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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 $150 million in Apple stock? Well, that deal expires this summer. describing the love-hate relationship the two companies have had in the time since 1997 and wonders whether the pact will be renewed."
Although Microsoft like to pretend otherwise, the courts do scare them somewhat. The fact they "develop" for multiple platforms forms an important building block in their case, and in any subsequent (and inevitable) case.
MS will continue to develop, they just might not ink it.
We'll see. Apple has alot more leverage in this deal now that it has been ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly. MS needs to have Office on Mac, otherwise they are only choosing one platform for their office suite. I don't think that they are going to port it to Linux anytime soon, but I could be supprised.
I would hope that the relationship would disolve this summer. It would behoove Apple to make sure that Microsoft did not establish a toehold in the OS itself. How many Microsoft apps out there require some sort of tie into the underpinning of the OS to function? Quite a few. How long would it be before Office Mac requires you to modify OS X to run it? That would be a horrible sight. If Apple utilizes AppleWorks and OpenOffice to get the access needed to the Office and Microsoft formatted files, then that is all that is needed (assuming that MS doesn't deliberatly break/change formats to prohibit 3rd party apps from reading files). Features that only Microsoft has can be replicated with time. I am positive that with some hard work, all other Office alternatives could strive and succeed at becoming as bloated as Office. Some patience will serve Macintosh users well in this case.
Cheers,
Von Kraken
the other aspect to consider is that Mac OS X is POSIX compliant. Many open source apps can be ported (see the other story posted today). I could see how AbiWord, or many other open source Office apps could kill the need for purchasing M$ 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
Okay, it's a pipe dream. Won't happen. But this is what I imagine...
:-)
Rumors are circulating wildly about the new Apple / Microsoft alliance leading up to MacWorld New York.
Steve Jobs comes on to the floor. He reminds people of the productive business relationship that Microsoft and Apple have had. The benefits that have been nurtured by the mutual cooperation for the past five years. He asks that the lights go down and they start to show the message that Bill Gates delivered five years ago.
After 30 seconds or so. A woman wearing red running shorts and carrying a sledgehammer comes storming through the crowd and hurls it up at the giant screen. Shattering things and leaving the crowd in shocked silence before erupting in massive noise.
Jobs goes on to announce that despite the working together, only one partner has grown as a result: Microsoft. He wants to end that.
He announces a three pronged attack:
1) Open Sourcing AppleWorks 7 to be the new free business app of choice on Windows, Linux, and Mac's that will kill reliance on MS Office.
2) A port of Mac OS X Server (not client) to be licensed to any WinTel maker at the same rates as MS Windows Server.
3) The start of an aggressive new ad campaign that really crucifies the Windows as being fundamentally insecure and poorly designed.
Wild fantasy. Nothing like this will happen, but that's what I imagine in my wildest dreams.
Office and Internet Explorer are fairly important to the platform, but not always as important as the tools for AV technicians, 3D artists, graphics designers, and page layout designers.
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
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.
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their product. So I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success: I have no problem with their success. They've earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products."
--Triumph of the Nerds PBS documentary interview (May 1996)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
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.
"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