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Microsoft to Continue Office on Mac
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.'"
But OpenOffice.org runs on the Mac just fine.
Yes, I was aware of that. I know OOo split from the StarOffice codebase, but the two products have diverged a lot since that time. While I like the UI (that desktop thing sucks!) of OOo better, StarOffice seems to have better support for the M$ formats.
I wish people would ween themselves off of the M$ formats. There should be an open standard document format. We could even let M$ chair on it, like they do for OFX. That should make them happy... another chance to kiss puppies in front of the public.