Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Mac Business Unit

Posted by michael on from the oil-and-water dept.

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."

7 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. GM to VW as Mac to Linux by trolman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Far from it. But as one observer put it, it's as if they were working for a division of General Motors making parts for Volkswagens." I predict that this will be repeated when Linux is mainstream on the desktop.

  2. The best part of the article imho by atari2600 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But the people in the Mac BU take noticeable pride in Office for Mac as a product in its own right, not merely a translation of Windows Office to the Mac operating system. Office 2004 for Mac, for example, includes a number of features not available in the Windows version of Office, such as a "project center" in the Entourage e-mail program that lets users manage in one place a project that involves different types of files.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. they care... by contrasutra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The mac team cares about making high quality software. Anyone notice that the Mac versions of Microsoft software is usually better than the Windows counterparts?

    So it tells you, MS can make good software, they just have to actually care.

    They also fixed the CSS bugs on Mac IE. That just shows you...something. They have a fix for this, but they wont release it for windows. Add your consipiracy theory here.

  5. Some critical apps missing by medazinol · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I generally like Office, Remote Desktop and can tolerate Virtual PC (lack of G5 support is not acceptable) I find the Mac BU decision re: Exchange server quite criminal. Yes, they added support for Exchange server in Entourage, however that support is for Exchange 2000 and only if you leave things alone in a stock install. We have numerous clients that run Exchange sevrer 5.5 and 2000 but turn off all but MAPI support. MS decided to not include any support for the MAPI protocol in Entourage!! They could have just ported Outlook 2001 to the Carbon spec and we'd be pretty well off but they took another route wich in most corporate environments almost lock us out totally in this manner. Thank Apple for including a fairly robust Classic environment so we can still run Outlook 2001 but if you've ever dealt with Classic apps and trying to get something like Outlook 2001 to runs problem-free then you know that we really need an OS X native Exchange client. To add insult to injury they still don't offer MAPI support in the new Office 2004 they recently announced. Just last week I sent feedback to Apple asking them to explore the possibility of them creating an collaboration system like Notes or Exchange on the Mac platform but making sure they use open protocols, 100% equal Mac, Windows and Linux clients, a plug-in system to integrate with Notes and Exchange and practically give it away. Talks about a killer app for Mac OS X Server.

  6. Re:The only reason.... by catdevnull · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I support a whole campus full of PC and Mac Office users. I disagree that the Mac version is better. My PC users don't complain much about some of the bugs we find in the Mac version. I find that there most common complaint is "unexpectedly quit" issues with office even with all the patches.

    I find that Mac users are pretty happy with months of uptime but Windows 2K through XP seem pretty stable with a good patch and antivirus regimen. YMMV. Stability is an issue on any system that doesn't get checkups and patches. Windows is definitely high maintenance in comparison.

    Linux is still far from "user-friendly" as a desktop solution. Stable or not, it's still has a huge "geek factor" to bridge before you can just give it to a user without your phone and pager going off every 5 minutes. Talk about high maintenance.

    --

    I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
  7. MS getting ready to shed its skin? by philge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft buys virtual PC. Microsoft adopts power IBM PC processor for next Xbox. Word for OSX could be adapted to run on power pc hardware uunder another OS. MS feels mounting pressure of malicious code and is aware of platform monoculture dilemma. Windows for many people just somewhere to run office. If MS wanted to build a new machine with backwards compatibility through virtual PC, running office natively, then all the pieces are falling into place. Get ready for the clone wars