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Microsoft's Mac Business Unit
An anonymous reader writes "Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an interesting piece on the folks who work at the Mac Business Unit for Microsoft."
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most people were probably sitting there thinking "why isn't Apple sending an in-house development team to OO.org?"
Actually, most of them were thinking "Excel? Is that some sort of Photoshop plug-in?"
You aren't exactly going to get the suit-n-tie crowd at the Mac conventions, although you will get a few people who only like OpenOffice because it doesn't come from Microsoft.
Sure: Access is a pig and it's nasty, but it's still a vital part of Office on Windows, and in the past what: SIX YEARS that Office has been on Mac they haven't puzzled out how to port that thang over to Mac?
MS feeds the Mac community the barest minimum to keep stringing the Mac People along and buy their junk^H^H^H^H software.
It's like that line by Godley and Creme, from Business is Business:
"Throw him them the bones
But freeze the meat
Cuz the meat comes off
but the beat goes on
Business is business..."
I think MS would just LOVE to dump the Mac, and I believe they will do so when... (pull the curtain, Fred)...
Apple Turns Apple works into a useful, efficient, and worthwhile app. (Right now it's OK for my daughter, but useless in any business sense. And it has a long way to go before it gets there.)
Once that happens, they'll ditch Mac like a hot potato and THAT is the reason why Apple Works sucx and will ALWAYS suck, because as soon as MS pulls Office off the Mac, the MAc's future will die a death at the hands of Moore's Law.
Things are not as cool as they seem, or as nifty as the article prtrays.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Let me get this straight.
No matter how many usability and feature benefits it has over its Windows counterpart, the Mac version of MS Office is "second rate" because it lacks -- of all things -- Access? A product which you admittedly call "nasty" and "a pig?" While the Mac could certainly use a solid GUI-based relational database -- and please resist the urge to even think about tossing up FileMaker as falling in this category -- Access is hardly the solution we need.
Filemaker is a toy. A useful toy, but a toy. Yes, there are Many Other GUI DBs out there, and most of them are likely better than Access, BUT: Access is the one that comes with Office, and it is the one that benefits from that kind of integration.
Therefore, Office is not truly crossplatform until they get all the apps migrated over, and considering how long Access has been around, I am convinced that they keep it on the windows side as an incentive to do the Wintel Heroin, much like His Steveness pulled the plug on the Windows Version of Final Cut Pro
(yes, there was a Windows version - I worked on it... and it was in better shape than the Mac version until Steve pulled the plug on it and a dozen integraph dual processor workstations wer estripped and put out in the hall...)
to bring people over to the side goodness and light.
First of all, please explain to me and the rest of the folks here how Moore's Law is going to kill the Mac. Not Moore's Law alone: a combo of MS abandoning the Mac platform and Moore's Law.
Let's say his Steveness decides that it's time to make Apple works something other than a bad joke. and they really turn the app around - make it world class, like FCP or DVDSP, etc.
The Prince of Darkness pulls the plug on OfficeX in retaliation, much as he killed IE when Safari came out. What happens then?
People who only use Mac for Office Apps and some Mac Apps (which is a very large number of people) hold onto their Macs and don't upgrade, because eventually the upgrade will break OfficeX.
Moore's Law says faster and better every 2 years or so. the machines that are the "OfficeX" machines will eventually breakdown or get replaced with Wintel Iron in order to do Office. this process will accellerate at Moore's Law speed, and withing 6 years, you have Mac's occupying less than .5% of the market.
They may be BLAZING fast, but hwo cares? They don;'t run Office, and that's what people are hooked on like Demerol on IV drip.
Secondly, if Microsoft were to drop Office for the Mac, it would only incentivize Apple to put its support behind OpenOffice.
No, OficeX will get dumped depending on when AppleWorks actually works. If AppleWOrks works, then there is no need for Open Office.
As odd as it may seem, millions of Linux users worldwide manage to use OpenOffice to exchange office documents with their Windows colleagues. Why couldn't Mac users do the same?
Because most Linux users are usually very smart. Most Mac and windows users are idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H not so sophisticated. Linux users can figure things out. Most Windows and MAc users (not all, but a huge number of them) just want an appliance, not a way of life.
Things may or may not be as cool as they seem, but they are certainly not as bleak as you portray.
If Apple continues on it's present path, I have one TLA that describes its future:
SGI
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Its a shame Apple doesnt try and emulate MS by hiring some competent Windows programmers. If I have to fix another friend's PC which died because of the poor owner installing Quicktime, Im gonna go luddite, or unibomber, or something.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.