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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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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.
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.