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Will Apple and Microsoft Renew their Vows?
krugdm writes "Remember about five years ago when Apple announced their deal with Microsoft where Apple agreed to bundle IE with new Macs and drop a patent lawsuit, and the guys from Redmond were to continue to develop Office for the Mac as well as purchase $150 million in Apple stock? Well, that deal expires this summer. describing the love-hate relationship the two companies have had in the time since 1997 and wonders whether the pact will be renewed."
Apple needs Office. They'll work something out.
to the future of the Mac platform.
I think MS will continue to support the platform b/c they really don't want it to die for various reasons (anti-trust...mac apps make $ etc)
Still, Apple should be rolling up its sleeves and Aqua-izing Open Office ASAP.
Although Microsoft like to pretend otherwise, the courts do scare them somewhat. The fact they "develop" for multiple platforms forms an important building block in their case, and in any subsequent (and inevitable) case.
MS will continue to develop, they just might not ink it.
keep your friends close and your enemies closer
We'll see. Apple has alot more leverage in this deal now that it has been ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly. MS needs to have Office on Mac, otherwise they are only choosing one platform for their office suite. I don't think that they are going to port it to Linux anytime soon, but I could be supprised.
blarg.
Somehow I can't find any good news on the page you're linking to...
Givens:
a) MS makes good money from software developed in their Mac Business Unit.
b) Apple needs Offfice to thrive, possibly even to survive at this point.
c) The demand for Office is "relatively inelastic," as my old econ prof used to say.
Thus, MS will continue to make Office for the Macintosh. Apple will continue to strike deals if neccessary to keep it that way. Because the agreement is over, however, and because the deamand is inelastic, MS is under no obligation to make quality, timely releases at fair prices with feature pairity with Windows. They can offer crap and we'll buy it. So it'll be there, but MS may be more free now to give us lower quality.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I would hope that the relationship would disolve this summer. It would behoove Apple to make sure that Microsoft did not establish a toehold in the OS itself. How many Microsoft apps out there require some sort of tie into the underpinning of the OS to function? Quite a few. How long would it be before Office Mac requires you to modify OS X to run it? That would be a horrible sight. If Apple utilizes AppleWorks and OpenOffice to get the access needed to the Office and Microsoft formatted files, then that is all that is needed (assuming that MS doesn't deliberatly break/change formats to prohibit 3rd party apps from reading files). Features that only Microsoft has can be replicated with time. I am positive that with some hard work, all other Office alternatives could strive and succeed at becoming as bloated as Office. Some patience will serve Macintosh users well in this case.
Cheers,
Von Kraken
Of course there are many open-source alternatives that could easily be ported to the macintosh, one of which could be AbiWord. The people at TheGIMP were able to do it, and Ximian has managed to design a suite of utilities that gets pretty close to office. There's no reason that if Microsoft didn't step up to the plate that they wouldn't. They need all the fuel they can get.
the other aspect to consider is that Mac OS X is POSIX compliant. Many open source apps can be ported (see the other story posted today). I could see how AbiWord, or many other open source Office apps could kill the need for purchasing M$ products.
Now we need to get people to start saving as *.rtf instead of *.doc (which works just as well), and we'll have the keys to the kingdom.
- passion
Apple would seriously have some problems with MS modifying their operating system. Aside from the fact that any modification would be fixed by the Apple update teams, Apple itself would be in an uproar if the operating system was mangled by the Office installer. Microsoft wouldn't want to lose face in the mac community (see MacAddict's I Love Microsoft articles, various issues) because they want to make $$$, not make alternate product's sales (such as appleworks or stonetools) go up. They make good money off their Mac BU, and modifying another (somewhat friendly) company's operating system isn't a welcome gesture.
Who actually still uses MSN messenger? Fire is far superior to any other messenger I have used before.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
I think that someone wrote an article about the stock games that Microsoft played during the last announcement. Part of the agreement was that MS would buy thousands of shares of non-voting Apple stock (to increase confidence).
But at the same time they also sold short the same amount of stock (or maybe more I don't recall). So the net effect on Apple's stock price was nothing (followed by a dip as investors expecting to see a rise started pulling out).
I expect Microsoft will perform similar tricks when the five years is up regardless of what anyone agrees or announces at MacWorld.
They've probably been slowly acculmulating Apple stock over time so that when MacWorld New York is over they can dump a huge amount and make it look like whatever Apple announced has spooked investors about the company.
Maybe it won't be Microsoft (the corporation) that does this. They're under all sorts of regulator scrutiny right now, but it certainly could be any number of Microsoft millionaires who do this. Heck Bill G, could probably pull something like this with his spare lunch money.
We'll see what happens. Big dip after MacWorld NY? Just expect it.
thanks for the link. it's nice to have a balanced rumor site for once, unlike MOSR.
I have a source that said Word ver. X.5 for OSX is going to be an exact port of Microsoft Word 5.1 (the most popular version on macos). Bill Gates said, "no one is buying office x.. but EVERYONE bought Word 5.x... lets re-ship that! Carbonize it programmer slaves! Carbonize it!" Direct quote mind you.
I doubt Microsoft will want to lock themselves into a deal with Apple at this point. However I also can't see them simply walking away from the billions in Office sales and other software and hardware on the Mac. Mac users tend to be more well to do than PC users on average and thus Microsoft knows that we will pay top dollar for their stuff.
:)
That and they certainly want IE to remain the standard on the Mac. It would be a shame for Microsoft if Apple switched to Omniweb as the standard browser (which IMHO is just as good as IE if not better)
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Apple doesn't have a hope in the world of getting toeholds in business markets, and even mobile professionals to some point, until there's a functional OSX equivalent to Outlook. Exchange servers are the lifeblood of a great many organizations. And hey, it does a pretty darn good job. Arranging meetings via shared calendars is priceless. IMHO.
So, in short, Apple needs to bide its time until an Exchange aware PIM is available..via an Entourage upgrade, separate app, whatever!
"In the end, we all fall back on fiction." -- Lonely Planet
Sounds pretty contradictory to me - it's not as if mp3 and jpg haven't been supported for quite some time now, and if open standards will solve so many problems, then why develop a proprietary media format with digital rights management et. all?
It doesn't have to be. MacBU makes money for MS, and the guys in Redmond respect that. Most importantly, MS will likely be forced to support Mac OS X by any final settlement of the anti-trust cases against it.
Apple didn't have a want for office applications a few years ago, and yet it still became dependent on Microsoft Office support to be a viable desktop choice in a business environment, and is rapidly becoming so at home.
Like it or not, the percentage of documents out there in Microsoft formats is rapidly reaching 100%. This isn't an issue that will just go away if firms or consumers switch office suites. And although we would love to think otherwise, StarOffice's compatibility with Office documents isn't 100%, probably isn't even serviceably good for businesses that want to run smoothly, and is and definitely not serviceably good for the majority of users out there who aren't up to speed with the world of compatibility issues.
Believe me, if it were otherwise, the college I work at would have switched over by now rather than bow down to a license change in Microsoft Office that just cost us about $50,000.
The fact of the matter is, even if the documents being produced internally aren't in office format, other firms and people are used to it. There are organizations out there that require all documents sent to them to be in Microsoft Office format. If you send them a *.rtf file, you'll get it sent right back to you. It's foolhardy to think that anyone can budge *.doc files given all the inertia they have developed.
The fact of the matter is, Apple needs Office about as much (possibly more) as it needs Internet Explorer. If businesses and schools start phasing out their Apple hardware because of office suite incompatibilities, their target market will start getting more and more used to PC's and very well may make their next computer a PC.
AppleWorks is nice, it doesnt support powerpoint, but it does word and excel formats. no, its not open source, but its cheap (~US$80) and smaller than Office (ok thats not hard)
plus its fully cocoa so it can make the fonts look nice.
This actually sounds like a pretty damned good idea. I could see why Apple wouldn't want to port OSX to intel, but it doesn't seem like they'd lose much by open sourcing AppleWorks. To the contrary, actually - cut Office off at the knees, and provide the entire market with a stable, free office suite that anyone can use on any platform. Computer users NEED this.
Christina! Bring me an axe!
Does anyone know if OS X is POSIX compliant?
"As soon as we have 'an Office' we'll take over the desktop!"
As we all know Star Office was not that product.
OS X has Office. It is vital to keep that product. It is the application that can swing things in a *nix on the desktop way.
OS X is an excellent platform (I say as I post from my G4 running 10.1.3) and I would be happy to see it gain prominence. I have gotten a few Windows folks to purchase iBooks recently and they have been estatic.
Word, Excel & PowerPoint no matter how bloated, over accesorized or even potentially dangerous (via macros) are the most important products to move OS X out of the hands of a few weenies and onto the desktops of corporate America.
That and a really good pr0n viewer.
This
Outlook 2001 for MacOS runs just fine under Classic in OSX. Sure, it would be nice to have a native Carbon or Cocoa version, but if you've got an overwhelming need to connect to an Exchange server from a Mac, it does the job just fine.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Two words: Lotus Notes
Three words: WORST PROGRAM EVER.
The fact that Notes/Domino is generally perceived as Exchange's primary competition is the reason that Exchange has completely dominated the corporate messaging market despite its many horrible, crippling flaws. Personally, I'd choose either Exchange or a messy suicide over having to use Notes ever again.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I'm not an adobe apologist or anything. In fact, I'm often more likely to use Macromedia products (web developer...). However, Adobe has really stepped up to the plate on getting their stuff carbonized. InDesign, LiveMotion, GoLive, Illustrator ALL OS X ready. And Photoshop 7 is supposedly just around the corner. Macromedia really needs to get off their duff and carbonize Flash and Dreamweaver, or they'll find Adobe converts.
My other computer is your Windows box
Apple needs MS (Office and IE)
MS needs Apple (for not being the only consumer OS seller) .Net framework.
I bet future version of Mac OS X will support the
If Microsoft stops writing Office for the Mac, Apple would be forced to find an office suite somewhere else. The likely place would be the Linux community...a port of Star Office for example. The more copies of an alternative suite out there, the worse things are for Office. The ripple effect would make Linux an even greater threat to Microsoft then it already is. Besides, Microsoft still makes a few bucks with office for the Mac. For them to stop offering it would be a lose/lose for them....