In case you’ve been wondering, Microsoft Office has a new version coming out soon, Office 2011. In it is all the usual stuff, all bundled up and neat. Honestly, I’m sure there are a lot of new features, but I haven’t yet gotten my chance to play with a copy yet. But that’s not really my point.

I switched over to iWork a while ago and I haven’t looked back since. Yes, I do still use Excel and Word for the occasional project, but the results I get with iWork are just so much prettier. My work template, for example, has dynamic charts and graphs that work nicely with the data. My text docs don’t crash every 5 minutes, which seems to be my issue with Office.

But frankly, the big issue for me has always been the price. If I’m gonna pay $300 for a program suite, I want to make sure it delivers on its promises. Office ’04 was great, and I had no real issues. ’08 on the other hand, has been a giant pain in the ass. I’m cautiously optimistic that ’11 will be better. But until I get my hands on it, I don’t see any reason to spend the money to upgrade.

Oh, and that upgrade comes out on October 26.