Microsoft Office 2010 to Gain Free Web-Based Components

[deconstruct60]

Need proof?

Here ya go.
Internet Explorer (dropped support )

After the OS vendor (Apple) commits to shipping browser with the OS.
Plus for a while didn't exactly help their "but IE has to be embedded into the OS " antitrust arguments when IE is still there in plain view on Mac OS X as an optional Application.

It is asinine anyway. If just follow industry standards Microsoft can just SKIP writting a browser for the Mac and still get to take advantage of the standard platform provided. ( there is no money made in shipping a free browser. ) There is not just one but TWO standards supporting browsers on Mac OS X Safari and Firefox. What exactly would Microsoft bring to the party other than old crappy legacy IE quirks. If they want old crappy IE quirk lock in ... wouldn't that make them more money if just keep IE on windows?

Office makes Microsoft gobs of money on the Mac still.

Windows Media Player (dropped support)

again. Direct head-to-head with Apple via Quicktime.
Works out agreement with Flip4Mac for free player. (with pointers from their site).
And by rumors..... Quicktime X plays with the more standard codecs.

Messenger (limited functionality)

again OS vendor offers 'iChat' on rival network. AOL also stopped
trying too. Yahoo's client also lags.


Get AdiumX . That's part of it. Between Adium and iChat going to snag most of the folks. Left with even smaller audience on an even smaller platform.

Microsoft Office (Used to be good, now sucks on Mac, no VB Macros support, and we PAY MONEY for this. )

this has been hashed out to DEATH on the web. VB in apps is a huge hack. On Windows and on Mac. Slightly more of a hack on Mac since was very hooked into PowerPC specifics. To reimplement was going to be a major effort piled on top of reimplementing the whole QA testing chain and major chunks of the application's build and adding deeper Cocoa ( getting off Carbon).

Over a year ago they put word out that Mac Office 2010/2011 would bring it back.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Next-OfficeMac-will-bring-back-VBA-support/1210717012

And yet... folks are still moaning about it. If Microsoft had slipped Office 2008 till 2009 just to get a replacement in folks will be moaning about how old Mac Office was and how it was abandoned.

There are finite amounts of developers/resources available.

Personally I think to some extent Microsoft thought that .Net/Common_Language_Infrastructure would replace VBA on both Windows and Mac. I think they seriously misjudged how much cruft and legacy mystery code folks had layered on top of VBA at this point.

Silverlight- developer tools are only on Windows. Mac users have to take what we get.

Right so there are iPhone development tools available on Windows?
There is a huge difference between end user run times and development tool stack.

Besides don't need Silverlight to do the most of what the Web version office does. No way it is going to pop up on smartphones and require Silverlight to do anything significant. That would be entirely missing the point of the utility many folks will get out of the web version. The super-supreme disco powerpoint presentation with embedded video.... probably will require silverlight. However, most folks can get by without that.

 

[organerito]

Office for Windows is not the only suite but it is the best and most powerful solution.
How can you replace Excel? Is there something more comprehensive than outlook for messaging that can work for normal users to enterprise users?

Just as Apple is trying to gain market share and make more money, Microsoft is doing the same. If Apple locks a device or some software, it is ok and you'll find 1000 excuses. If Microsoft does the same, it is because it is evil. Microsoft has made many mistakes and some ****** stuff, but at least Exchange, Sharepoint and Office are the best in their genre. You don't have to like Microsoft, but at least they deserve credit for those applications.

When I wrote my doctoral dissertation and prepared the defense, the only choice to do a very professional work was Microsoft's office.

 

[FoxyKaye]

What-Ever

In other news, Microsoft recommends Office 2004 for Mac users who need Macros, but is pulling the plug on it in October.

Give me (and my users) back Macros in Office 2008, and then I'll reconsider my loyalty to Microsoft.

 

[deconstruct60]

You cannot access it at all without a "Live" account. This means it's more like a walled garden for those already paying homage to the great Microsoft, etc.

The "free" version needs live.
The one folks would use for business just needs a Sharepoint Server. I don't think you need a Live account for that. Whatever authentication server Sharepoint is plugged into should suffice.

The second will be better for business users (and anyone who cares about privacy/confidentiality who has the resources). It appears you can run these web apps from your OWN sharepoint server. ( similar to running the web version of Outlook from your Exchange Server). So if you VPN into the company servers , can read the internal company documents without it being stored externally "in the cloud" or read over the air as transferred to your mobile device in the internet cafe where you happen to be.


Microsoft is still making money off these web apps. Businesses that now don't have Sharepoint severs will probably get them. This is even more backend infrastructure build up into enterprise data centers ( Exchange/Sharepoint). Even those with Sharepoint will have to beef up their CPU allocation to handle the javascript workload. ( again more windows / sharepoint licensing dollars. ).

It is as if you folks wanted web version of Outlook to generate money for Microsoft. That isn't the point for web Outlook and neither is it for lightweight apps.


If don't have a Sharepoint server but don't want ads then still can buy Office. You get Web Apps as "free" add-on without the ads (and likely more folks snooping on your data though) . On a 3-10" display how much space do you want to devote to Ads when the 'ribbon' is probably already hogging up scarce real estate?????

Besides it is not going to be equivalent to the client Office app anyway.
The primary editing/construction gets done on Office and they web stuff is when you are "on the road". Perhaps microsoft doesn't get money for a Office copy for both your desktop and laptop but it isn't like they aren't ranking in cash. (or that they have viable competitors).

 

[HLdan]

After the OS vendor (Apple) commits to shipping browser with the OS.
Plus for a while didn't exactly help their "but IE has to be embedded into the OS " antitrust arguments when IE is still there in plain view on Mac OS X as an optional Application.

It is asinine anyway. If just follow industry standards Microsoft can just SKIP writting a browser for the Mac and still get to take advantage of the standard platform provided. ( there is no money made in shipping a free browser. ) There is not just one but TWO standards supporting browsers on Mac OS X Safari and Firefox. What exactly would Microsoft bring to the party other than old crappy legacy IE quirks. If they want old crappy IE quirk lock in ... wouldn't that make them more money if just keep IE on windows?

Office makes Microsoft gobs of money on the Mac still.




again. Direct head-to-head with Apple via Quicktime.
Works out agreement with Flip4Mac for free player. (with pointers from their site).
And by rumors..... Quicktime X plays with the more standard codecs.





again OS vendor offers 'iChat' on rival network. AOL also stopped
trying too. Yahoo's client also lags.


Get AdiumX . That's part of it. Between Adium and iChat going to snag most of the folks. Left with even smaller audience on an even smaller platform.





this has been hashed out to DEATH on the web. VB in apps is a huge hack. On Windows and on Mac. Slightly more of a hack on Mac since was very hooked into PowerPC specifics. To reimplement was going to be a major effort piled on top of reimplementing the whole QA testing chain and major chunks of the application's build and adding deeper Cocoa ( getting off Carbon).

Over a year ago they put word out that Mac Office 2010/2011 would bring it back.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Next-OfficeMac-will-bring-back-VBA-support/1210717012

And yet... folks are still moaning about it. If Microsoft had slipped Office 2008 till 2009 just to get a replacement in folks will be moaning about how old Mac Office was and how it was abandoned.

There are finite amounts of developers/resources available.

Personally I think to some extent Microsoft thought that .Net/Common_Language_Infrastructure would replace VBA on both Windows and Mac. I think they seriously misjudged how much cruft and legacy mystery code folks had layered on top of VBA at this point.







Right so there are iPhone development tools available on Windows?
There is a huge difference between end user run times and development tool stack.

Besides don't need Silverlight to do the most of what the Web version office does. No way it is going to pop up on smartphones and require Silverlight to do anything significant. That would be entirely missing the point of the utility many folks will get out of the web version. The super-supreme disco powerpoint presentation with embedded video.... probably will require silverlight. However, most folks can get by without that.

What R U a Microsoft apologist or something? You have answer for everything in defense of MS.

None of your excuses for Microsoft are valid. If Safari was the reason for Microsoft discontinuing I.E. for Mac then why didn't Firefox follow along with Microsoft? Why didn't Opera disappear? Why didn't Camino go away? Gimme a break, Microsoft removing I.E. for Mac was out of malicious intent. They took it away right when I.E. was dominating websites with Active X controls. I.E. is the dominating browser on Windows but that doesn't scare away Firefox or other Windows alternative browsers.

While were at it, there was no reason to remove Windows Media Player (crappy as is anyway). VLC may as well had followed suit and Flip4Mac didn't need to create their software either if they had Microsoft's attitude towards the Mac. The fact that MS makes money from the Mac community on their office suite is the very reason why MS shouldn't be burning their Mac customers. It's ridiculous. They dumb down the office suite we pay for, the dumb down the messenger suite, the quit support for I.E. and WMP. If you wanna defend these malicious acts from MS then read my last line.

Wow, you used the defense of iPhone developer tools being Mac only? That's laughable. All the years MS has been keeping their crap Windows only and you make this argument?
You might want to find a Windows site if you wanna be an apologist for MS.

 

[deconstruct60]

Office for Windows is not the only suite but it is the best and most powerful solution.
How can you replace Excel?

Excel itself or Excel tricked out with your favorite tack-on analysis package?

If you think Excel is the last and final word in numeric analysis... you've lead a sheltered life. It is a nice "when all you have is a hammer everything is a nail" tool. However, it isn't best tool.

Is there something more comprehensive than outlook for messaging that can work for normal users to enterprise users?

Comprehensive .... is the slippery slope here. The mail + calendar + every other microfeature of Exchange Server. It is circular argument to jump inside the cycle of Outlook is the best client for Exchange , Exchange is the best server for Outlook.

There are lots of folks who get initially exposed to that loop who are as latched onto it as "the only solution" as there are writers/coders who are as latched onto the first editor program they every spent significant time on.

but at least Exchange, Sharepoint and Office are the best in their genre. You don't have to like Microsoft, but at least they deserve credit for those applications.

Again are the genres defined by the specific Microsoft feature set (and interoperability with Microsoft solutions ) or are independent?

Mail server.. no huge email service ( gmail , yahoo mail, etc. ) runs Exchange.

Similar with sharepoint as wiki/collab software. Pull out the Microsoft specific stuff and recompare.

Office. ( granted has been lacking in competition for many years. Best ...because drove the others out of business by bundling .... Up there with IE being "best" for similar reasons. Open up the competition (open doc formats) and try on a more level playing field. )

When I wrote my doctoral dissertation and prepared the defense, the only choice to do a very professional work was Microsoft's office.

Chuckle. Been to lots of tech writing shops where Framemaker was the dominate long document creation/mastering tool. Adobe has trashed it somewhat (at least from a Mac OS X perspective. )

Nevermind the long list of journals that take Tex/Latex as input. (many now take Word too, but to claim it is the only viable, appropriate choice.... that's a chuckle. )

 

[pmjoe]

Chuckle. Been to lots of tech writing shops where Framemaker was the dominate long document creation/mastering tool. Adobe has trashed it somewhat (at least from a Mac OS X perspective. )

Nevermind the long list of journals that take Tex/Latex as input. (many now take Word too, but to claim it is the only viable, appropriate choice.... that's a chuckle. )

LOL, yes. TeX was already 6-7 years old when "Microsoft Word" arrived as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix, and TeX was pretty much designed for academic publishing from the start.

I wouldn't want to guess when you could first get publication quality results from Word. I can't even get consistent results today between the current Windows and Mac versions.

 

[deconstruct60]

What R U a Microsoft apologist or something? You have answer for everything in defense of MS.

No way I'm a Microsoft apologist. The points you are attempting to make are full of holes. That is the root cause problem in your assertions. You can try misdirection as to my motives all you want, won't change the facts.

None of your excuses for Microsoft are valid. If Safari was the reason for Microsoft discontinuing I.E. for Mac then why didn't Firefox follow along with Microsoft?

It guess you missed the fact that Microsoft is a multibillion dollar, for profit corporation and that the Mozzila foundation depends upon google searches for its income and is an open source project?

Building a browser costs money. Firefox gets money when folks use the default websearch settings. IE doesn't. Firefox also gets contributions from volunteers to do the Mac port. If those volunteers stop showing up then Firefox will stop appearing on the Mac. IE is a closed source application. So the only folks who are going to pay for its Mac OS X development is Microsoft.

The second major reason is that IE had a 90+% market share. Why bother to get another percentage points. Firefox needs all the percentage points it could/can get to be considered a viable browser platform.

Why didn't Opera disappear?

Chuckle. Since Opera is not being supported for Office 2010 web versions ask them how important several percentage points in market share is to them at this point? Versus Firefox (and most likely Webkit by proxy through Safari).

Why didn't Camino go away?

Exactly why is this separate from Firefox? Or this is suppose to be fundamentally different projects like NeoOffice and OpenOffice ?
See above re-read all the firefox rationale above. Minus the google search paycheck same thing.

Gimme a break, Microsoft removing I.E. for Mac was out of malicious intent. They took it away right when I.E. was dominating websites with Active X controls. I.E. is the dominating browser on Windows but that doesn't scare away Firefox or other Windows alternative browsers.

Show me another commercial, closed source browser vendor with even 10% of the browser market.

You are arguing in favor of security nightmare of the week ActiveX controls? LOL. Yet another hack that Microsoft has to port over and keep running long term on Mac OS X and every other OS that serves as a internet launching point.


Sure Microsoft earn more money when folks buy windows. But how do they make money with IE on the Mac. Or they are suppose to just dump money down the drain when there are several viable competitors offering effectively the same free browsing platform?

While were at it, there was no reason to remove Windows Media Player (crappy as is anyway). VLC may as well had followed suit and Flip4Mac didn't need to create their software either if they had Microsoft's attitude towards the Mac.

For the commercial companies the mastering version is where making some money. Microsoft primarily just had a player on the Mac. The Flip4Mac folks has mastering and a player. So, one there already existed an alternative. Two there was no revenue model.

The fact that MS makes money from the Mac community on their office suite is the very reason why MS shouldn't be burning their Mac customers. It's ridiculous.

Exactly how much did you pay for IE, Messenger, and WMV on Mac ? Notice how the one that folks pay for is the one still here and getting major work done on it. Coincidence? You can go off looking for grand compiracy theories, but "no money , no updates" explains a whole lot at most for profit corporations.

[ if you think the price of Windows doesn't incorporate the costs associated with IE , WMP , messenger you are grossly fooling yourself. So again the ones being PAID FOR still get support. ]

Microsoft knows better than most how much money can pour down the drain trying to compete with the host OS vendor. What you are completely discounting is Apple's moves that run counter to Microsoft's interests where their "free" (as in beer) software is concerned.

If Apple came out with a Flash/Silverlight killer runtime ..... surprise would be an increased likelihood that they'd drop Mac OS X as a platform.
[ Slipperly slope... as Mac OS X market share gets larger that is harder to do. Especially since Silverlight is waaaaaay behind in turns of runtime deployments from Flash. ]

They dumb down the office suite we pay for, the dumb down the messenger suite, the quit support for I.E. and WMP. If you wanna defend these malicious acts from MS then read my last line.

Not having IE is a malicious act? ROTFLMAO. IE was a security claptrap for a long time. You want the claptrap ?

Wow, you used the defense of iPhone developer tools being Mac only? That's laughable. All the years MS has been keeping their crap Windows only and you make this argument?

laughable how? Your original assertion is that going to "drop support". If they never ship it how can it be dropped? The silverlight development thing was just a diversion from your "points" about how Microsoft does a fake and drops on the mac.



P.S. I suppose someone will wonder why Apple does Safari for windows.
1. They are underdog and need market share. If not for the Windows+Mac+iPhoneOS safari users total there would not be a Office 2010
validation work being done. Completely opposite from IE which has enjoyed 80-90+% share until recently.
2. As much as applications are written desktop OS independent. Winner for Mac OX. Again an underdog with a 80+% share competitor.
( those Web 2.0 apps run on iPhone and Mac OS X). On a open standards platform Apple solutions can compete.
3. Frankly the skim from Mac OS X and iPhone OS sales can support the effort. Especially since large fraction of it is open source
Webkit anyway. Again constrast with IE which a fully closed source effort.
4. Microsoft has a multimillion dollar internet effort that makes no money. Even if Windows Safari is a charity effort sponsered by OS
X money ... Microsoft has other, larger black holes to fund.

 

[dawnraid]

ad supported? No thank you Microsoft

 

[windywoo]

If I wanna run that lovely game of Crisis on my Mac that's written in Windows, I can play it on my Mac by just installing the Windows OS.
Apple's stuff isn't as closed down as you try to make it seem to be.

Except thats not Apple stuff you're talking about there, it's MS. Apple are benefitting from Microsoft's more open license. If you are going to argue that it's Apple's hardware that is open, picture the reverse argument. Would you propose that PCs are "closed" because you can't install OSX. No you wouldn't because it's clearly Apple who are placing the restriction there.

 

[windywoo]

What R U a Microsoft apologist or something? You have answer for everything in defense of MS.

None of your excuses for Microsoft are valid. If Safari was the reason for Microsoft discontinuing I.E. for Mac then why didn't Firefox follow along with Microsoft? Why didn't Opera disappear? Why didn't Camino go away? Gimme a break, Microsoft removing I.E. for Mac was out of malicious intent. They took it away right when I.E. was dominating websites with Active X controls. I.E. is the dominating browser on Windows but that doesn't scare away Firefox or other Windows alternative browsers.

While were at it, there was no reason to remove Windows Media Player (crappy as is anyway). VLC may as well had followed suit and Flip4Mac didn't need to create their software either if they had Microsoft's attitude towards the Mac. The fact that MS makes money from the Mac community on their office suite is the very reason why MS shouldn't be burning their Mac customers. It's ridiculous. They dumb down the office suite we pay for, the dumb down the messenger suite, the quit support for I.E. and WMP. If you wanna defend these malicious acts from MS then read my last line.

Wow, you used the defense of iPhone developer tools being Mac only? That's laughable. All the years MS has been keeping their crap Windows only and you make this argument?
You might want to find a Windows site if you wanna be an apologist for MS.

This is just a colossal collection of fail. I don't think anybody here would argue half as hard for MS corner if it weren't for all the Apple fanboys who think Microsoft are an evil empire and Apple are the second coming.

 

[acuriouslad]

I wonder if MS would ever seriously offer an awesome Office Suite for the Mac, Office 2008 is just sad and don't forget 2004.

They could make serious money selling Office Suite for both Macs and Windows. I don't know honestly how much of their revenue is from Office but it is far more than 20% last time I remember. I wonder how much of that is from the Mac suites.

Anybody here wish the Office Suite for Mac would be as awesome as the Window versions? iWork has nothing on Office 2007 or 2010.

Yes, of course. I still prefer Office 2007 on Windows. While Office 2008 is the best Office suite so far on the Mac, I still think it can be a lot better and definitely could benefit from having OneNote included (Word's Notebook is crap). More performance and optimizations could be gained, VB Macros support (cross-platform is important for many of my clients) and many more.

When you use Office 2007 on Windows and switching to Office 2008, it does feel like a lot of things are missing. Not to mention it does not really feel like a Mac application for me. If MS gives the Mac team the ability to create a true Intel OS X Mac application and not just meshed up Windows|Mac look, it would seriously take over as the true must have Office suite on the Mac.

Now that's just my opinion, majority of people is probably just happy with Office 2008.

I agree, I have to say that I much prefer 2007 on Microsoft to 2008 on Mac it's the main reason I have VMware on my Mac. I have to say though that I think it would look better if apps on the mac looked how they wanted instead of all trying to be look-a-likes with their toolbars and stuff, I think if they made 07 office look the same on the Mac I would be extremely excited, especially if the performance was as good as it is on a normal Microsoft computer.

 

[Lone Deranger]

Because MR is a forum about Apple, not MS.
Because I have Safari ad block installed.

Then why are you bothering posting on an ad-supported forum?

 

[HLdan]

No way I'm a Microsoft apologist. The points you are attempting to make are full of holes. That is the root cause problem in your assertions. You can try misdirection as to my motives all you want, won't change the facts.



It guess you missed the fact that Microsoft is a multibillion dollar, for profit corporation and that the Mozzila foundation depends upon google searches for its income and is an open source project?

Building a browser costs money. Firefox gets money when folks use the default websearch settings. IE doesn't. Firefox also gets contributions from volunteers to do the Mac port. If those volunteers stop showing up then Firefox will stop appearing on the Mac. IE is a closed source application. So the only folks who are going to pay for its Mac OS X development is Microsoft.

The second major reason is that IE had a 90+% market share. Why bother to get another percentage points. Firefox needs all the percentage points it could/can get to be considered a viable browser platform.






Chuckle. Since Opera is not being supported for Office 2010 web versions ask them how important several percentage points in market share is to them at this point? Versus Firefox (and most likely Webkit by proxy through Safari).




Exactly why is this separate from Firefox? Or this is suppose to be fundamentally different projects like NeoOffice and OpenOffice ?
See above re-read all the firefox rationale above. Minus the google search paycheck same thing.




Show me another commercial, closed source browser vendor with even 10% of the browser market.

You are arguing in favor of security nightmare of the week ActiveX controls? LOL. Yet another hack that Microsoft has to port over and keep running long term on Mac OS X and every other OS that serves as a internet launching point.


Sure Microsoft earn more money when folks buy windows. But how do they make money with IE on the Mac. Or they are suppose to just dump money down the drain when there are several viable competitors offering effectively the same free browsing platform?





For the commercial companies the mastering version is where making some money. Microsoft primarily just had a player on the Mac. The Flip4Mac folks has mastering and a player. So, one there already existed an alternative. Two there was no revenue model.

The fact that MS makes money from the Mac community on their office suite is the very reason why MS shouldn't be burning their Mac customers. It's ridiculous.

Exactly how much did you pay for IE, Messenger, and WMV on Mac ? Notice how the one that folks pay for is the one still here and getting major work done on it. Coincidence? You can go off looking for grand compiracy theories, but "no money , no updates" explains a whole lot at most for profit corporations.

[ if you think the price of Windows doesn't incorporate the costs associated with IE , WMP , messenger you are grossly fooling yourself. So again the ones being PAID FOR still get support. ]

Microsoft knows better than most how much money can pour down the drain trying to compete with the host OS vendor. What you are completely discounting is Apple's moves that run counter to Microsoft's interests where their "free" (as in beer) software is concerned.

If Apple came out with a Flash/Silverlight killer runtime ..... surprise would be an increased likelihood that they'd drop Mac OS X as a platform.
[ Slipperly slope... as Mac OS X market share gets larger that is harder to do. Especially since Silverlight is waaaaaay behind in turns of runtime deployments from Flash. ]





Not having IE is a malicious act? ROTFLMAO. IE was a security claptrap for a long time. You want the claptrap ?




laughable how? Your original assertion is that going to "drop support". If they never ship it how can it be dropped? The silverlight development thing was just a diversion from your "points" about how Microsoft does a fake and drops on the mac.



P.S. I suppose someone will wonder why Apple does Safari for windows.
1. They are underdog and need market share. If not for the Windows+Mac+iPhoneOS safari users total there would not be a Office 2010
validation work being done. Completely opposite from IE which has enjoyed 80-90+% share until recently.
2. As much as applications are written desktop OS independent. Winner for Mac OX. Again an underdog with a 80+% share competitor.
( those Web 2.0 apps run on iPhone and Mac OS X). On a open standards platform Apple solutions can compete.
3. Frankly the skim from Mac OS X and iPhone OS sales can support the effort. Especially since large fraction of it is open source
Webkit anyway. Again constrast with IE which a fully closed source effort.
4. Microsoft has a multimillion dollar internet effort that makes no money. Even if Windows Safari is a charity effort sponsered by OS
X money ... Microsoft has other, larger black holes to fund.

I highlighted your first line because you could've fooled me. You keep losing your cover for every word you type in your post.
Look, I respect your opinion (because that's all it is, an opinion, it certainly isn't fact) but we are on a Mac forum and it sounds more like you are against the Mac community, more like you're happy that Microsoft isn't in our favor. Are you even a Mac user at all? Nobody would defend Microsoft's tactics as much as you do. Yeah, it's interesting when Apple was a small dog on the block, Microsoft made their products better on the Mac. Now the Mac is one of the most popular machines in the industry, the iPhone is kicking royal ass and the iPod is the dominant music player Microsoft is cutting back on quality of their Mac products. If that's not malicious then nothing is. Microsoft is threatened by Apple's success. For a company who's OS market share is so high they play foul game a lot.

Interesting, Apple makes iTunes for Windows (albeit not as good as Mac, as it makes sense anyway) but then the Windows users cry foul but when Microsoft just pulls support for the Mac, removes VB Macros support from Office that we PAY for, you have an excuse for them.
If you're not a Mac user then please find another place to be an apologist for MS. This is the wrong place to tell us why Microsoft shouldn't be supporting the Mac. Adios.

 

[lukfire43]

Let's start with baby steps

Lets start with baby steps, how about hyperlinks in Entourage...

 

[ccuk]

No way I'm a Microsoft apologist. The points you are attempting to make are full of holes. That is the root cause problem in your assertions. You can try misdirection as to my motives all you want, won't change the facts.



It guess you missed the fact that Microsoft is a multibillion dollar, for profit corporation and that the Mozzila foundation depends upon google searches for its income and is an open source project?

Building a browser costs money. Firefox gets money when folks use the default websearch settings. IE doesn't. Firefox also gets contributions from volunteers to do the Mac port. If those volunteers stop showing up then Firefox will stop appearing on the Mac. IE is a closed source application. So the only folks who are going to pay for its Mac OS X development is Microsoft.

The second major reason is that IE had a 90+% market share. Why bother to get another percentage points. Firefox needs all the percentage points it could/can get to be considered a viable browser platform.






Chuckle. Since Opera is not being supported for Office 2010 web versions ask them how important several percentage points in market share is to them at this point? Versus Firefox (and most likely Webkit by proxy through Safari).




Exactly why is this separate from Firefox? Or this is suppose to be fundamentally different projects like NeoOffice and OpenOffice ?
See above re-read all the firefox rationale above. Minus the google search paycheck same thing.




Show me another commercial, closed source browser vendor with even 10% of the browser market.

You are arguing in favor of security nightmare of the week ActiveX controls? LOL. Yet another hack that Microsoft has to port over and keep running long term on Mac OS X and every other OS that serves as a internet launching point.


Sure Microsoft earn more money when folks buy windows. But how do they make money with IE on the Mac. Or they are suppose to just dump money down the drain when there are several viable competitors offering effectively the same free browsing platform?





For the commercial companies the mastering version is where making some money. Microsoft primarily just had a player on the Mac. The Flip4Mac folks has mastering and a player. So, one there already existed an alternative. Two there was no revenue model.

The fact that MS makes money from the Mac community on their office suite is the very reason why MS shouldn't be burning their Mac customers. It's ridiculous.


I highlighted your first line because you could've fooled me. You keep losing your cover for every word you type in your post.
Look, I respect your opinion (because that's all it is, an opinion, it certainly isn't fact) but we are on a Mac forum and it sounds more like you are against the Mac community, more like you're happy that Microsoft isn't in our favor. Are you even a Mac user at all? Nobody would defend Microsoft's tactics as much as you do. Yeah, it's interesting when Apple was a small dog on the block, Microsoft made their products better on the Mac. Now the Mac is one of the most popular machines in the industry, the iPhone is kicking royal ass and the iPod is the dominant music player Microsoft is cutting back on quality of their Mac products. If that's not malicious then nothing is. Microsoft is threatened by Apple's success. For a company who's OS market share is so high they play foul game a lot.

Interesting, Apple makes iTunes for Windows (albeit not as good as Mac, as it makes sense anyway) but then the Windows users cry foul but when Microsoft just pulls support for the Mac, removes VB Macros support from Office that we PAY for, you have an excuse for them.
If you're not a Mac user then please find another place to be an apologist for MS. This is the wrong place to tell us why Microsoft shouldn't be supporting the Mac. Adios.

I really don't think you know what you are talking about. The tone of your posts is rather condescending and inaccurate. Apple make iTunes for Windows in order to ensure the sale of iPods, since selling purely for the mac market would have gained them sales in the order of the equivalent 5% Macintosh market share. As it stood, Microsoft had 95% or thereabouts when Apple launched the iPod, and it makes prefect sense for them to turn round and develop software which allows Microsoft users to go out, buy and use an iPod, otherwise is severely restricts sales.

Why on the other hand would Microsoft care about a 10% share in the market in terms of development of a browser, media player or even a messaging client? Also I don't think Microsoft are scared of Apple's success, that really was a sweeping statement on your part, I would say if things continued the way they are for the next 10 years Microsoft may start to sweat but they have patents and fingers in pies that their competitors have no reach on. We need competition in the market, I don't want Apple to wipe out Microsoft, because Apple seem to make sub par releases when there is no pressure on, likewise with Microsoft. The adoption of Android for example, and WebOS is great for hopefully forcing prices down and increasing features in future iPhones.

 

[lamadude]

You're entire line makes zero sense. All this is tech. They all have their own proprietary OS. Did you even read what I quoted? The other poster said Apple is the most locked-down and that's not true. I can use any example I want. Leave it all to you and Apple gets backed up into a corner since you only want to compare two companies.

But how can you compare a desktop OS with that of a console? If we just compare any OS you can say that the iPhone OS is just as locked down as any of the console operating systems you mentioned.
Saying that apple isn't locked down because you can always install windows makes no sense for several reasons. Like a previous poster mentioned, the fact that you can install windows on a mac and not the other way around is because Windows is more open and less restrictive with its license, exactly the opposite of what you're trying to prove. If we follow your logic, apple can never lock people in because people can always install windows. You could say that windows users are never locked in either because they can always install Linux.
The only serious way of comparing which company locks people in more, is by comparing the desktop OS's, so by comparing Mac OS X to Windows, and not by comparing Mac OS X to the xbox OS.

 

[pdjudd]

Why on the other hand would Microsoft care about a 10% share in the market in terms of development of a browser, media player or even a messaging client?

Well obviously MS thinks there is a good reason since it has:

1) Developed IE for the Mac - which they cancelled a long time ago and never was well supported compared with its Windows equivalent (IE histoically was heavilly tied into Windows, but that could not happen on the Mac)
2) Developed a version of WMP for the Mac which never worked well, and was generally regarded as crappy and again, never supported the same feature set as it's Windows cousin due to how tightly WMP is tied to Windows. Even today third parties can only offer limited playback of the Windows Media formats.
3) A messaging client that is less feature rich than on Windows
4) Office suite that offers versions of Work Powerpoint and Excel that are very different depending on what platform (Mac or PC) you use. And we are talking about things like document fidelity here not to mention feature set. They don't even offer Outlook but some second rate clone called Entourage that doesn't even support Windows formats (like outlook PST files) probbaly to keep you locked into Windows in some fashion.

Microsoft commercially develops software for Mac because there is a market for them to do that (Office for Mac reportedly sells tons at a high margin because its not sold under volume licensing like Windows office usually is) - thats how business operate - but there is a major conflict - they don't want them to become viable contenders with their Windows equivalents. MS has always treated cross platform as a lower priority so that nobody gets any funny ideas about leaving the Windows camp. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense - most people who run boot camp or a VM solution are running Windows in some fashion and one of things that I always see on a Windows VM is Office - the Windows office simply because they need things that can't be done on the Mac Office. Now obviously thats Microsoft's choice as a business, which they are free to do (as long as they stay out of the anti-competitive club that they tried to join back in the day).

When Microsoft says they support interoperability, I have as much faith in them as when they say that IE will support "open standards". Sure, they may do that, but I need a lot of proof.

 

[Richard1028]

Give me (and my users) back Macros in Office 2008, and then I'll reconsider my loyalty to Microsoft.

Same here but It may be 2011 before that happens. I'll stick with Office 2004.

As an aside, Apple wouldn't be where it is now without Steve Jobs begging MS to make Office for the mac. I have nothing to back this up of course.

 

[pdjudd]

Same here but It may be 2011 before that happens. I'll stick with Office 2004.

As an aside, Apple wouldn't be where it is now without Steve Jobs begging MS to make Office for the mac. I have nothing to back this up of course.

I believe that was one of the terms of the settlement that Apple proposed to Microsoft back when Microsoft and Intel stole code from Quicktime to develop Video For Windows back in teh early 90's. Those terms expired years ago, but MS has still committed to developing Office for Mac probably because it makes them money.

As much as we don't want ot admit it, Mac users are heavily reliant on Office for Mac if they want to be seen as viable though this is mostly due to the branding of Office rather than its power as a good product.

 

[dernhelm]

It's funny, when I'm at work (windows machine) and I have an OPTION of what browser to use, I ALWAYS pick firefox or Safari. However, a lot of the time I have no choice but to use IE because our intranet requires it, or my crappily written banking web site requires its, or what have you.

Microsoft has been living off the massive inertia of the web for quite some time, more or less ignoring IE as a product, because most everyone HAD to use it some of the time no matter who you are. But when even the most stringent MS supporters started loading FF on their computer, making it their primary browser, suggesting it to all their friends, and relegating IE for use on web sites run by idiots, MS had to start taking notice.

The latest IEs are not all that bad (still not as good as FF, but they are at least not ridiculously bad). I'll be interested in where IE goes now that they have this entire Office services site dedicated to running on FF, Safari, and IE.

I understand that it is coded almost entirely in Javascript/AJAX. The ironic thing is that if they are actually committed to making it work on Mac, Linux and Windows on FF, Safari and IE, about the only way they could pull it off is if they actually coded the services using REAL WEB STANDARDS (shudder). If this is the case, given Safari's built-in Javascript compiler (squirrel something - I forget the name). It is likely that the experience of using Microsoft's services will be much better than on a Mac running Safari than on a Windows PC using IE. Or for that matter running Safari or Chrome on a windows machine instead of IE.

Which means that Microsoft will have to start working on Javascript enhancements in the next IE release, or find themselves losing more ground in the browser wars.

 

[pdjudd]

It is likely that the experience of using Microsoft's services will be much better than on a Mac running Safari than on a Windows PC using IE. Or for that matter running Safari or Chrome on a windows machine instead of IE.

Which means that Microsoft will have to start working on Javascript enhancements in the next IE release, or find themselves losing more ground in the browser wars.

Either that or cripple the online content to create an artificial dependency on the desktop versions. Thats what I gather from what's going on in the free version - it is very limited. Microsoft does not want to kill their valuable cash cow of it's desktop office suite and remove its dependency with the Windows Monopoly.

We will still need to see more to see what's going on and how things work cross platform (if at all)

 

[LagunaSol]

I'll be interested in where IE goes now that they have this entire Office services site dedicated to running on FF, Safari, and IE.

If Microsoft's historical playbook is any indication, it will go down something like this:

1) It will work cross-platform at first, though obviously "better" on Windows with IE

2) As more users become "dependent" on Office Online, you'll start to see enhancements that work only on Windows with IE, while the Mac and non-IE versions start to fall behind

3) Once sufficient market share is obtained, Office Online will become a Windows/IE-only affair, unless you want to use the 5-year-old, unsupported, and crufty Mac/Safari or Mac/Windows/Firefox versions.

Mission accomplished!

Microsoft is desperate to hang on to its Windows/Office iron fist. Without it, what do they have? Zune? Xbox 360? WinMo? Bing? LOL!

 

[-hh]

The world runs on Exchange, and Exchange is WONDERFUL! ... I am the Apple guy at my job over 15k employees ...

Glad you like it as an IT Administrator .. but what do your actual USERS think?

FWIW, while you're at it, perhaps you could point me to Microsoft's file converter utility for Mac Outlook ..PST files to Windows. Hint: there isn't any: the MS policy is to upload all of your archived email from the Mac to the Exchange Server, then download it on the PC.

Don't like the whole cloud thing. This is another step towards not having a local copy of the software, and being charged to 'rent' software online, yuck.

Agreed.

When Microsoft says they support interoperability, I have as much faith in them as when they say that IE will support "open standards". Sure, they may do that, but I need a lot of proof.

Agree. There's simply been too many historical instances where they've broken their promises...invariably in self-serving ways.

As much as we don't want ot admit it, Mac users are heavily reliant on Office for Mac if they want to be seen as viable though this is mostly due to the branding of Office rather than its power as a good product.

This is an unfortunate reality. While many of us are thus effectively obligated to have a copy of Mac Office on our computers, one way to counter them financially is by skipping upgrades. A similar approach is to defer buy a version until its purchase includes the newer one for 'free'.


-hh

 

[Arganos0]

Ye know, I'd actually spend a couple of bucks if MS made a great office for mac. It would really be worth it in my opinion.