Office for Mac 2016 Beta Preview - A Standardizing Overhaul

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On March 5 Microsoft has released a preview of the coming Office 2016 for Mac, available for download here.

The Beta features new versions for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook and includes OneNote, previously released as a free standalone application downloadable from App Store.

I installed it and tested for you (a special thanks to my buddy Brandan for this lead).

Requirements

The preview runs only on OS X 10.10 Yosemite (older versions aren't supported). Some users, who haven't upgraded to Yosemite yet, have complained about it but in my opinion, if you just want to test a Beta release, you can easily do it on a virtual machine, like I did with Yosemite Beta.

First impressions

Microsoft has performed a long-needed and substantial overhaul of Office for Mac 2011.

I've read enthusiastic comments about the new look of this new version, with particular reference to the performance on the new Retina displays (here for an example).

I'm much more on the geeky end, but I can give Microsoft that the new Office looks more modern.

The preview performs smoothly, though being a work in progress.

New features

• Integration with OneDrive: You can now save your files to the Microsoft's cloud, in addition to your local folders. 
• Integration of OneNote in Office for Mac: OneNote, already available for Mac as a free standalone application, is now bundled in the new Office for Mac release. This is a positive, even though I personally like Evernote better.
• New formula editor for Excel:  When entering a formula, Excel displays a side pane that shows the general usage of that formula and examples. It's clearer than the previous version and more visible because it's shown inside the spreadsheet and not in a pop-up window.  
• Style pane in Word: A new feature called Style Pane shows all of the available styles in a side pane, while before they were listed in Document Elements. I'm not personally big on this solution and it doesn't seem adding value to customers.

 Features no longer supported

•  Save presentation as a movie in PowerPoint: it came in handy and it was a quick way to realize a video tutorial.
• Publishing layout and Focus in Word: the former displays the document in a sort of a book view, while the latter allows to view the document full-screen.

Issues

• Judging from the comments on the Microsoft blog, most users seem to have issues with Outlook.

I will not delve into that (you can check out this page for more information).  In my opinion, though:

1. Bugs in a beta version should be expected.
2. Apart corporate considerations and policies that may require it for specific situations, I don't understand why using Outlook in an OS X environment instead of Apple Mail, which is already bundled and works mostly right off the bat.

• Microsoft Excel is 32-bit, which is a downside on a 64-bit operating system such as Yosemite, confronted with the Windows version.

Wrap-up

Office for Mac 2016 Preview is a long-needed overhaul of Office 2011 for Mac.

The concept behind Office 2016 for Mac seems to be standardization, porting to OS X the same interface familiar to Windows users. 

This makes things easier on one hand but, on the other hand, introduces to OS X the quirky panes of Office 2013, which I'm not a huge fan of.

I hate having to flip back and forth between different panes to get my work done but that's typical Windows philosophy; nothing new, to this regard.

Microsoft has performed a restyling trying to push its product to Apple users, but this attempt has failed miserably in the past because of the differences between the two operating systems, especially related to the ways they support proprietary Windows languages such as Visual Basic. 

In my opinion, though being Office 2016 Beta for Mac an interesting product, Microsoft products can't work as good as native OS X applications because of the different philosophy, system libraries and native languages used. Conversely, this is true with regard to Windows applications in Windows-based systems.

Though enjoying this testing, I would never pay for the OS X version of a product conceived for Windows, unless absolutely necessary for working constraints or corporate needs.

There are numerous free open-source alternatives, such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice, more suitable for UNIX-based environments (i.e. UNIX and Linux) and exempt from Windows-based quirks. 

In a corporate environment, the new Office suite will positively impact productivity making collaboration easier and faster. The beta looks very promising but it remains to be seen if promises will be kept in the coming months