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No Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Aug 08, 2006 07:41 AM
from the too-hard dept.
from the too-hard dept.
Techie writes "Microsoft has decided not to move forward with a version of Virtual PC for the Intel-based Macintosh. The amount of time it would take to bring Virtual PC to Intel would be roughly equivalent to creating the product from scratch, Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, told eWEEK. The article says Microsoft will also be discontinuing support of Visual Basic scripting in the next version of Office for Mac." From the article: "As cross-platform compatibility remains a top priority at Microsoft, Erickson says that as the company develops the next version of Office for Mac, the files will continue to be compatible across platforms, including with the 2007 Microsoft Office System for Windows. VB macros within files will not be accessible and users will not be able to view or modify them. However, the files themselves can be edited without affecting or changing the macros. "
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VPC isn't the only virtualization solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Less software? (Score:2)
Re:Less software? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Less software? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Less software? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Less software? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Less software? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Less software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Less software? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Microsoft wanted to port VirtualPC to the Mac, then they could use the peripheral support code from the Mac VirtualPC and the x86 virtualisation code from the Windows version. The 'only' thing they would have to do is write the glue code. In principle, this is nice and easy. In practice, it was several years since the Windows version was first released, and I have no idea how separate the development of the two products has diverged. It may be that it is easier to re-write the OS X-specific code than to import it from Mac VirtualPC due to diverging codebases. If this is the case, then it is almost certainly not worth the investment.
Mac VirtualPC on PowerPC had no competition. There was SoftWindows (later RealPC), but it doesn't exist anymore. If you wanted to run x86 software on OS X (PowerPC) then VirutualPC was really the only option. The Mac virtualisation market is a lot more crowded. Parallels have a very good product which they sell quite cheaply. They were first-to-market and have a lot of mindshare. VMWare has good brand-recognition and is coming soon to Mac. If they follow their pricing policy, then it will be free on OS X. VirtualPC on OS X86 would have to compete with these, and so would likely not be able to sell at anything like its current price, and might have to be free.
VirtualPC x86 currently doesn't run on anything other than Windows, because Microsoft want to ensure that you have at least one copy of Windows running. There is no Linux version, for example. Not porting it to OS X86 is a continuation of this.
Parent
Re:Less software? (Score:3, Informative)
Strategic (Score:4, Informative)
Cutting off VBA support in Office-X will take this cross-platform functionality away, and (they hope) make Macs less attractive to enterprise customers. "What do you mean I can't run my custom Accounting program on a Mac anymore?"
Technical issues have nothing to do with these decisions. This is just Microsoft circling the wagons in to protect against Apple making any further inroads into what they see as "their" business market.
With the switch to Intel, and multiple ways to run Windows programs on a Mac, the business leverage of the Windows mono-culture is on the decline.
All MS have left is Office now, with its millions of entrenched users, and they intend to fight like hell to protect that last piece of turf.
Parent
Re:VPC isn't the only virtualization solution (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Paris Hilton is not having sex for a year! Oh my, I just saw a pig fly. I'm going back inside now.
Parent
No macro's? (Score:2)
Competition? (Score:5, Insightful)
Removal of VB macro's (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Removal of VB macro's (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the removal of VBA will pretty much kill Excel for me... VBA is Excel's killer feature - without it, there really is no compelling reason to use Excel (for me). Frankly, a spreadsheet is pretty amateurish without a scripting language, and the only reason I was using Excel was because the scripting language was cross-platform. People will grouse about having to install Open Office, but my scripts are important enough that they will anyway.
The only problem is that I don't know the Open Office scripting language, and there are few resources to help me learn it.
Parent
Brilliant! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:2)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as this weird love-hate relationship continues, MS is never going to be able to fully embrace them, or feel comfortable supporting them in any way that might give them an edge over Dell and other PC manufacturers.
MS's worst nightmare is Apple gaining a corner on the PC market the same way they've cornered the MP3 player market (and using their position to bully MS and others in the PC market the same way they've bullied them with the iPod and iTunes). MS wants to be the one DOING the bullying, not the one BEING bullied.
-Eric
And for you nitpicking bastards, yes I am aware that schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are completely different diseases from a clinical standpoint, but not in common usage.
Parent
Re:Brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Now they've got Apple by the corones.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But going forward, Office 2004 for Mac will no longer be availble and no IT manager in his right mind will go with an office suite that doesn't support scripting.
VBA is slow enough as it is, nevermind under Rosetta emulation. Now if there is no more support for VBA, companies will shy away from Mac even more.
Apple better get their "Tables" (aka their Excel equivalent to Pages) working asap. And it better be fully compatible with VBA too.
Re:Now they've got Apple by the corones.. (Score:2)
Or, companies will get a virtualization package, a copy of Windows, and the Windows version of Office just like they would for any other PC. It's a pricier solution but allows more flexibility.
Cross over (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Now they've got Apple by the corones.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now they've got Apple by the corones.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I try, I really try, to use my Mac laptop with files from work. 90% goes, 10% doesn't. The 10% that doesn't fly makes it useless to trust it.
I get powerpoints where metafile graphics that should work, almost do; I get Word docs where 3 out of 4 tables that our project manager embeds from MS Project are readable, the last one is not; it's hopeless.
They break it on purpose, I think. They always have, they always will.
Corones? Cojones? (Score:3, Interesting)
-b.
Re:Now they've got Apple by the corones.. (Score:5, Informative)
Office 2007/8/whatever will support scripting, but it will be done using Applescript rather than VBA.
Also VBA is being depreciated by Microsoft in the Windows versions of Office in favor of
The real reason behind this move, rather than MS being evil and "slapping" Apple, is that the VBA compiler doesn't work on Intel Macs, and as VBA is getting replaced anyway, MS made the decision to dump it completely rather than putting a huge effort into porting a part of the system that will go away in the next few years.
Its annoying to those who rely on VBA, sure. But if you want to support legacy apps, you can continue to use the legacy version of Office.
Parent
What the hell? (Score:3, Funny)
Timing? (Score:3, Funny)
Correction (Score:4, Funny)
Or, in other words, 6+ years. I don't blame them!
Could it be more obvious this is a slap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, who needs VirtualPC: yes, it certainly “works,” but it is a clumsy product in everything from installation to managing environments. It sucks and if it were not for the fact that it is emulating and x86 virtual machine on Power, I would guess its developers had no idea what they were doing. Apart from that, dropping the VisualBasic scripting support is certainly anticompetitive. There are no technical reasons whatsoever and basically spells out “we dislike that you are competing with us, so we are going to eliminate your chances of entering the corporate market.” (I hope I do not have to spell out why this is an anticompetitive practice in comparison to recent actions by Apple.) If this doesn't prove that Microsoft are complete failures when it comes to technology, I don't know what will. Instead of responding to Apple with real progress (and, hey, maybe even releasing a product), they are behaving like petulant little babies and taking their toys home (maybe throw a chair or two).
Do what now? (Score:5, Funny)
Hold the conspiracy theories... (Score:5, Informative)
What some of the pundits (on Macrumours and elsewhere) seem to be forgetting is that what VirtualPC does (runs x86 code on a PowerPC by emulating the x86 processor in software) is technically very different to what Parallels and VMWare do (allow x86 code to run "natively" within a virtual sandbox) - even if the end result (Windows running in a window on your Mac) is similar. A simple port of VPC to Mactel would have its ass handed to it by Parallels and VMWare. So when MS say:
...they probably have a point.
newspeak (Score:5, Funny)
This must be some new and novel definition of "compatible" of which I was previously unaware.
MS-Office --- the office-suite that is not even compatible to the same version of itself .
Hilarious.
Re:newspeak (Score:3, Informative)
So, with a sensible document-format, all you need to exchange documents is any compliant software on either end.
With MS-Office, on the other hand, it's not enough that all participants have some MS-Office compliant software. It's not enough that they buy Microsoft Office, the very same office-suite. It's not even enough that they buy "MS-Office 2007", no, that's not enough to ensure compatibility.
It needs to be: "MS-Office 2007, running on MS-Windows, variant for 32bit Wind
Office compatibility is going away. (Score:4, Insightful)
The desupporting of VB macros should be a bigger concern. Anyone who's worked in a large corporate environment knows that the vast majority of data crunching is not done in fancy analytical tools. Despite what SAS, Oracle and everyone tells you, many key business processes boil down to VB macros in Excel spreadsheets. Business units have spent years doing an end-run around the IT department because they either perceive the analytical tools to be too much of a pain to use, or the IT department is too bloated and slow to help them. That's the number one reason why millions of social security numbers wind up on stolen laptops. Data is pulled from the main systems into spreadsheets and analyzed offline. It's incredibly easy to write macros in VB, even for people who can't program.
Microsoft killing VB macro support for Mac Office takes a big chunk out of the cross-platform compatibility pillar. I can see a lot of other vendors using this Intel platform excuse too. My favorite example is Quicken. The Mac version is years behind the Windows one...I'm sure they're just wairing for the chance to drop it.
Re:Office compatibility is going away. (Score:3, Insightful)
True. But most of those places don't use macs, nor are ever going to consider it.
Secondly, it is often speculated that Excel errors cause millions of lost revenue because of rounding problems and user error.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/78113/ [microsoft.com]
So yeah... Thats a feature. Not a bug. If you really want to do serious work on mission critial finacial spread sheet data entry... You need some
Office... (Score:4, Interesting)
I guarantee you by version 4.0, Pages will be a perfect drop-in replacement for MS Word, which is what Apple probably wants. MS Office makes Microsoft a LOT of money. And Apple fanatics will be more than happy to buy an Apple office suite over MS Office.
When iWork gets as good as MS Office, it's time to port it to Windows. It won't be a nail in Microsoft's coffin, but it will surely piss them off.
Now all we need is Yellow Box for Windows finished and released and GnuStep to support most of the OS X APIs, and people can program in Cocoa and port to other environments with a simple recompile...
I'd like to see Safari for Windows. That would REALLY PISS Microsoft off.
Cross-Platform Compatibility? (Score:5, Funny)
Great. Now I have to spend the next 20 minutes scraping coffee and lung material off of my keyboard and monitor.
Re:Cross-Platform Compatibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a feature, yes? (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds like a huge benefit! Maybe it'll encourage a few more people to switch, to improve the security of their Office environment. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but kudos to Microsoft for this security unhancement. Perhaps if this goes well, they'll similarly unhance the Windows version of Office.
Macro language in Office for OSX? (Score:3, Interesting)
VirtualPC = Emulation (Score:4, Informative)
VirtualPC is an x86 *emulator.* Why would you need to emulate Intel on an Intel chip? What Macs need is virtualization, and that's what they're getting with Parallel and VMWare.
As far as VB goes, it never worked well on the Mac version of Office for a while.
http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/07/news-of-th
substantial re-write? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's already a VPC for x86/windows. They're full of crap and vastly overstate what will be needed. Unless Connectix has so deeply coupled the cpu-emulator, and the VM manager, that they can't be decoupled.
And it's been over a year since Jobs announced the Intel switch - MS has had all this time to check the situation out, I am somewhat suprised to be hearing this kind of announcement out of Microsoft now.
This sounds like a strategic move. Particularly as it's coupled with the MS Office Mac announcement. They're hitting the Mac/Office userbase where it hurts. Document compatability. They're making sure that Macs never make it into the business space where MS Office/Windows dominates overwhelmingly. (also why they don't provide a full-on Outlook client).
It was never meant to be.
Unless Apple gets their shit together and codes up a comparable, and compatible product.
*Yawn*. This just follows their pattern. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what other platforms are left that Virtual PC will run on? Oh... Windows. That's a surprise...
Re-Write! (Score:3, Funny)
And if there is one thing Micorsoft doesn't do, it's rewrite software from scratch.
not needed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No problemo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Microsoft? Cross-platform compatibility? (Score:3, Informative)
It was released [wikipedia.org] at v3.1 (not v3.0), because the Novell Netware cross-licensing terms only extended to "Windows 3.1". Once WfWg (Win16 v3.11) came out, Netware support kinda became a non-issue, so the next version was v3.5.