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Microsoft to Continue Office on Mac

Posted by Zonk on from the at-least-for-now dept.

LiMikeTnux wrote to mention a CNN article giving details about the five year agreement now in place between Microsoft and Apple to keep Office alive on the Mac platform. From the article: "Though Apple clearly benefits from having the widely-used Office software available to its users, it may seem less obvious what Microsoft stands to gain from continuing its relationship. But according to Greg DeMichillie, a senior analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent consulting and analysis firm focusing specifically on Microsoft, the business is still a profitable one for Microsoft. While it's not a huge part of Microsoft's business, given the company's sheer scale, 'Apple's 3 to 4 percent market share doesn't hurt them either,' DeMichillie said. 'Also, to have them be seen going out of their way to hurt a competing operating system is not really helpful from an anti-trust perspective.'"

4 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. While this is slightly off-topic... by ellem · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Office 2004 for OS X is light years better than Office 2003 for Windows.

    Tons of the features in 2004 are showing up in other products for MS, like OneNote, Project etc. The only thing keeping Entourage from being better than Outlook by leaps and bounds is MS's intentional crippling of Entourage as an Exchange client.

    Perhaps MS uses OS X for advanced products beta testing?

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    This .sig is fake but accurate.
  2. Re:I Can See Gains for MS with This Move by Radical+Rad · · Score: 4, Interesting
    What I mean is that, without this alternative, Microsoft Office fans (who are also Apple operating system advocates) would be forced to look for an alternative. Maybe even a free open source alternative such as OpenOffice.org or selecting other free word editors?

    If Microsoft were to drop MS Office on the Mac then they would be opening up about 4% of the OS market to the alternatives you mentioned. That is something they don't need right now because even their grip on the Windows Office market is loosening. How many hundreds of thousands of licenses have they lost worldwide to Star Office or Open Office. They aren't doing Apple any favors here. They are just trying to prolong their time on top.

  3. More like 1/2 of office by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While its nice to have word and excel, there are a few things missing like access, viiso, project. Just enough missing components to still need to run a windows desktop in most companies.

    More like a 'teaser' than real support.

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Still no obvious reason to commit to 5 years by RetiredMidn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    OK, TFA and several posters here have provided reasons for why Microsoft would continue to produce Office for the Mac, such as "they make a profit on it". But nobody has really offered a reason as to why they would commit, in writing, to producing it for any length of time.

    The only explanation that I can see is that they got some sort of concession out of Apple in exchange for the commitment.

    I suspect that the concession from Apple was to not actively support OpenOffice. Maybe they offered in exchange for help (that I don't think they need) to get VirtualPC working on the new Intel Macs. But I'd welcome more informed speculation.