Given Apple's very special relationship with MS in the past, it's probably right. Only one company ever
bailed out Apple.
Someone else in this discussion has already noted your habit of
skipping over points and jumping to conclusions. Did you notice: you completely skipped over my point of Microsoft's 1997 bailout of the Apple corporation. You seem to think that Apple wouldn't have a special relationship with Microsoft and the division that spearheaded that bailout; you need to discuss why you think that.
Even if Microsoft received the same notice of all other companies, why can't they adopt their software?
Are you claiming that we must now wait until 2014 (or maybe 2015) for a MAS-compliant version of Microsoft's software?
Are we going to get none of the iCloud sync and backup features that will be pervasive in the next 12 months? Do you really think that Microsoft can afford to ignore those features for another 3 to 4 years!?!
Do you have any numbers that support your assessment?
How has the MAS tracked compared to the iOS App Store in its first six months?
Remember: you need to reconcile
Microsoft's 1997 bailout of Apple with your opinion that Apple doesn't have a special relationship with that company. Skipping over that point and jumping to conclusions is a No Pass.
Because changes far in to development projects costs millions, whereas they cost pennies early in. Apple needs Office more than Office needs Apple. Likely, Apple failed to provide a timely roadmap (and/or imposed restrictions that would need a) massive rewrites b) reduced functionality), in turn leaving MSFT with little choice than to release as planned (despite Lion specific functionality).
Also, one must remember that MSFT does not only cater to Lion, but older OS's too. Should they sacrifice functionality for the majority of the installed base, just to be on Apples edge of development? Personally, i think not.
p.s.
Office is already integrated with MSFTs Skydrive. Second, afaik you can always sync your documents folder in iOS. Whats your point, really?
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Yeah again those just do not play nice and all work great between different products. A group project I worked on we were jumping threw hoops because one group member was working on Open Office and it just did not play nice with Office. It just had so many little problems that it would not translate well over to office. Power point was a huge pain in the rear and we had to have power point working. End up we built a lot of stuff in office and copy pasted a fair among of his stuff.
It can work for some things but it starts adding a lot of extra bulk to a program and bloat in running things when direct file access would work better. Plus like I said Macros are going to need to be allowed to break out of the sand box and they are user written. I have seen some amazing office machros written and can tell you that they required to break out of the sand box.
LOL that is funny. Apple allowing MS latitude on the rules. Sorry Apple has case after case were they do not do that for any company so not going to happen here.
Umm yeah not going to happen. MS has way to many deals with colleges that allow for the software to be on the schools computers and then supply to the students for a cheap price.
It is one of those piece of software that is standard. Business world Office is the default standard and the students should learned how to use it while in college.
Boldtyped QFT. Office is the de facto standard. Are there other programs that could do the trick? Yes, but certainly not without hassle. Same goes for parts of the Adobe suite. Its just the way it is. As long as these companies play nice, and get their rents from the industry, rather than students and schools, i see no real issue. For a business, the license cost is nothing, really.
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Fine. We should just believe you when you say that Microsoft knew ahead of time of the MAS rules when nobody else did. We'll take your blanket statement on faith.
No seriously, you didn't just...
At least have the decency of not being a pot calling a kettle black.
Again, until we have proof that Microsoft knew ahead of time, why not assume they learned of it the same way other Apple registered developers did ? That is the safe bet...
Now, again, provide citation to backup your claim, or all you've claimed here is pure bunked.
Even if they did know prior to others, what is to say that they knew soon enough? Frankly, I'm hardly going out on a limb stating that Apple certainly knew more about Microsofts roadmap than MSFT knew of Apples. Further, theres no reason to believe that Microsoft would've made their product worse, just because. Hell, all it means is that they now have to spend extra resources to add functionality that "should've been there in first place". Why would they want to do that? Its simple really: Apple fumbled the ball on this one. Maybe for the better, overall - as far as Lion is concerned - but i find it unlikely that MSFT is to blame - as far as Office is concerned.
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You characterized the strategic 1997 investment by Microsoft as "just a spec" in the history of Apple. Do you realize that doesn't quite ring true? Their stock did go up 40% the day of the announcement. It was far more than the money; it was a 5-year commitment from MS to continue to develop and release new versions of MS Office for the Mac platform. Jobs's declarations about burying the hatchet with MS at the WWDC were legendary. His work on brokering this deal helped solidify his leadership in his return to Apple.
Where do you rank this investment and agreement with Microsoft as important events in the history of Apple?
In all honesty, we will never know one way or the other. We just don't think you have a lot of credibility if you view the 1997 MS agreement and investment as "just a speck of dust" in the history of Apple. It was a significant agreement.
The far more important question: are you thinking that Microsoft will wait until 2014 (or maybe 2015) to provide any upgrade to MS Office on the Mac? Will we have to wait until then to Microsoft to add cloud backup and synchronization to Office? If MS waits that long, their product will be severely handicapped against the rest of the marketplace.
Skydrive is already there, right? The documents folder already syncs across iCloud, correct? That said, no, MSFT will not wait until next major release. Who knows what else Apple will have broken/changed by then.
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You are right; collaboration with different tools is a bear. In this discussion, I was thinking more about the mechanisms for students to submit papers for classes. I don't think it's appropriate to require any specific vendor's text-processing format for papers. Requiring all papers to be submitted as PDF documents would avoid many problems.
I'm sure you agree with the significant value of sandboxing applications for the reliability of PCs.
I don't think sandboxing and direct access are mutually exclusive. I haven't done any research to see what Apple has to say about that issue.
You disagree that Apple has -- and will -- work hard to get MS apps into the MAS????
15 years ago, I might have believed you. The PC ruled college campuses, and MS Office was the de facto standard. Nobody would have predicted then that over 10% of computers sold today in the US would instead be apple machines, and that many campuses have over twice that percentage. While the iWork components are available there, no parts of MS Office are available for the iPad (and this is the only computer for many undergrads).
It has been the standard, but it is not even available on a vast number of computers today: Chromium laptops, iPads, Android Tablet Machines, etc.
Microsoft Office training should be available for anyone who wants to be trained in using that software.
bric-a-brac: i usually force all my students to submit in PDF. Its god awful to manage a ****-ton of .whatever. That said, i'm sure >90% use Office and that the rest basically use OO. Yet to see any indication of anyone using Papers. Have seen some (very few) students make use of GDocs and LaTex though.
That said, Apple having a higher market share today doesn't mean that Office' share is smaller. After all, we're in a thread about Office for Mac, are we not?
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MS might just wait for a grand do-over and incorporate all the Lion crap in a full Office 2012 release. (Which of course means it will be 2013 before we really see it

). To their credit... we've gotten 3 updates since 2011 was introduced. Not bad for MS on the mac platform.
But what do I know... I still don't understand why Microsoft even develops for the mac at all. Glad they are though because I wouldn't be using OSX unless it had Office.
Why? a) its good money b) it helps them reinforce office as de facto standard.