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Microsoft Wanted To Drop Mac Office To Hurt Apple
Overly Critical Guy writes to mention that more documents in the Iowa antitrust case have come out. This time, it's revealed that Microsoft considered dumping the Mac Office Suite entirely in a move to harm Apple. "The email complains at poor sales of Office, which it attributes to a lack of focus on making such sales among reps at that time. It describes dumping development of the product as: 'The strongest bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately.' The document also confirms that Microsoft at the time saw Office for the Mac as a chance to test new features in the product before they appeared in Windows, 'because it is so much less critical to our business than Windows.'"
The problem with this is that if nothing else, Microsoft is good at making money and the Microsoft Mac Business unit is quite profitable, with Office as one of their biggest revenue generators. On the other hand, that has never hurt Microsoft when they felt that losses in revenue in one area would be made up for in another area if they cancelled development for a competing platform. Just look to the cancellation of Halo development for Macintosh and Linux after they bought Bungie.
However, it is an unfortunate reality of the software business, no matter how the consumer may benefit. When it comes down to it, companies are interested in making money and they have to balance the needs and desires of the customer along with their requirements of making mo' and mo' money. Just look to insurance companies, right? They are not in business to provide health care insurance or to cover your medical bills. They are however in business to make money. Don't ever mistake the two or conflate their motives.
That is not to say that there are not companies that have motivations that are geared towards the consumers of their products. On the contrary, I feel that Apple has done a pretty good job over the years of balancing ethical behavior with making great products that will keep their customers happy, but even they have, on occasion screwed up, sometimes spectacularly.
I guess the most impressive thing to me about this is the continued flood of documents that have come out of the anti-trust trial that was dumped after the current POTUS entered the White House. These documents show an amazing culture of not just intense competition, but also one of dishonesty, dishonor and patently illegal behavior. I remember the case being dropped, but how could it have gone so wrong and how much more is there to find?
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That's why kids... we have Open Source projects like Linux and Open Office.
Y
no, thats not really the _why_
Apple creates commercials that portray the Mac as a jeans-clad hipster and a Windows PCs as a balding lame-o in a suit. They believe it will harm Microsoft. News at 11.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
Given the flakiness of connecting Entourage to an Exchange server, where I could get all my e-mails but not send anything (?!) I just stopped trying.
Having half-working software is far worse than none at all.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Two reasons. First, it's Office. I needed Office in school, so I used Office. Now that I don't need to do that kind of stuff on my laptop/home computer I wouldn't buy Office.
Second, Office for Mac is really very nice. I have Office 2004 on my Mac (version 11). I've got to say that I like it's interface WAY better than the Windows versions of Office I've used (up to XP, I haven't had much chance with 2k3 or the newest one). It's really a very nice program. If it wasn't from Microsoft, I think it would still sell very well.
I've also heard of them using the Mac version to "test" things. I think the UI that I like so much (the floating pallets on the right side) was probably a part of the precursor to the ribbon they've been touting so much.
The Windows version may have gotten complacent, but the guys in the Mac Business Unit are good at what they do.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Where can I buy Apple's Final Cut Pro 5, for Windows?
Oh.
Maybe because if FC Pro 5 was available on Windows people would have less incentive to go to the Mac?
This is exactly the kind of anti-competative behavior that monopolies engage in.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
This shouldn't be surprising to anyone who follows Microsoft and Apple. Of course MS 'considered' it; not to do so would show a remarkable lack of long-term strategy thought at high levels of the company. Unless they actually do remove Office for the Mac, there's no story here.
Mac: Hi, I'm a Mac...
... (Repeat 17 more times)
PC: and I'm a PC.
PC2: and I'm another PC
PC3: and I'm another PC
Mac: So what are you guys working on?
PC: We're working on this year's budget. We need the numbers for your department.
Mac: Okay, send it over.
(Pause)
Mac: Here you go.
(Pause)
PC 6: What's wrong with this file?
PC 11: I don't know, it's formatted all wrong.
PC 8: I'll bet it's Mac's fault. Hey, Mac?
Mac: It looks fine to me...
PC 3: Mac, look, you're a cool guy and we really like you, but you can't just go off and mess up a document like that!
Mac: But...but...it looks fine in OO.o!
PC 19: Oh oh oh? Listen, I don't have time to play games, I need your numbers in that file without any screwing around!
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
I don't understand how your point is relevant. If you were in business, would you want to help your competitor? What we are talking about is Microsoft withdrawing a product from the marketplace. How does withdrawing a product from the marketplace constitute monopoly abuse?
The most important issue is that the dock changes size, and its contents move. This happens every time you minimize a window or launch an application that is not glued (whatever the terminology is) to your dock. It doesn't change size until it has to (unless you have zooming turned on, but that's not what I'm talking about here) but things do MOVE. This eliminates the ability to use muscle memory. The brain has to be involved every time you click on anything in the dock.
Another issue is that icons appear behind the dock. I used to have a much larger dock because I have a fairly large apple display (19"?) and I had room for it. But what would happen is that icons would appear behind the dock and there was nothing to click on. In order to get them out from under it, I would lasso them AND another icon, and drag the other icon.
The sad thing is that the original Dock from NeXTStep had none of these problems. It had a fixed layout and grew from one end, so that the things at the top of the Dock always stayed put. THAT Dock also allowed you to have "drawers", sub-docks that folded out horizontally from your vertical system Dock, but they elected to remove that functionality from OSX. So what I'm saying here is that they had it right in NeXTStep, which ran smoothly on a low-end (~25MHz) 680x0 processor (I believe 020, 030, and 040 processors were used in various NeXT workstations?) but they fucked it up for OSX, which runs like shit on a machine an order of magnitude more powerful in every way, for example a 350MHz G3 with a 3d graphics accelerator and a gigabyte of memory. But this last paragraph isn't an additional indictment against the dock (Except for the drawer issue) but against Apple.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. Cancel Office for the Mac and cease support and updates for exisiting versions
Apple has thought of this. That's why Apple is in the middle of developing an Office replacement. Pages, Keynote, and the soon be released excel compatible spreadsheet app.
2. Buy Adobe
3. Cancel all Adobe products for the Mac and cease support and updates for existing versions
This merger/aquisition would never be approved since MS is already a convicted monopolist. Even if approved, Apple has Aperture (high end) and iPhoto (low end) ready for precisely this contingency.
4. Buy DigiDesign
5. Cancel ProTools for the Mac and cease support and updates for existing versions
Even if this one were approved, Apple already has Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and Garage Band , for this market.
Apple has thought of your "5 step plan" and have been taking steps to counter it for years.
...isn't Word/Excel/Powerpoint- NeoOffice works fine for those, it's Entourage- in an Exchange business environment, that's a key item and mail.app doesn't cut it.
Paul
http://www.pauldrobertson.com
-Proprietary hardware
What's proprietary hardware? Only intel can make intel CPUs and intel chipsets. Only NVidia can make Nvidia compatible gfx chipsets. Macs can use the same Ram, hard drives and optical drives as everyone else. Now they even have Intel CPUs in them like other brands. Where is your proof? -Proprietary software
What's wrong with that? Do you even know what proprietary means? A lot of "open source" programs have proprietary file formats of their own. Sorry, but source code is not the same as a documented open standard. MSFT and a bunch of other companies also have proprietary software even by your definition. -Closed protocols
-Lock-ins MSFT's Playsforsure DRM has platform lockin. You cannot use an MTP only device with anything other than windows. MSFT's Zune only works with windows and the Zune software. -selected compatibility Would you care to define what you mean by that? MSFT has selected compatibility with windows. Anything good said about Apple in comparison to Microsoft is just hypocrisy. Except for human interfaces, that where they excel (ex iPod).
Give us something solid, not just empty rhetoric and hyperbole.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Hello, I am a sound designer and an occasional beta-tester for Digidesign.
Digidesign has a very love-hate relationship with the Mac platform, I have observed. They started with it and used Apple's great MIDI and audio support to make their product awesome (and vice versus). They do also, however, have a PC version (that I've never seen used in the wild), are owned by Avid (which has gone seriously pro-PC in the last 5 years), and Digi is constantly chasing the Mac's hardware platform (the PCI Express transition has been painful for a lot of people, the Intel transition less so.)
Digi would have a ton of trouble dragging their userbase to PCs. We Pro Tools users don't use them, we hate them culturally, all of our jigs and tools are Mac-centric, and frankly we'd have nothing to gain by the move (since we all own $3000 workstations anyways, cost isn't an issue), thus we would oppose it fiercely, from a marketing point of view.
That said, Apple's line of audio software is nowhere near where is needs to be in terms of workflow and interoperability to work for music and post-production sound. We have a joke that you need to have a Ph.D. in order to understand Logic (it's the Linux of DAWs, powerful but unfriendly), and Soundtrack Pro doesn't do 5.1 and doesn't use dedicated hardware for DSP or IO. Neither have good Avid interoperation, which is still the industry standard, and the interoperability standard (OMF and AAF) is controlled by Digidesign and Microsoft, and tends to be a moving target.
IMHO, If Pro Tools users lost the Mac, it wouldn't cause a migration to the PC in professional recording, it would cause a huge fragmentation of platforms in professional recording. Pro Music people would probably go to Logic or Nuendo on Mac, post would probably switch to Nuendo, or someone enterprising developer will write a Post-Centric DAW (they've existed in the past, but it's a small market, so the economics have to be just so). Also, Pro Tools has a huge installed base in amateur music and home recording, and these people would stay on Mac, either switching to GarageBand, or switching to OSS like Ardour or Jokosher. This would have the unwelcome (to MS) side effect of spurring their development. All of this fragmentation would also cause the development of stronger interoperability standards, which MS wouldn't want, either.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Shows what you know. OpenOffice on Mac OS X == NeoOffice/J. You only use the X11 version if you want a world of pain.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You do have a very good point there. MS Exchange is a "killer app", not because it's good, but because if it's deployed once, it has to be deployed everywhere to be useful. So if a corp decides on MS Exchange, it needs to use MS Outlook, therefore it needs to use MS Windows.
I know that Hydrogen et al have done what thay can, but (forgive me, I've not been watching lately), have they got 100% compatibility?
I now get Outlook meeting appointments from third parties, requiring MS Exchange/Outlook all round. But then, it seems that the "innovation" behind this involves a simple one-liner text-based email saying "Accepted: "
Desktop is not my field, but this whole "we need MS because they use MS" thing must be cross between a house of cards and the emperor's new clothes; somebody will come up with the "Eureka!" moment to get us out of this apparent vendor lock-in.
I just wish that I was smart enough to be that person
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
It'll never happen, because "office suites" are inherently wrong. Like above, with your example of "embedding documents" -- that's wrong. The concept doesn't even make sense! Or putting content and presentation together haphazardly -- that's wrong, too. Yet that's exactly what Word is designed to do. And "macros?" Wrong! A document and an application are two different things. Documents aren't meant to be executable! Because of these things, MS Office and OpenOffice, like 'goto,' should be considered harmful.
So what's the "right" thing? XHTML, with separate content and stylesheet, is the "right" thing. TeX is the "right" thing. Writing an actual application when you need an application, instead of hacking the functionality into Word or Excel using VBA, is the "right" thing. And most importantly, realizing that the point of the document is the content, and that you shouldn't be wasting time with excessive markup in Word, is the "right" thing!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I don't mean to criticise *you* (not least because I don't know who you are!), but why is it such a bad thing for MS not to provide tools for Mac OS X, but there's nothing wrong with the fact that they don't provide anything for Red Hat.
I used to assume it was just because MS didn't compete with Mac OS X because of PPC hardware (according to some strained definition), but they did with GNU/Linux because it usually runs on the x86 platform, but even that strained argument no longer applies...
Look out!
Slashdotters hate being told that what they're discussing isn't important, even though that is the case with petty OS arguments. A mere discussion of operating systems somehow snowballs into a discussion of politics and religion that has very little bearing on reality. The personal anecdote is respected almost as factual content. This behavior is exemplified by the two replies you've gotten that say, "hey lighten up!"
Parent is absolutely right: there's a whole world out there with REAL problems that need to be fixed, not some lame ass "my hate for a particular company dictates my worldview" tripe that passes for news around here.
"Fine, then. MP3 players. Can you cite a tangible reason (not just "ooh, design! shiny!") why iPods are typically 70-90% more expensive than comparable models from other manufacturers. And lets remember ... NEARLY DOUBLE... not just a little more."
What kind of argument is that? Is not "design! shiny!" a tangible reason?
By your kind of logic you can also explain to us why a Ferrari costs 1000x more expensive than a regular car apart reasons like "design!" and "faster engines!"
So what if it is faster, the engines are made of the same metal, who cares what amount of intellectual property and engineering has gone into it. It is free right? You are only paying for the materials. Yeah right.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Wow, you didn't get it at all. The problem isn't that Word 97 doesn't open Word 2000 files (although I think it actually does). The problem is that a file created in a version of Word tends to get mangled when opened in a different format. Specifically the page layouts tend to get screwed up, something specially infuriating for long documents like a book or a thesis.
This is not only true when transferring files from a Mac to a PC or vice versa. It also happens among different versions of Word for Windows (or for the Mac, for that matter). Heck, sometimes even moving a file between two PCs with the SAME version of Word screws the layout! (In this case the culprit may be different versions of a font or specifying a different printer).
For comparison, a document written in LaTeX will look fine when rendered in different versions of LaTeX. Maybe not exactly identical, but at least it will almost always look great anyway. Or consider PDF files, which look and print perfectly on any system/viewer/printer (although they are a pain to edit).
So, dude, you suck it.