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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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If they really wanted to harm Apple and it's users, they'd port Clippy to Office:Mac and enable it by default.
That's why kids... we have Open Source projects like Linux and Open Office.
Y
Why wouldn't they want to harm Apple? They're competitors! Why is this news?
Dropping MS office for the Mac could hurt MS Office for the PC long term - Why?
Apple might consider including OpenOffice.Org then advertising it:
Mac: Hi, I'm a Mac,
PC: and I'm a PC
PC: So what is that your doing
Mac: Oh, just some office stuff, you know, spreadsheets, documents, presentations
PC: I can do those too
Mac: Yeah, but I don't use your monopoly expensive as shit software, I use this free one which is actually better. It doesnt try to format shit I don't want. Oh, and it's free and works on a PC too. You should try it.
PC: Hey you're right! This OpenOffice.org is the shnizzer! All the PC users should download it from www.openoffice.org right now!
When you're on a Mac, you'll want to make it NeoOffice/J.
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February 7, 1997 - Steve Jobs returns to Apple
June 27, 1997 - Bill Gates sends email explaining threats made to Apple of pulling the plug on Office for Mac.
August 6, 1997 - Apple and Microsoft announce $150 investment of Microsoft in Apple.
What happened between June 27 and August 6?
Of course they found emails saying this. It's blatantly obvious to any armchair strategist. The only way you wouldn't find an email somewhere in the MS vault saying something anti-competitive is if the entire organization had been coached not to use this type of language. In fact, this is how corporate America operates today. Employees at market leader companies are specifically taught not to use phrases like crush, damage, etc when refering to the competition in electronic communications. It's perfectly fine to advocate these types of tactics in verbal communications, though.
Everyone these days knows enough not to say anything incriminating in emails, but rather to save it for face-to-face meetings.
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.
Apple did the same thing when it bought Emagic, cancelling development of the Logic digital audio workstation for Windows. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to switch to Linux's free alternatives, even when they're less user-friendly.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
It's been rumored for years that Microsoft was going to dump the Mac version of office. When MS bought out Connectix, thus acquiring the Virtual PC line of products, I remember seeing alleged quotes from Bill Gates that MS was going to stop Mac Office development and just ship VPC with a Windows version of Office.
Ironically, Microsoft Excel was released for the Mac in 1985 and didn't arrive on Windows until 1987, while PowerPoint was first released on the Mac in 1987 and not released for Windows until 1990. (Admittedly, PPT was originally developed by another company and then purchased by MS.)
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
August 6, 1997 - Apple and Microsoft announce $150MIL investment of Microsoft in Apple.
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.
Pivot tables in OpenOffice are not quite there yet.
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
-Benjamin Disraeli
Open Office is not natively supported without the use of X11. For most people this is a deal breaker. Most people I know who have Mac's don't have the skill's to install it. For them it is worth it to shell out the money for Office. I wish they did....but they don't.
This is exactly the kind of anti-competative behavior that monopolies engage in.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
To be honest, I use my MS OFfice installation on my Parallels instance, as it's much faster and usable than the Mac Office 2004. I'm planning to give Office 2008 (which should be universal) a bit of a look, and approach that with an open mind, but for now I'm happier with using the Windows version under my VM.
Should Microsoft be _forced_ to sell a product that doesn't benefit them?
Yes, damnit!
And unless I can have Clippy offering helpful advice as I slave away at my Timex Sinclair 1000, I plan to sue Microsoft for anticompetitive behavior.
Damn that Bill Gates and his 640KB of RAM... Just because I only have 2KB, he thinks he can just ignore 0.00026% of the home market?
Ouch!
Yes, it would definitely hurt Apple sales.
Of course, there is software like NeoOffice, Pages and Keynote.
But people *want* MS Office, and in corporate environments, people *need* MS Office.
The OSX Version of MS Office is still not 100% compatible with the Windows version, but it's still better than NeoOffice.
And "MS Office runs on OSX" is a strong selling point. People familiar with Windows and Office are thinking "cool, Office runs on OSX, I won't feel lost if I ever switch to OSX".
{{.sig}}
Technically MS has just enouigh of a war chest to manage those purchases, but of course there is no way they would fork over that much cash, nor be allowed to.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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.
The day that Office for Mac gets killed will be the day that iWork gets released as a complete, full-featured, Office-killer suite. We know that Apple has a spreadsheet app waiting to be released. It is inconceivable that they would not have the rest of the suite at least in closed beta. I, for one, would love it if Apple would go ahead and release that suite soon.
That said, killing Office for Mac would cause microsoft to lose those profits, and probably lead to more people switching to Apple. Microsoft knows that Apple can make a slick GUI for almost anything, and they know that their Office GUI is anything but slick. That's why there was all the crap about the ribbon. They don't want to incite Apple to do anything smart, like releasing a better product than MS Office.
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.
Why anyone smart enough to buy a Mac and avoid Windows would then want to buy Office, especially when they can download OpenOffice for free.
Because then they'd have to use OpenOffice.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
From what I've been reading there will be no VBA support for Office 2008. This concerns me, as there are many of our staff and faculty who have invested time and money in macros running in Excel properly. Breaking VBA support in Office 2008 will possibly slow adoption for the Mac OSX platform or make people more reluctant to jump platforms once they discover this problem. I'm not entirely surprised by their decision since it seems to follow a recent trend and an end to the 1997 Apple Microsoft support agreement to bundle IE with OSX.
;)
- Discontinued Outlook and no MAPI support on Entourage
- Discontinued IE support (not a huge problem since Safari)
- Discontinued Windows Media Player and no DRM support for WMV and WMA (Flip4Mac doesn't do DRM)
- Limited support of MSN Messenger
- Allowed to purchase Virtual PC from Connectix, stalling G5 support, then killed it
- Finally crippling Office 2008 by removing VBA
- Bought Bungie Studios before the release of Halo. Stalled Mac release for number of years. Crippling almost all Mac game development where before Bungie used to create both Mac and PC games, with a little more emphasis for the Macs.
I suppose Ashcroft and Gonzales have bigger fish to fry because looking at the computer desktop/office monoply isn't worth the USDOJ anti-trust divisions time
A REVIEW OF RECENT ANTITRUST DIVISION ACTIONS
DEBORAH PLATT MAJORAS
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Antitrust Division
U.S. Department of Justice
June 12, 2003
In United States v. MathWorks, we challenged an agreement between two head-to-head competitors in the design software field: MathWorks and Wind River. Competition between these two had resulted in significant technical improvements and price reductions for consumers. But their collaboration agreement on the sale and development of software gave MathWorks control over the prices, marketing, support, and future development of the Wind River software and required Wind River to stop its own development and marketing. Shortly after the agreement, Math Works announced that it would undertake no further development of the Wind River products. We reached a settlement with MathWorks pursuant to which a trustee was appointed to sell the Wind River assets, which were successfully sold to National Instruments.
You'd think that, over the years, that Apple would have created their own version of Office software that works with MS-Office file formats like OpenOffice.org did? Or at least work with OpenOffice.Org to bundle OOO with OSX instead of MS-Office and break that stranglehold Microsoft has on Macintosh users forcing them to use MS-Office for Macintosh?
Odd, Microsoft does not make MS-Office for Linux, *BSD Unix, Solaris, and other operating systems and it does not even seem to harm them and their marketshare keeps increasing anyway. I highly doubt that dropping MS-Office for the Macintosh would harm Apple, it would more likely harm Microsoft because Microsoft just cut out a lot of profits from the sales of MS-Office for the Macintosh.
Logically it would make good business sense for Microsoft to make MS-Office for other platforms as well, which would increase their profits.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
It had a fixed layout and grew from one end, so that the things at the top of the Dock always stayed put.
defaults write com.apple.dock pinning end
or
defaults write com.apple.dock pinning start
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
I know the parent didn't make reference to this, but a lot of people think it, so:
In August 1997, Microsoft purchased $150 million in non-voting Apple stock.
As of the prior quarter, Apple had $1.2 billion in cash on hand .
The money didn't "bail Apple out", as some people think. It was a symbolic gesture. The symbolism of the "badly needed" "investment" (which really wasn't needed from a financial standpoint) renewed peoples' faith in Apple, renewed the faith that Microsoft and Office would still be on the Mac platform, etc.
So while you could argue that the gesture was needed (and I'd tend to agree), the money itself wasn't.
And Microsoft made out like bandits on that investment.
...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.
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.
I think there are many things I'd fault Microsoft for, but dropping Office for Macintosh isn't one of them. The problem with Office is its proprietary and closed formats, and those don't get fixed by having a Mac version.
While Apple fans like to talk about Apple vs. Microsoft, Apple's actions suggest that they would really simply like to be part of a cozy little duopoly with Microsoft.
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
This is quite silly. Apple is already at war with Avid (DigiDesign) on two fronts, and currently winning. In the video end of things, the entire industry is quickly switching to FCP, away from Avid. If they have not already overtaken Avid, they will very soon. Secondly, ProTools is in trouble, and not just from Apple, but from MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), as Digital Performer is very quickly becoming the industry standard for many audio applications. Logic (Apple's multi-track editor) is also doing very well. Throw in the fact that Cubase is trouncing ProTools on the Windows end of things, and you have a very bad situation for DigiDesign. It probably still has the largest install base, but that is rapidly diminishing. They used to own a majority of the multi-track install base, and now they're lucky if their a simple plurality.
Bottom line is, Avid got caught sitting on their asses. They got fat and happy being the industry standard in two markets, and failed to notice that other developers were actually doing their homework. Both Avid Video and ProTools are vastly inferior to their Apple and MOTU counterparts. I used to be an avid ProTools user (no pun intended), until I got my hands on Digital Performer, and now I haven't even touched the damn thing in months. The multimedia audio industry (ie: film composition/sound effects) will laugh in your face if you say that your primary multi-track software is ProTools, and developers of softsynths and audio suite plugins are dropping ProTool support like flies.
Microsoft's aquisition of Avid would simply make matters worse, as they have a history of alienating creative fields. Instead of hurting Apple, it would just confirm everyone's suspicion that Avid is failing, and would send the last remaining ProTools and Avid users crying for DP5 or Logic, and FCP.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
documents were created with typewriters or written by hand. Then Wordstar happened. No-one gave a shit about layout and preservation of fonts when converting to/from WordPerfect. It was good enough if the text contents got transferred during a transfer. It still applies today. The fact is that the exact layout and preservation thereof during a transfer is nice to have, but not essential.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I have been of the view that OpenOffice can deal with just about every MS Office document, since the days of StarDivision's StarOffice 5.1 (remember that?).
.doc format is undocumented, even internally within MS, but using an entire MS Office suite, provided by one of MS's largest partners (EDS), it is a horrible, ugly mess. We have documents embedded within documents; opening an embedded document means that I have to enable/disable macros within the new document. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, so you double-click the icon, click "Enable", nothing happens, double-click the icon again, and the embedded doc opens. This is apparently "correct behaviour".
n ters_hp3180), and in the end, I gave up, scp'd the .doc to the Linux box and opened it in OpenOffice.org, to print it direct. It was a steaming mess, nothing like the original MS Word document.
.doc files in OOo, just to find a random blank page part way through, which I could not delete. I had assumed that that was a flaw of OOo, but I've had the same problem with MS Word documents in MS Word!
However, I have also been a *nix user all that time. For the past 18 months, my work has required me to work with MS Office (and therefore, Wintel desktop).
I had not realised quite how bad the situation was; I know that the
We also have various templates, which I naively assumed could be edited as required, by an untrained user (such as myself; I'm certified in WfWG3.11, but nothing since from MS!). This is the corporate standard, after all. But no, I have to admit failure. I cannot edit our templates. Maybe that's me, maybe it's MS. I can configure cross-site clusters, but I can't edit an MS Word document. I don't think that the deficiency is in my own IT knowledge.
I have to be open - I don't much care for Windows, it's not a huge dislike, it's just not a big part of my life. I find configuring Samba/CUPS on my Ubuntu print server rather difficult to do (http://steve-parker.org/urandom/?y=2007&m=01#pri
So, I am finally forced to agree that OOo is no replacement for corporate uses of MS Office. It's not OOo's problem, though; it's MSO's problem. It's an undocumented pile of layers upon layers upon layers, dating back to the late 1980s.
Ugh. I can't deal with MS Office docs using OpenOffice.org, but then again, I can't do much with them using MS Office, either.
The key problem seems to be the format, more than the app itself. Neither app fully understands the format, and so neither app quite manages to display it properly.
In the past, I've opened
Let alone the issues about how future generations are going to access this information, the fact that the corporate standard is MS Office, seems to be a classic example of following the herd over the cliff.
I am still waiting for the perfect (or even near-perfect) office suite. OOo is the closest, with open (if complex) code, and an open (and well-documented) file format.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
To keep this in historical context, in June 1987, the current version of Mac Office was version 4.2.1. It was a direct port of the Windows version and released in 1994. As such, it did not behave or look like a Mac application. By 1997 the age of the program and its poor reputation contributed to poor sales. Office 98 was certainly was under development, but had not yet been released at this point. Office 98 proved to be a successful release due to its feature set and mac-like interface. At the time of this email howerver, the success of both Office on the Mac and the Mac in general were very much in question. It also makes sense to test new features on the Mac version, which is geared much more for home use than its Windows counterpart.
Apple then would have come out with something compatible, better, and free. Look at keynote, for example.
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
Apple charges double for everything it sells.
Can you back up this statement? The last price comparison I saw between equivilently equiped Macs and Windows PCs Macs edged out Windows on a price/feature basis.
FalconShould there be a Law?
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.
30GB Zune: $249.99
30GB iPod: $249
"Nearly double"? On what planet are you living on? And the Zune is bigger and it weights more (iPod: 4.8 ounces, Zune: 5.6 ounces).
Please give some real examples of this "nearly double" prices Apple asks for it's mp3-players. Go on, it shouldn't be that hard, right?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
"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.