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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.'"
I think this problem is symbolic of much larger one in which entire industries are out to "hurt" their competitors, but also their very customers. Look at the way the computer industry, the telecom industry and the entertainment/industrial complex has worked to limit our choices, roll back our access to new technologies, and lock us in to carefully controlled uses of their products. Equipment is hamstrung, demand is ignored, products are made less friendly to the user but more friendly to the profit margins. While trumpeting technological advances, they ship products that don't work or don't work well. There is outright hostility to those of us who are the ones pumping money into these industries. The entire model of supply and demand/free market is turned on its head and WE become the consumables.
I don't want to make too big a jump here for those of you who are happy as clams as long as you can go to the best buy and get a 52" something that sets you back a month's pay, just to find that it can't do the things you really want it to do because those features are "just around the corner". The next release, the coming upgrade, THAT's the one you really want. But this fundamental change in the flow of power from the consumer to industry is being mirrored in the realm of public life. Politics are no longer about us. Elections are held but voters are optional. With all the things happening in the world, all the stories that could be told, every single media outlet has the same half-dozen stories on the front page. I used to wonder why some insignificant event would suddenly show up as the most important story in every single newspaper and news show. Now it becomes clear: as long as there's something to show us, it doesn't matter if it's the things that matter. As long as we watch. As long as we consume, as long as we pay, and most important, as long as we get up to go to work tomorrow so we can keep making those credit card payments.
I'm sorry that I'm making these big jumps from this rather unsurprising story about one company doing something to hurt another. The thing is: I just don't believe it. Microsoft, Apple, how different are they really? Smart people have epic battles in these pages arguing the benefits of one platform over another as if it somehow matters, or if one will somehow defeat the other. To them, it's all good as long as we keep upgrading, keep paying, keep working. We have become the consumables.
Now go read another story and let me finish my drink in peace. Tomorrow's another working day.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If Steve Jobs had a secret Intel port of Mac OS X going on for years, is it so hard to imagine that he might have a secret office suite project going on in case Microsoft dumps Apple? The only reason he wouldn't release it would be because Microsoft's support for Apple is good for sales and Apple's own office suite would be for a ``use only in case of emergency'' scenario. I mean, even if it were vastly superior to Microsoft Office, it would be a hard sell.