Will Apple and Microsoft Renew their Vows? 92
krugdm writes "Remember about five years ago when Apple announced their deal with Microsoft where Apple agreed to bundle IE with new Macs and drop a patent lawsuit, and the guys from Redmond were to continue to develop Office for the Mac as well as purchase $150 million in Apple stock? Well, that deal expires this summer. describing the love-hate relationship the two companies have had in the time since 1997 and wonders whether the pact will be renewed."
Re:1p (Score:1)
Re:Friends are nice (Score:1)
this is the single most important question (Score:2, Insightful)
I think MS will continue to support the platform b/c they really don't want it to die for various reasons (anti-trust...mac apps make $ etc)
Still, Apple should be rolling up its sleeves and Aqua-izing Open Office ASAP.
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:2)
I don't think they'll be doing that any time soon. They already have AppleWorks, and it does a pretty good job of opening MS Office docs. I'd expect them to beef up Works if they were going to push Office type apps.
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:2)
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:2)
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:2)
It is true that you learn something new everyday!
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:3, Insightful)
Office and Internet Explorer are fairly important to the platform, but not always as important as the tools for AV technicians, 3D artists, graphics designers, and page layout designers.
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:1)
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:1)
So far, I have been fairly happy with the performance enhancements made and bugs squashed in the 10.1.3 update (compared to 10.1 anyways).
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:1)
Re:this is the single most important question (Score:1)
Not quite--Adobe at the forefront (Score:2)
Re:Apple & MS News (Score:1)
The courts scare Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
MS will continue to develop, they just might not ink it.
Apple has more leverage though (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Apple has more leverage though (Score:1)
Re:Apple has more leverage though (Score:1)
Something will happen, that's for sure.... (Score:1)
Re:Something will happen, that's for sure.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Rumors are circulating wildly about the new Apple / Microsoft alliance leading up to MacWorld New York.
Steve Jobs comes on to the floor. He reminds people of the productive business relationship that Microsoft and Apple have had. The benefits that have been nurtured by the mutual cooperation for the past five years. He asks that the lights go down and they start to show the message that Bill Gates delivered five years ago.
After 30 seconds or so. A woman wearing red running shorts and carrying a sledgehammer comes storming through the crowd and hurls it up at the giant screen. Shattering things and leaving the crowd in shocked silence before erupting in massive noise.
Jobs goes on to announce that despite the working together, only one partner has grown as a result: Microsoft. He wants to end that.
He announces a three pronged attack:
1) Open Sourcing AppleWorks 7 to be the new free business app of choice on Windows, Linux, and Mac's that will kill reliance on MS Office.
2) A port of Mac OS X Server (not client) to be licensed to any WinTel maker at the same rates as MS Windows Server.
3) The start of an aggressive new ad campaign that really crucifies the Windows as being fundamentally insecure and poorly designed.
Wild fantasy. Nothing like this will happen, but that's what I imagine in my wildest dreams.
Open Source AppleWorks (Score:1)
This actually sounds like a pretty damned good idea. I could see why Apple wouldn't want to port OSX to intel, but it doesn't seem like they'd lose much by open sourcing AppleWorks. To the contrary, actually - cut Office off at the knees, and provide the entire market with a stable, free office suite that anyone can use on any platform. Computer users NEED this.
Re:Something will happen, that's for sure.... (Score:1)
Re:Something will happen, that's for sure.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Something will happen, that's for sure.... (Score:3, Informative)
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their product. So I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success: I have no problem with their success. They've earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products."
--Triumph of the Nerds PBS documentary interview (May 1996)
Office yes, quality maybe (Score:1)
a) MS makes good money from software developed in their Mac Business Unit.
b) Apple needs Offfice to thrive, possibly even to survive at this point.
c) The demand for Office is "relatively inelastic," as my old econ prof used to say.
Thus, MS will continue to make Office for the Macintosh. Apple will continue to strike deals if neccessary to keep it that way. Because the agreement is over, however, and because the deamand is inelastic, MS is under no obligation to make quality, timely releases at fair prices with feature pairity with Windows. They can offer crap and we'll buy it. So it'll be there, but MS may be more free now to give us lower quality.
Re:Office yes, quality maybe (Score:1)
It seems likely that MS's standard MO would be to keep Apple on the hook as long as possible with this, playing up the insecurity, in order to get further concessions from Apple.
However, Apple needs a five-year guarantee less than it did, um, five years ago, especially now that MS Office has made the big technology transition to Mac OS X (using the Carbon APIs) that was absolutely crucial for Apple's survival.
My prediction is that we may see a bit of drama on this issue, but that there isn't going to be a big sweeping deal as we saw before.
Here's hoping they don't. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheers,
Von Kraken
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:1)
And here's another possibility. If I were Apple, I'd be considering a buy of Corel. After all, that would give them the true independence they have needed from MS all these years.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? If you want people to shell out $ for your OS, you have to prove that it is better (for what they are doing) than the free alternative. I would be appalled if apple made Mozilla the default browser for OS X, since your bundled software is supposed to show off the OS. While Mozilla has the best rendering engine around (I always use it to test my web pages first, and then go into other browsers and see what won't work :), even with the recent enhancements to the interface, it has one of the worst attempts at an Aqua UI of any major app on the platform (including Java ones). Change that abomination at the top of my window to an NSToolbar, use Quartz for text, and clean up the default theme (circa Netscape Communicator) and we'd have a good default browser for OS X; if Apple had a sincere desire to do this, they could devote some engineers to working on the Mozilla project. It seems far more likely, however, that Apple would bundle OmniWeb, since they have already started bundling Omni apps with their new machines. If they could just finish the JS and CSS support, OmniWeb could also make a great default browser. Just dump that crap version of IE that hasn't been changed in over a year!
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:1)
Besides, why would Apple have to develop the Mozilla UI. Make the deal with Netscape in exchange for having Communicator loaded as the default on OSX.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:1)
I'll set aside the impracticality/impossibility of making OW cross-platform. It's Cocoa through-and-through.
But then I almost exclusively use OmniWeb, myself.
I think that bundling OmniWeb would be a grand idea. Bundling IE with the Mac OS was fine when it was the best browser for the platform (showing off the Mac OS's capabilities), but it isn't and doesn't any more. So step aside.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but that ain't going to happen any time soon. OminWeb has some great end-user features, but their HTML engine is essentially roughly at the Netscape 3.0 level. The _only_ thing it has going for it in the page rendering department is the Fuzzy Text. Considering it took Netscape, a much larger company, many years to develop a renderer that meets modern specs, I don't think we will see anything mindblowing out of Omni soon.
A much more interesting project is Chimera [mozdev.org], which is a Mozilla fork to (really) support Aqua. Personally, I would have liked to see the smart folks at Omni get involved something like this under the NPL, but instead their shareware plans will probably be obliviated.
(And while all of these browsers are great, I doubt IE is going away anytime soon, because it's defaultness was pretty much the cornerstone of the Apple-MS deal.)
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:2)
You haven't used a nightly build any time lately, have you. They are well on the way to both and I would set a target of Q3 or Q4 this year for full CSS support and acceptable scripting support.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:1)
I'm sure they can create a product that does great on the current mostly HTML3.2 WWW -- I just think that it will be difficult to match Mozilla and IE in support for next gen standards.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but that ain't going to happen any time soon. OminWeb has some great end-user features, but their HTML engine is essentially roughly at the Netscape 3.0 level. The _only_ thing it has going for it in the page rendering department is the Fuzzy Text.
OmniWeb's support of Unicode (thanks to Cocoa) is second to none on the platform; even Mozilla doesn't compete (IE doesn't have it at all). So if you ever use non-Latin languages, you're much better off with OmniWeb. (Actually, they do have a good deal of CSS support, too, though nothing to compete with Mozilla or IE; so I'd say that parts of it are at Netscape 4, parts at Netscape 3, and parts at Netscape 6.5 or higher).
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:1)
Actually, it is in Apple's long term interest to have killer apps that people need / crave / really want that do not run on any other platform. This allows them to sell more Macintoshes.
Re:Here's hoping they don't. (Score:2)
And the other Corel applications are all competitors with Adobe, and I don't think Apple wants to push Adobe out of the Mac market (given the importance of Adobe's apps to Mac's core users, graphics pros).
Re:Open Source Alternatives (Score:1)
I won't buy MS Office but I'll try like hell to find a decent office replacements for OS X that don't have such an abysmal font display. I suspect I may not be the only one that feels this way either.
appleworks (Score:3, Informative)
plus its fully cocoa so it can make the fonts look nice.
Re:appleworks (Score:2)
Re:Open Source Alternatives (Score:1)
open source (Score:3, Insightful)
the other aspect to consider is that Mac OS X is POSIX compliant. Many open source apps can be ported (see the other story posted today). I could see how AbiWord, or many other open source Office apps could kill the need for purchasing M$ products.
Now we need to get people to start saving as *.rtf instead of *.doc (which works just as well), and we'll have the keys to the kingdom.
Re:open source (Score:1)
If ClarisWorks &c didn't cut it. . (Score:3, Insightful)
Like it or not, the percentage of documents out there in Microsoft formats is rapidly reaching 100%. This isn't an issue that will just go away if firms or consumers switch office suites. And although we would love to think otherwise, StarOffice's compatibility with Office documents isn't 100%, probably isn't even serviceably good for businesses that want to run smoothly, and is and definitely not serviceably good for the majority of users out there who aren't up to speed with the world of compatibility issues.
Believe me, if it were otherwise, the college I work at would have switched over by now rather than bow down to a license change in Microsoft Office that just cost us about $50,000.
The fact of the matter is, even if the documents being produced internally aren't in office format, other firms and people are used to it. There are organizations out there that require all documents sent to them to be in Microsoft Office format. If you send them a *.rtf file, you'll get it sent right back to you. It's foolhardy to think that anyone can budge *.doc files given all the inertia they have developed.
The fact of the matter is, Apple needs Office about as much (possibly more) as it needs Internet Explorer. If businesses and schools start phasing out their Apple hardware because of office suite incompatibilities, their target market will start getting more and more used to PC's and very well may make their next computer a PC.
Re:If ClarisWorks &c didn't cut it. . (Score:2)
Re:If ClarisWorks &c didn't cut it. . (Score:2)
When I import it looks like an independent conversion engine is invoked.
Maybe you should put some sample docs on a floppy (well maybe not on a floppy) and try out the conversion capabilites of the iBook version of Apple Works at your nearby Apple store/CompUSA. I think you might be pleasantly surprized.
Re:If ClarisWorks &c didn't cut it. . (Score:2)
Re:open source (Score:1)
Re:open source (Score:2)
Of course, the POSIX-compliance would be sufficient only if the office apps aren't graphical apps. :-)
(I.e., there's more to the API used by GUI applications than the "core OS" API. GUI apps from POSIX+X either have to be made to use the native MacOS X GUI APIs, or need to use a toolkit that can hide the native GUI APIs or drawing layer, or need to be run under an X server.
AbiWord, for example, currently appears to require an X server on MacOS X, according to the AbiWord download page [abiword.org].)
Re:open source (Score:2)
Very true, though I did use the word "port" instead of "recompile". I'm not an X hacker, but I would imagine that the APIs for XWindows and Aqua would have similar philosophies. I would assume both would have elements such as "Create_new_window", and "Build_new_menu", and "Get_mouse_click", etc.
I could see how the event handlers would be rather different, but once 1 or 2 apps are ported, then writing a developer's tutorial on how to port shouldn't be too far behind.
I'd volunteer to do this myself, but I don't know X nor Aqua, and my work would probably be redundant anyways.
Re:open source (Score:2)
The port would probably be non-trivial, unless the X applications were written with, say, GNUstep [gnustep.org].
I wouldn't necessarily assume that they're similar enough that a port wouldn't require a significant amount of effort.
MSN Messenger (Score:2, Interesting)
Who actually still uses MSN messenger? Fire is far superior to any other messenger I have used before.
Re:MSN Messenger (Score:2)
Re:MSN Messenger (Score:1)
Super-secret-inside-info (Score:1, Funny)
Probably no "deal" but we will still get Office (Score:1)
That and they certainly want IE to remain the standard on the Mac. It would be a shame for Microsoft if Apple switched to Omniweb as the standard browser (which IMHO is just as good as IE if not better)
Re:Probably no "deal" but we will still get Office (Score:1)
Re:Probably no "deal" but we will still get Office (Score:2)
Re:Probably no "deal" but we will still get Office (Score:1)
Apple needs to wait for Outlook (Score:3, Insightful)
So, in short, Apple needs to bide its time until an Exchange aware PIM is available..via an Entourage upgrade, separate app, whatever!
Re:Apple needs to wait for Outlook (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, I think MS Entourage is far better than Outlook. I think it talks to exchange servers too... I dunno though, I dont touch those evil things.
Re:Apple needs to wait for Outlook (Score:1)
Re:Apple needs to wait for Outlook (Score:2)
Lotus Notes
Nice server in Domino, secure, fast and if not on NT stays up for quite a while (does very well on W2K tho)
Further Lotus Notes can do anything Exchange can do and about a million things it can not. Is a Notes developer needed? Well yeah, but I'd rather have that then have to spend 3 days down everytime some kid in Thailand has the day off from school.
retro me, satanas (Score:2)
Three words: WORST PROGRAM EVER. [iarchitect.com]
The fact that Notes/Domino is generally perceived as Exchange's primary competition is the reason that Exchange has completely dominated the corporate messaging market despite its many horrible, crippling flaws. Personally, I'd choose either Exchange or a messy suicide over having to use Notes ever again.
Re:retro me, satanas (Score:1)
but R5 and Rnext have fixed a number of issues.
Re:retro me, satanas (Score:2)
I really hope that's shorthand for "completely scrapped the existing interface and rewrote it from scratch." Because that's really just about the only way you could fix it.
Re:retro me, satanas (Score:2)
I'd be really curious to see some backing for those figures. I'd be even more curious to see how those figures look after you factor IBM's internal use of Notes (and, to be fair, Microsoft's internal use of Exchange) out of the equation.
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, it's just completely the opposite of my admittedly anecdotal experience.
And I will certainly stand by my assertion that Exchange is by leaps and bound the superior product, Outlook worms and all.
Why wait? (Score:2)
Open Standards.... (Score:1)
Sounds pretty contradictory to me - it's not as if mp3 and jpg haven't been supported for quite some time now, and if open standards will solve so many problems, then why develop a proprietary media format with digital rights management et. all?
OS X (Score:1)
This reminds me of the Linux Zealots (Score:3, Insightful)
As we all know Star Office was not that product.
OS X has Office. It is vital to keep that product. It is the application that can swing things in a *nix on the desktop way.
OS X is an excellent platform (I say as I post from my G4 running 10.1.3) and I would be happy to see it gain prominence. I have gotten a few Windows folks to purchase iBooks recently and they have been estatic.
Word, Excel & PowerPoint no matter how bloated, over accesorized or even potentially dangerous (via macros) are the most important products to move OS X out of the hands of a few weenies and onto the desktops of corporate America.
That and a really good pr0n viewer.
Microsoft Needs Apple.... (Score:1)