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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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Try a few hundred (maybe even thousand) Macs. I used to a Mac developer at Microsoft. We had plenty of machines.
When I was there, they were getting rid of some of their first generation PowerPC Macintoshes. I think in one day they threw away like 500 PowerMac 6100,7100, and 8100s. These were all working units that were going to the landfill because they were out of date. Most companies would have donated them to schools, but Microsoft doesn't donate their used Macs to schools because they figure that's one fewer DOS or Windows license that they won't sell.
And it wasn't like those 500 machines weren't being replaced. They were replacing them with G3s and G4s at that time just as fast as they were throwing the old ones out.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
That sir, is a load of bullshit. From one of my older posts on the same subject:
According to their Annual Report's MD&A they make a profit in Client (Desktop OS), Server, and Information Worker (Office, Visio, etc.). They lost money on Business Solutions (Great Plains Acct Software, etc.), MSN, Mobile and Embedded, Home Entertainment (XBox, etc.), and Other (which had something to do with the sale of Expedia).
It doesn't break out Mac division but I am sure it is profitable but so negligible in total as to be almost a joke.
As for their divisiona losing money. The total loss of all divisions losing money for their Q1 was $335M vs the profit from their profitable divisions of over $5 BILLION.
I can understand your hatred for Microsoft but your spreading false information makes you no better.
For those of you looking for the info it is in Note 11 of the MD&A (which is after the financials for you non-accountants).
(In millions) Operating Income/Loss Three Months Ended Sept.30 2003
Client 2,264
Server and Tools 370
Information Worker 1,591
Microsoft Business Solutions -79
MSN 58
Mobile and Embedded Devices -32
Home and Entertainment -273
Hahahah. Now I understand. You really have no clue what you are talking about. I usually don't take on other people's arguments but you are really scary. You say Office is the Mac group's only product and then you tell him to read? You didn't even read the article.
I can't even begin to untangle the mess about OS division vs Office division vs Mac Division.
And you obviously never priced a PC. Office doesn't come with PC's. Dell charges you $129 for the most basic Office and $340 for the full Pro version.
And here is some numbers for you:
Market size (hypothetically) - 10,000,000
Mac - 500,000 * $400 = $200,000,000
PC - 9,500,000 * $129 = $1,225,500,000
I already made my point in another post about Mac version coming out first.
OG blows in it's Visio interoperability --granted .vdx support is recent... If it would read .vsd files I wouldn't be so opposed to using it --but that's not OG's fault. As one of the two Macs in a company of about 50 Visio users, I routinely find myself using Visio via VPC to export vsd to vdx files. If I'm lucky VPC/WinXP/Visio will keep from crashing just long enough for me to pull the export off.
That's why I want MS Visio for Mac. I'm hoping they can improve upon the Windows counterpart just like Office v.X. So, maybe my anger was a little misdirected. OG doesn't necessarily blow, but jumping through hoops just to read a Visio drawing in OG does blow.
Actually Microsoft killed IE in name but released MSN Explorer in its place. Explorer uses the Tasman rendering engine with the glitzy MSN interface on top of it. It's pretty much the same as MSN Explorer on Windows, including even WMP and Messenger.
It is likely Microsoft will keep MSN Explorer et al up to date because they are trying to grab the Mac crowd for MSN internet access. Earthlink and AOL have long had good support for Mac users and as such they've got quite a few Mac subscribers. Every Mac you buy comes with 30 days of free Earthlink service, AOL dial-up support in Internet Connect, and an AIM compatible IM client. Apple's very friendly with Earthlink and AOL for sticking with them even in bad times. MSN on the other hand has pretty much ignored the Mac market for most of its operational lifetime. Now that MSN is fighting to retain customers left and right they have to support the Mac market. They're losing customers left and right to cheaper dial-up services and broadband providers.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I'll come clean here and say that I in fact did used to work for Microsoft as an intern, in the Macintosh Business Unit. As in, no shit, there I was. These are the people I used to eat lunch with, talk about bugs with, and share the passion for a product with etc. They are Macintosh zealots in the Microsoft community, and deeply care not only about Microsoft, but also the Macintosh community as a whole. As much as you may think of them as black sheep, they wear it as a badge of honor.
;)
I've never heard more talk from a product group about what the "community" will think about a feature, what value it adds to the target audience, etc. It was a core focus, to not only bring Microsoft Office to that community, but enable them to interact fully with their Windows counterparts. There was no secondary citizenship. These people put their all into the product, and are met with relatively great success.
An amazing amount of work goes into making the software a great user-experience. Applescript exposure, different UI, Mac-specific features and development... all of those things because the Mac product was hugely important. Localization into at least 5 different languages (off the top of my head). Different product SKUs, and different new developments with what the Mac community had in mind.
A very cool thing that I found about the team was that in no way lived under the shadow of the greater Office group. They pride themselves on having the "best" version of Office, as wierd as that sounds.
Kevin Brown, the Business Unit Manager when I was there said at a MacWorld (paraphrased from memory): "We know that our users are mostly home and small business users. People aren't using Excel to make incredibly complicated PivotTables, but are using it to balance their checkbook". That quote stuck out in my mind as something that always made me chuckle. It was a realistic look at how this "enterprise class" piece of software was realistically being used by the community at large.
These are developers and testers who use their Mac everyday (some even faking their PC). I knew one tester who used the product for everything. Signs, balancing his budget, right on down to making grocery lists in word, and porting them over to Powerpoint, just to see.
I worked on the clamshell version of Office 2001, and the trophy copy still sits on my desk. I hate to hear when people bash the group as some kind of whack strategy to sink Apple, because not only are these people my professional friends, but they simply don't think that way.
It was a refreshing two summers working for the Evil Empire (tm), but being a part of a group with as much passion for quality and desire to put out the best software possible. It's made me a rabid tester, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I remember that huge Mac lab you see behind you running SETI at home, as we were in the top 20 or so for a while
If you guys are reading this, glad to hear you're going strong.
--Jay Bonci (summer of 1999, 2000, Mac Office Core)