Microsoft Considered Screwing Apple by Dropping Office for Mac

[Takuro]

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting this. What really scares me is that one guy said that this document was in response to Apple's "Mac Guy" ads. That would make sense, but there's one problem: this document was made about 9 years before Apple had even begun its attack on Microsoft's spreadsheet capabilities.

 

Everybody does know we're going to get Office 2008 soon and it's going to be universal, right? It's been confirmed time and time again by Microsoft.

 

They can pull the plug in 2011, but by that point hopefully open source office alternatives won't be so pathetic and poorly made as they are now.

[bwhsh8r]

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting this. What really scares me is that one guy said that this document was in response to Apple's "Mac Guy" ads. That would make sense, but there's one problem: this document was made about 9 years before Apple had even begun its attack on Microsoft's spreadsheet capabilities.

 

Everybody does know we're going to get Office 2008 soon and it's going to be universal, right? It's been confirmed time and time again by Microsoft.

 

They can pull the plug in 2011, but by that point hopefully open source office alternatives won't be so pathetic and poorly made as they are now.

hahah yea, i didnt read the document before, i just commented on the title, because seriously, it wouldnt be screwing them over, and hahah yea, but emm... open office is pritty good, although it gets the odd crash and id definately pick office 07 over it and the apple adds arnt really true.... i dont have to replace anything in my pc to upgrade to vista, and no it does not ahve the vista sticker, and no it was not built in the last year, oh and it runs it well, but this is off topic :/ but yea.... the short and the long of it is i could care less if microsoft ever made another mac product period.

[m1tra]

They can pull the plug in 2011, but by that point hopefully open source office alternatives won't be so pathetic and poorly made as they are now.

If Microsoft would really do so, somebody smart would invest a few millions into some open source product, make it commercial and competitive and earn even more money selling it.

[Vertigo50]

If Microsoft stopped making Office for the Mac in response to the way Apple keeps trashing them, I think it would be deserved on Apple's part. As stated before, the Apple ads are entertaining, but they're extremely misleading and most of the time just downright false. I have Windows headaches as much as anyone, but half the stuff they talk about in the ads that are supposedly Windows problems are things that people are CONSTANTLY battling with on Macs as much as they are on Windows.

 

BUT, having said that, Microsoft wouldn't drop Office for Mac just for the Apple ads. The reason for dropping Office for Mac would be the same reason why they don't care about the Apple ads. Why?

 

Macs have 5% market share. Some people say it's as high as 10% (mostly Steve Jobs). Fine, it's 10%. Either way, this is just a blip on Microsoft's radar. To Microsoft, Apple isn't really a competitor, they're more of an annoyance.

 

Mac fans, who see with tunnel vision, see themselves as crusaders against "Evil Microsoft" in the war to make everyone switch to Macs. But look at it from Microsoft's perspective. It's not a war. Heck, it's not even a skirmish. They have 80% or more of the market. They're not afraid of anyone. Some day, Apple might really compete, if they change a lot of the way they do things, and dump Steve Jobs, but for right now, they're still a little company that cares more about looking cool than selling product.

 

So if MS dumps Office for Mac, it will be because it's not worth the development time to sell so few copies to the small amount of Mac users in the world.

[Takuro]

If Microsoft would really do so, somebody smart would invest a few millions into some open source product, make it commercial and competitive and earn even more money selling it.

That's true. Open source software is a good idea in concept, but without monetary drives, developers tend to overlook quality control a lot. At least some kind of freeware with a way of generating a form of revenue would be better, like Firefox.

 

Until then, it's Office 2004 in Rosetta for me. It doesn't run slow at all.

Edited March 7, 2007 by Takuro

[MacMoof]

Apple has to be careful with what software they build, because like it or not, for many people Mac Office is a necessary application.. especially when sharing information from the 'business world' that is predominantly Windows Office based.

 

If Apple made a competing 'office' product, Microsoft would likely stop making Mac Office.. and if Safari is any indication, the Apple Office application would probably suck.. and give folks one less reason to make the switch to MacOS.

[sandmanfvrga]

I just put OpenOffice 2.1 on. Ok, but the X11 is what bugs me. I mean when I run it, tis Xterm window comes up, I don't understand that. Then it is a pain to exit because when I try to exit, X11 is up then I have to quit OpenOffice. When I get back in, it says I need to recover a file? What the {censored}? I mean OO is good, better than I expected, but come ON. Shouldn't be this hard.

[guyin916]

what i don't understand is why did this newsworthy if this happened 10 years ago? is insanelymac that desperate for filler content?

[EPDM]

Microsoft signed an agreement with Apple that they'd keep making Microsoft Office for Mac for at least 5 more years.

 

Which they (M$) did. Support for Office 97 lasted much longer on MAC than on Windows.

 

Anyway this is redundant now as there are free office clones available for ALL major non-Windows platforms AND the Windows platform itself.

 

In fact I see M$ Office dissapear in the future since certain European goverments are inclined to adopt Open Office document format (ODF) as defacto standard document exchange format.

 

E.g. The belgian goverment has declared on 23 june 2006 that from 2008 ALL gouvermental documents MUST conform to open standards In this case ODF. They will use internally ODF from 2007. In this case Belgium is the first country in the world to FORBID closed document formats for gouvermental institutions. Which is probably the only good thing in this frecking country albeit years too late.

 

The Netherlands and France will follow suit. As it is clear that handing over your IT-infrastructure to commercial mastodonts is a very dangerous thing.

 

They finally realise that not everybody can afford a +500 euro software package to fill-in legal documents that should be available to the "general public" at no extra cost (though I doubt that wellfare o/t the general public is their major interest). In the case of Belgium it's probably that they can cut costs on IT by using open file formats and open office and hence put more money into their own pockets.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Cheerio,

 

EPDM

 

 

 

If Microsoft would really do so, somebody smart would invest a few millions into some open source product, make it commercial and competitive and earn even more money selling it.

 

Nobody will make money out of any "office" product once everybody realises there's a pletora of freeware "office products" that are file compatible one way or another. In fact even Corel/Wordperfect are ditching their commercial efforts in this area to make a free version of their Wordperfect office.

 

The best M$ can do right now is make as much money from the Office-name/reputation/fame as possible before that ship sinks.

And trust me... it has already hit the iceberg.

 

Ofcourse there's plenty of other markets to ruin. In this case I suspect that M$ will soon directly attack Apple with an M$-version of iLife (see Microsoft Expression). Multimedia, GFX and object oriented webcreation seems the new big thing.

 

Ofcourse in the case of Expression it shows again how "creative" M$ really is. They simply "accuired" the companies that make the individual products and create a overlay-shell to hook all the stuff together. Just as they did with Microsoft Defender (M$ Antispyware) originally known as GIANT AntiSpyware which was also "accuired" by M$.

 

At least I'll be glad to see all those morons who "learned" Office in the past becomming as redundant. Just as I am now when I had to learn Wordperfect/DBase/Lotus123 in "my days" and now see that nobody wants my "expertise" anymore.

 

Ok. Gotta stay on topic now.

 

Cheers,

 

EPDM

[tuqqer]

When words fail, just say "you really don't get it."

 

I won't care about Office per se, but I'd hate to see development of Entourage stop. It's still, imo, the best and most robust email program out there.

[Vertigo50]

At least I'll be glad to see all those morons who "learned" Office in the past becomming as redundant. Just as I am now when I had to learn Wordperfect/DBase/Lotus123 in "my days" and now see that nobody wants my "expertise" anymore.

 

I think you're confusing "Office" with "Word" here. There are many applications in the office suite. In fact, Word is probably the least essential. People who are well-trained and competent in Excel and Access, and to a smaller degree, Powerpoint, will still be in demand for a long time.

 

Now, that's not to say that there won't be a shift to other software at some point. But there will always be a need in business for complicated spreadsheets and databases, and there will always be a limited number of users capable of creating and maintaining them.

 

Word is a different animal. Most computer users can create what is needed as far as Word documents go, and Office 2007 makes this MUCH easier than it ever was. I'm amazed at how simple it is to create really fantastic-looking Word documents in the 2007 version, with no advanced knowledge on my part. In fact, it has made the other apps easier too. The other day at work, someone asked me if I knew how to do a specific task in Excel, and I said, "I know how to do it in Office 2007, but not in 2003."

 

I have no idea when 2007 and the ribbon interface will make it to the Mac, though. I only use OSX for a very few limited tasks, and business apps is not one of them, so to me, it doesn't matter.

[runwitmeeh]

I don't get it?? This was 10 years ago. And the mac community itself should have already assumed that office had the possibility to not stay because they stated it specifically at one of the conferences when Apple was going bankrupt (remember internet explorer??). The contract itself was for about 4 or 5 years and that has already been up awhile ago. As for thinking about the consumers, apple is guilty of that too. Apple itself makes a humongous profit off everything it sells, i.e. iPods, macbooks, mightymouse, and now that new iPhone. Many of these things, especially the iPods, only cost about half the price to make. I personally think everyone is evil. I hate PC's and Mac's equally. It's a computer and unless you do professional editing or graphic design or any of those things, a computer is a computer. And that apple TV looks very very very similar to Media Center...hmmmmmmm...so does front row actually...

[sandmanfvrga]

Well not to spam here, but after putting OpenOffice on my iBook, I am stuck with it. X11 was weird, but got it to where I can open what I need. *shrug* I await the pure Aqua version, but OO is great. I kind of agree with many here, did you think Microsoft would keep this going? No. We don't need them.

[Careless]

Well first off Careless, you really don't get it. The mac ads are frankly truth. The ads never says the macs are perfect, they don't crash etc. They just point out the obvious flaws in a pc/windows and go from there. Sure most of them are kind of childish, but what they say are true and what gets to many is that they are so funny, light hearted, but when you take a look at what the ads are saying, you just know they are true. I think why so many hate them, is the fact they hit home. You will disagree and probably want to go into a long discussion/argument over it, I don't. The ads do their job.

 

I didn't say they weren't funny or that I don't like them. Infact, I think they are quite clever.

BUT, they are not as "true" as you, or Apple Inc., leads anyone to believe, if they so choose to believe in the first place.

 

that's all I'm saying.

[Justin R.]

Bring on Pages, or better yet OpenOffice.

 

Who needs you Microsoft. Keep your Office. I'll bring my own.

Edited March 9, 2007 by Justin R.

[sourgrapes]

I don't see anything wrong with that. That's just Bill being a good businessman in addition to being a coder. That's how he made himself the richest man in the world - making and breaking deals that prove useful to Microsoft. Jobs didn't know that art in the beginning, he was naive; now he's learning as well.

 

As far as Apple being more independent in the Office department, they can, but they will have to create a package that would be compatible with Microsoft Office because, in my opinion, people like it better than Windows.

[sandmanfvrga]

Well careless, what points in the ads are not true?

 

For me, OpenOffice is the way to go now. I am happy and I can do what I need, no longer wishing for Office 2004.

[Davel Rodriguez]

MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008 RELEASE SOON THAT IS WHAT I'M READING FROM WWW.MACWORLD.COM

 

Edited March 10, 2007 by Davel Rodriguez

[Vertigo50]

Heh. I just thought of something. If one company not releasing one software product is going to screw an entire computing platform, maybe you should reconsider your choice of computing platform.