iWork versus MS Office

We use iWork a good bit here.  In fact, I have been messing around with Keynote since it first came out as a stand alone product.  We also use Microsoft Office.  Not the Office 2008, since we have to use Excel and the 2008 version of Excel is completely worthless in a business environment.  However, that is another post.  Here I thought I would give some general impressions of iWork and compare it with Office.

There is a lot to like about iWork, but there is also a tremendous amount that could be improved.  Overall, we probably use Keynote the most.  It is clearly better than Powerpoint in so many ways, almost all of our presentations (and we do a lot) are done in Keynote.  Keynote is simply cleaner and easier to use than Powerpoint.  It takes a while to learn where everything is in the inspector, but for most presentations it is better and quicker than Powerpoint, which is bloated beyond repair.

Pages is a decent word processor.  We use it less than Keynote, but it works well for simply stuff:  letters, fax cover sheets, etc.  Because it is not cross platform and many of the features that are used in business are still rudimentary (like tracking changes) there is a lot we simply cannot do in Pages.

We play with Numbers.  We live and die with spreadsheets, so it will never replace Excel for us, but it has some nice features.  It makes nifty charts, so there is a lot that can be done with Numbers that we previously would have used something like DeltaGraph to finish.  The multiple spreadsheet in one page makes it nice for certain things, like dashboards, but it is a long way from being a real work tool.

The biggest problem iWork is that it simply does not work with most of the business world.  Folks who don't use Macs can't use iWork files.  This is less of a problem with Keynote, since when we send presentations, we almost always .pdf them before sending.

The absolute biggest problem with iWork, which makes the name sort of silly, is that it is almost impossible to email successfully an iWork file to another user--even if they have a Mac.  If I want to solicit comments on a presentation, for example, I can't just send the file around to other folks in the office.  In fact, you can't email it at all unless you have Stuffit installed.  And, the geniuses at Apple decided not to include Stuffit in OS X 10.5.  Even if you have Stuffit, it is still more trouble than it is worth to email an iWork file.  It doesn't send the file, but an archive.  This guarantees that something is always lost in translation.

The verdict? iWork is nice--very nice for some applications--but it is not really useful for business.  It is great for home use if you don't want to shell out for Office, but it is really little more than an updated Appleworks.  Until Apple makes collaboration easier with iWork, they should simply stop pretending that it is something that even a small business will find useful.