Microsoft Wanted To Drop Mac Office To Hurt Apple 479
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.'"
And we are supposed to be...Surprised? (Score:1, Interesting)
Timeline 1997 (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Email Communications (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone these days knows enough not to say anything incriminating in emails, but rather to save it for face-to-face meetings.
Logic (software) (Score:3, Interesting)
Way old news (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] and didn't arrive on Windows until 1987, while PowerPoint was first released on the Mac in 1987 [wikipedia.org] and not released for Windows until 1990. (Admittedly, PPT was originally developed by another company and then purchased by MS.)
Re:Nature of the beast.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is nothing new. Almost 10 years ago MS was going to completely step away and that would have killed Apple, but they didn't: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,1101970818 ,00.html [time.com] . In many ways, MS has given Apple ten years to get its shit together from a MS perspective (ie. be a worthwhile platform for MS to support) but has this really happened?
MS Office on Intel Mac (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it would hurt (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
Re:Nature of the beast.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it was.
Halo was released for the Mac in December, 2003.
True, and in fact, I worked as an alpha and beta tester for the company that did the port (look for my name in the credits). The important thing to note is that MS *did* cancel all development for the platform and decided at a later date to allow the existing code to be brought to the Macintosh through a third party developer who did all the work required.
I don't believe a Linux version was ever being developed by Bungie.
To my peripheral knowledge, there were active efforts at Bungie to bring a number of their titles to Linux and Halo was one of them.
Re:And we are supposed to be...Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Please do, and soon! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:That's why kids... (Score:3, Interesting)
If MS dropped Mac Office support, Apple would likely do everything they could to maintain their ground, and rather than reinvent the wheel, it would make sense to throw their support to OpenOffice development. It could quickly become superior to MS Office across the board, and it could probably do it before the last version of Mac Office becomes antiquated.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple did reinvent the wheel rather than support an office suite that would benefit Linux, their main competitor in the not-windows category.
And hurting Apple is bad because...? (Score:2, Interesting)
Office is Microsoft's IP, and like all their products, it exists primarily to provide a raison d'être for their main cash-cow: Windows licenses. Why should Microsoft increase the value of anything that can become a threat to their business?
Well la de da! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Just a note on the "investment" (Score:5, Interesting)
In August 1997, Microsoft purchased $150 million in non-voting Apple stock [archive.org].
As of the prior quarter, Apple had $1.2 billion in cash on hand [10kwizard.com] .
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.
Re:Nature of the beast.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
just a thought (Score:5, Interesting)
no big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:And we are supposed to be...Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
A long, long time ago... (Score:3, Interesting)
The old OOo vs MSOffice (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Mac Office 4.2 (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish they had discontinued it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:just a thought (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nature of the beast.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The old OOo vs MSOffice (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nature of the beast.... (Score:2, Interesting)