If you don’t live under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard about (and hopefully seen) Apple’s launch of the new iWork ’08, their answer (or is it solution?) to Microsoft Office. Um…wow. It still amazes me how Steve Jobs constantly introduces me to stuff that I didn’t know I needed; and on top of that, how he makes everything else we’ve been using look archaic and insignificant. You should take a look at the demos for Pages ’08, Keynote ’08 and Numbers ’08. It’ll make you hate everyone that gets to use it. (click to be directed to the page)
iWork raises the bar not just for Microsoft, but also for the business world. It allows for higher productivity (less jumping between programs to make a document) and it also brings a higher creative expectation to your client. Drab documents and presentations are no longer acceptable, and iWork makes it easy to avoid just that.Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Office 2007. It’s leaps and bounds better than any other Office suite. It definitely addresses some of the problems and inefficiencies that earlier versions harbored.On the other hand, iWork seems to be a total rethinking of the product segment. It’s interface is totally different and its abilities seem to even more efficient than that of Office. I’m sure the learning curve for using it may be a little high, but once I get the hang of it I’m sure it will change the way I think about document and data construction.

Oh and for only $79 (and an Apple computer) you can toy with the seemingly endless creative possibilities iWork ‘08 seems to offer.