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."

Comments

Re:Macs have a purpose

[soft_guy]

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 These were all working units that were going to the landfill because they were out of date.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.

Re:try bread and butter

[WhoDaresWins]

and a profit-making division at Microsoft is getting be something of a rarity what with the company loosing money through the nose in countless divisions. In fact, I believe there's only one division more profitable- the OS division.

What utter nonsense are you talking about? Don't go about inventing facts when you don't know what the real facts are. Out of Microsoft's 7 divisions, 4 make a profit. Three of those 4 divisions make a huge profits: Client (OS), Info Worker (Office), and Server & Tools. The Business Solutions and Mobile & Embedded Devices divisions are small and incubating businesses so they don't make much of a profit now. The really big division that makes a loss is Home & Entertainment and thats primarily due to XBox. So no you are totally wrong about Microsoft having only one division that makes a profit. Next time don't spout your own imagination as facts. You can check the Microsoft profit and loss figures for each division in the Form 10Q SEC filings that Microsoft makes. Here are the relevant numbers from that report -

(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

I can't help but smile at my former co-workers

[JayBonci]

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)