Microsoft to produce a Mac version of Microsoft Office.

Read more at CNET News.com.

[Kelvin]

Other sites have mentioned different names for the word processing app. One name being considered was Document, but they dropped it after realizing that files of that program would be confusingly called Document document.

I like the name Notes for Apple's Word processing app

Do you guys still remember the time that we were so afraid of Microsoft stopping development of the Office Suite for the Mac? My, my, how things have changed :beer:

[Tantantiniiin]

Notes is already taken - the e-mail suite of IBM/Lotus. I dont think they would launch a software that will confuse the market.

As for MS Office for Mac, isnt that the concession given to MS for their bail-out of Apple? (remember the Bill Gates "Giant Boo!" appearance in SJ's keynote years ago?

[mgd]

Is Lotus Notes still alive? I thought IBM closed that division down.

I think IE was a concession as well. There might have been a time limit to this though (kinda like Magnolia and Nestle). IIRC, a few years after the bail out Apple replaced IE with Netscape as the browser on the dock during demos. This was before Safari came out of course.

Originally posted by Tantantiniiin
Notes is already taken - the e-mail suite of IBM/Lotus. I dont think they would launch a software that will confuse the market.

As for MS Office for Mac, isnt that the concession given to MS for their bail-out of Apple? (remember the Bill Gates "Giant Boo!" appearance in SJ's keynote years ago?

Personally, I think the acid test of another "Office" suite would be it's ability to work with MS Office files and vice versa.

[randytamayo]

Originally posted by mgd
Is Lotus Notes still alive? I thought IBM closed that division down.
--snip--

It still exists here

And don't look now but there is even Lotus iNotes also known as Domino Web Access...


rt

[stryker]

Originally posted by Kelvin

Do you guys still remember the time that we were so afraid of Microsoft stopping development of the Office Suite for the Mac? My, my, how things have changed :beer:

Actually I'd still be afraid of Microsoft discontinuing MS Office for Mac. I think the issue isn't so much that there would be a hole in a viable office suite but that mac users wouldn't be able to interchange files with their windows-using colleagues.

I'm thinking Keynote and Powerpoint. Taken as a stand-alone application however, Keynote so has it all over Powerpoint.

[mgd]

If they do close it down (which is highly unlikely), then we can all shift to OpenOffice . Works on OSX, Windows, Linux and Solaris.

Originally posted by stryker
Actually I'd still be afraid of Microsoft discontinuing MS Office for Mac. I think the issue isn't so much that there would be a hole in a viable office suite but that mac users wouldn't be able to interchange files with their windows-using colleagues.

[cyberprince]

Originally posted by mgd
Personally, I think the acid test of another "Office" suite would be it's ability to work with MS Office files and vice versa.

Exactly what I had in mind. Especially for me who has to work and share files with my PC based friends, family and colleagues at work.