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

wow

[andih8u]

They make software for macs and have a mac business unit. I hope someone can get some shots of macs being unloaded from a truck.

GM to VW as Mac to Linux

[trolman]

"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.

Re:GM to VW as Mac to Linux

[kfg]

The only problem is that that statement belies a complete ignorance of the economics and corporate ties of the auto industry.

GM, Ford, Volkswagon, Honda, Toyota, etc, all make parts for "competitors."

It's called doing business and making a profit. What does GM care if the motor they're making money on has someone elses label on the hood?

What does Microsoft care if office is running on a Mac as long as they get the same cut they would if it were running under Windows?

Either way they derive profit, market share and mind share.

KFG

The best part of the article imho

[atari2600]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

they care...

[contrasutra]

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.

Re:amazing (not really)

[Rockin' Az]

that guy definitely does not read /.

well, maybe he does now

The guy's a Mac user...he can get another girlfriend

is that an Oxymoron or is that Irony...

[SPYDER Web]

Maybe every business has a unit that uses competitors products like Coke has a Pepsi unit and Crest has a unit that brushes their teeth with Aqua Fresh. Its like one big Utopian Free-Market captialist society....

Why would they NOT have Macs?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I have no idea why the parent is "funny". Everyone knows Microsoft makes Mac software, and without question, they have labs that have everything from Macs to vanilla Linux machines, Sparc Stations and everything else. Any company that does not investigate it's competition is beyond ignorent. People cut Microsoft a lot, but stupid people they are not.

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.

Of course they use Macs!!!!

[artemis67]

How else are they going to get any work done when they get hit with these Outlook viruses?

Some critical apps missing

[medazinol]

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.

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

Re:The only reason....

[catdevnull]

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.

MS getting ready to shed its skin?

[philge]

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

Re:MSoffice on Mac is STILL second rate

[ducomputergeek]

Oddly enough, I love MS Office on Mac better than windows and I beta tested Office 2000 and XP. To our small business, the lack of access is mute. We run 95% macs, with BSD or Linux on our servers. I refuse to use Access and run either PostgreSQL or MySQL that handles all of our CRM/ERP. But that's overkill really. We get buy with Mac Mail and Quickbooks Pro quite nicely. We have less than 10 employees, but when things like MyDoom come along we don't worry about it.

Also, even if Office goes away for Mac I don't think its going to be much a problem. OpenOffice is making great strides, I have had several clients switch to OpenOffice and save thousands of dollars as opposed to going to Office 2003. Most of my clients don't need anything other than a word processor and spread sheet on most of their desktops.

On the other note, of my clients, the video production folks are buying macs in droves and spending an average of $7000 a peice for them. Why? Final Cut Pro is the defacto small shop editing software for video production companies. Even major motion pictures are being edited on the machines and that market's not going away so long as Apple continues producing excellent software.

Furthermore, there is something going on your not reading about much: The rest of the world is going to LINUX as their OS of choice. Microsoft maybe able to bribe some back to their side, but largely, I think the desktop market over the next five years outside of the United States is going to Linux. I also see some larger companies going to Linux as well as soon as a clear defacto desktop enviroment emerges.

Discovered this while working and studying in Germany. The german college I attended for a semester had two Linux labs and one Windows XP lab. The students spent more time usually typing up papers in StarOffice on SuSE Linux than in MS office and Windows.

Mac and BSD dying threads just aren't true. I switched myself from Linux to Mac about two years ago and never looked back. So far I have been very impressed with my iBook and now Powerbook.