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Webcams on MSN

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belovedmonster

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 11, 2005
166
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If some kids can make an open souce version of MSN that works with webcams (aMSN) why cant MS bring out a version on the Mac with the same abilities? Seems bizarre to me that the people behind porting the software cant keep up with the amateurs.

So why is this? Are they keeping it crippled on purpose or are they just lazy or what?
 
belovedmonster said:
If some kids can make an open souce version of MSN that works with webcams (aMSN) why cant MS bring out a version on the Mac with the same abilities? Seems bizarre to me that the people behind porting the software cant keep up with the amateurs.

So why is this? Are they keeping it crippled on purpose or are they just lazy or what?
Click to expand...

Perhaps they don't want to. OS wars, dontcha know.
 
belovedmonster said:
So why is this? Are they keeping it crippled on purpose or are they just lazy or what?
Click to expand...

Um. Yes. All of the above.

After hearing that MS haven't committed to a simultaneous release of both PC and Mac versions of Office 12 (from what they say it sounds like Office:mac 2007 won't be out for a while after Office 2007 for Windows) and that MS' first Universal App "Messenger 6.0" has it's major feature listed as "federation for Messenger, customisable emoticons and spell check" doesn't sound promising.
 
Hold on, this is MICROSOFT we're talking about. They couldn't care less about making software for the Mac platform unless they're gonna make money out of it, which they aren't with MSN.

The only reason they carry on developing M$ Office for it is because it brings in £££.

I can't wait until Adium supports webcam personally, because I find aMSN to be a complete resource hog, even if you consider it runs on Rosetta. It responds very slowly for me and it's VERY glitchy....
 
Killyp said:
Hold on, this is MICROSOFT we're talking about. They couldn't care less about making software for the Mac platform unless they're gonna make money out of it, which they aren't with MSN.

The only reason they carry on developing M$ Office for it is because it brings in £££.

I can't wait until Adium supports webcam personally, because I find aMSN to be a complete resource hog, even if you consider it runs on Rosetta. It responds very slowly for me and it's VERY glitchy....
Click to expand...
RC1 of aMSN universal binary is out, although the interface is still a bit clunky... i wish another messenger with webcam would come out :cool:
 
I just hope iWork '07 will begin to deliver what it implies....or OpenOffice becomes a true OSX app rather than relying on X11.

I would be so much happier without microsoft apps on my mac.

Microsoft hasn't done any favours for mac users in recent years, WMP, MSN messenger, which must be the most popular IM protocol/app in the UK, has been stuck in the past for easily over 2 years (probably longer), and WMA protection has completely messed up the internet music industry.

What I don't really get is that aMSN is Open Source, so couldn't the people developing Gaim (and then those developing Adium) just integrate that code anyway?
 
steviem said:
What I don't really get is that aMSN is Open Source, so couldn't the people developing Gaim (and then those developing Adium) just integrate that code anyway?
Click to expand...

Thats a good point actually. Maybe we should be lobbying Gaim or someone rather than wasting our time talking about MS.
 
You know what I think is funny. If you compare the products that Microsoft and Apple give to each other, it's amazing how much better Apple's are. I mean, lets take Windows Media Player and iTunes. Windows media player on Mac sucks, it's nothing like the Windows version, and has absolutley no usefulness. But, lets take a look at iTunes for Windows, man, it has all the exact same features that iTunes has for Mac, what kind of tradeoff are we having here, lol. And as far as MSN Chat goes, it sucks, it's laggy, and it has no cool features, and they say "You Can Now File Transfer" who hoo, that is a standard now a days! Well, all products Micfosoft gives to apple suck, purely. Unless they make a profit off it, then they are going to half ass it.
 
Mercury Messenger's new release is supposedly out tomorrow, which supports a number of more recent MSN Messenger abilities like offline messaging and supports webcams quite well. I'm currently using RC5 and it's improved quite a lot in many aspects, including speed.

Maybe not so obviously, Microsoft could do it, if they were willing to take the chance of more people switching to Mac OS X.

Yahoo! Messenger will support Windows Messenger Live conversations, supposedly including voice and video. However, I've seen nothing to say that they will be backward compatible with earlier versions in anything but text chat.
 
Having a MSN that is equal to the Windows version on Mac would be a huge thing for all my MSN-obsessed friends who stay away from the Mac because of it. They have eyed the Mac before, but they won't touch it because it simply wouldn't serve their chatting needs.

If I need webcam for a little while, I just use Mercury. If I need to get a file transfer done, I use Microsoft Messenger. Everything else is Adium.
 
In addition to the reasons above, another reason is that Microsoft appears to be cutting down on (or cutting out entirely) software freebies, even on it's own platform (Windows). Recall that Microsoft initially had no plans whatsoever to release Internet Explorer 7 to users of XP and below, and promptly discontinued further development of IE 6 and below. IE 7 was originally Vista-only and positioned to be another inducement to upgrade to Vista and thus fork over more $$$ to Micro$oft. It was only after enough screaming and howling (we listen to our customers) happened that Microsoft finally relented and decided to release IE 7 to XP users as well. Users of earlier versions of Windows remain out of luck.

Messenger for the Mac is clearly targeted more for corporate use with MS Office 2004 ($$$) than as a "regular" IM client, so I get the feeling it's here mostly as an enticement for potential Office buyers. Other than that, Microsoft's freebies are pretty much extinct and I get the impression that Microsoft just doesn't want to spend the $$$ to develop products where there is no real return. (Unlike Windows, where they integrate this kind of stuff so deeply into the OS that if you want it, you have to buy Windows.)

As for the Mac:

Internet Explorer - Gone, not revenue generating.

Outlook Express - Gone, not revenue generating.

Windows Media Player - Gone, not revenue generating.

And now that Flip4Mac is developing it's Quicktime solution, MS is more than happy to tag along because MS isn't allocating it's resources to develop it, it's not costing them a dime. Let the Flip4Mac boys figure it all out.
 
well not that MS is pumping a lot of funds in their research and improvements on their apps. my friends who's an IT guy says that, it's true that Windows has a great GUI, but wat runs underneath the OS is all crap and rubbish. they get more than 80% profit for every single software u purchase. so they're only out to get the big bucks are unwilling to spend on research and development. so that sucks.

now that Apple has adopted the use of intel chips, i'm seeing that the population will slowly shift to Apple instead of MS.

just my 2 cents.

Kudos!
 
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