Review by AnarchyJim

It’s Office. It’s Microsoft. I need it so I can open files that folks send me.

The good:nExcel is still probably the best spreadsheet program out there.nOutlook is a good email program, if you don’t use webmail.

The bad:nPowerpoint is crap and Keynote is significantly better.nPages does everything I need out of a Word Processor. Really don’t need Word except for opening other people’s docs.

The ugly:nMicrosoft has a tendency of rejiggering their UI and removing functionality for no apparent reason. This upgrade is no different. Mostly it’s not a big deal, but there are some minor annoyances.

The lowdown:nIf you already have Office 2011, I don’t see the need to upgrade.

If you don’t own Office… If you use spreadsheets a lot and, especially if other people are sending you Excel files, you’re going to need Excel. Pages can usually open Word docs but it doesn’t always keep the formatting, so it’s nice to have Word. It’s not a Must have, but it’s useful just for that. I personally prefer desktop email programs over webmail and Outlooks works well. Of course, Outlook doesn’t support VBA macros which would make it much more useful.