The Mac Authority’s Dreadful Review
http://www.elementkjournals.com/tma
A week ago, I wrote a brief column on my
thoughts on Microsoft’s latest, Office 2001 for
Macintosh. In my opinion, there is no justification
for anyone to buy this product that already owns
Office 98. So I was looking forward to reading a
review of the program in one of my favorite
newsletters, The Mac Authority, a monthly 16 page no advertising mailing I get from Element K Journals.
“What’s not to love with Office 2001 for Mac?” the title reads. Oh-oh. I can already tell I am going to have a problem with this review. What’s not to love, the reviewer asks? Well, how about the price for starters. To update from Office 98 to Office 2001, you have to spend upwards of $269. To buy it outright, your talking about $499.
Some of the “key” features of the new Office, according to the review? “Use of Apple’s Navigation Services” You mean, it is now compliant with a two year-old Apple open/save dialog box? WOW! HOLY SMOKES! Stop the damn presses!
Another touted new feature according to the review? The ability, with but a single check box, to automatically enter the three digit Windows suffix to your document. In other words, if I had a Word file named Text, clicking this box would make it Text.doc. A PowerPoint file would be Text.ppt. And an Excel document would be Text.xls. Man, what a feature! This should save Office users so much time, though should be able to leave work a half-hour early everyday! What a feature! What a time saver! We all know us Mac users are too stupid to remember to add a suffix if we are sending to a PC, or even remember what the suffix is.
.DOC
.PPT.
.XLS.
There, I just saved millions of Mac users the need to upgrade to Office 2001, because they now know those SUPER difficult Window needed suffixes. Sheesh…
The review goes on to mention a few very MINOR upgrades to the Office suite, but the biggest joke is the “Introducing Entourage” sub-heading.
Entourage, if you did not know, is basically Outlook Express, with a calendar and a PIM added. Of course, you can download the fantastic PIM and calendar program from Palm for free, as well as Outlook Express from Microsoft. So don’t believe the first sentence in this review: “Probably the most awaited program included in Office 2001 us Entourage.” Well, no, it is NOT the most awaited program. It is a combination of programs anyone with Internet access can get already, FOR FREE!
Which bring me to my last point, and here I am not just talking about The Mac Authority, but many other magazines and reviewers, but I will use this review as an example.
THIS IS NOT A REVIEW!
This is a complete shame. A reviewer has to actually USE a program, and then give his or her opinion and experiences on using said program. (Or hardware, stove, car, golf course, etc…) This review is nothing more than copying some of the PR Microsoft sent out to reviewers, rewriting a little bit, playing with the program for an hour or two, and calling it a review. It’s not.
This is an unpaid (well, I hope unpaid…) advertisement for Office 2001. At no point in this “review” did the reviewer mention ONE negative thing about the product. At no time did he/she compare this program with any other competing product, or even the product it is replacing, Office 98.
This “review” is a joke, which may be why there is no credit given to whoever wrote it. (No author listed) A review is ONLY good if you trust the person reviewing the program/hardware/book. But The Mac Authority does not credit its writers, which for the writers may be a fortunate thing. Otherwise, if their name was attached to this sort of slop review, they may actually be forced to REVIEW the program and do their job.
Sickening.
MacMice Rating: 1
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