Last Monday, I received a phone call from Microsoft’s Mac division, asking if I would like to help them improve Microsoft Office for Mac. My first instinct was to ask them how they’d found me. As it turned out, Microsoft and their henchmen keep their ears to the proverbial (online) street, and had recently encountered my website and found it filled with the sort of feedback and recommendations that they thought would serve their purpose. Since this isn’t exactly a tip or trick, click the link below to read about my visit.
As an avid Mac user, and Office:Mac critic, I agreed to help them out without hesitation, and last Friday, I took a little drive to Microsoft’s Bay Area headquarters in Mountain View. Although I am limited about what I can say due to the NDA I had to sign, suffice it to say that they were interested in my feedback about how Microsoft Office for Mac compares to a similarly popular product for the Mac platform.
However, I believe they got more than they bargained for, because what I did for those two hours could only be described as one continuous (and relatively harsh) critique of everything that’s wrong with Microsoft Office for Mac. At no point did I find a lack of things to critique, as I had recently gotten so fed up with Office:Mac that I refuse to use it (I run Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows through Parallels – a much much better alternative, for me at least).
Some might ask why I would even bother wasting my time trying to help Microsoft improve Office. My justification is twofold. First, in the past, I have strongly discouraged people from criticizing products without offering some sort of ideas as to what’s missing, or should be improved. In this same way, I have criticized Office:Mac on several occasions now, and I felt it my duty to tell them how to improve it.
Second, I believe that my knowledge and experience with computers, both PCs in the past and Macs currently, provides a unique perspective that Microsoft’s Mac team can gain from. I have never taken any computer classes (and never plan on it), but I do know quite a bit about them. Therefore, just as I do with this blog, why not take that knowledge and put it to some (good?) use.
Either way, I’m very glad I did it and, as it turns out, so is Microsoft. They have asked me to continue helping them improve Office:Mac over the next 6 months, both in Mountain View as well as here at my house (they want to see how I interact with Office in my “own setting”).
Therefore, since I am happy to help them, I would like to ask you readers for any feedback about office that you’d like me to pass on to Microsoft. Everyone’s experience, interaction, and purpose with the software is different, and I’d love to help them improve an area that might fall outside of my own daily Office use. So, if you have anything you’d like me to bring up, leave me a comment, email me, or send me an instant message. Who knows, one day Microsoft Office for Mac might actually be, well, useable.