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ablaze · Jul 15, 2002, 08:24 AM

The German site macnews.de <a href="http://www.macnews.de" target="_blank">http://www.macnews.de</a> stated that Microsoft's Mr. Browne said in an inteview with the WallStreet Jounal, that Microsoft is going to overthink their support for the Mac afer the next version of Office. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> Unfortunately I haven't found the article on the site of the WSJ. But if this is true, I see some funny stuff on the horizon. After some years of silence the two competitors step in the ring for the last showdown?
Of course Apple has thrown the first stone, (by buying some multimedia software and announce to stop supporting windows) but Microsoft has not much space for tactical moves, as there are some judges that would not like to see them stopping the support for Office on the Mac.
But perhaps we will see a new and powerfull, Cocoa-based AppleWorks 7 on Wednesday?
What do you think?

[ 07-15-2002, 09:00 AM: Message edited by: ablaze ]

Developer · Jul 15, 2002, 08:39 AM

Reminds me of a friend of mine who sent me the pictures of his new baby inside a .doc file.

Do others also know people who send the simplest things in file formats that require $500 software to open it?

Ludovic Hirlimann · Jul 15, 2002, 08:41 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ablaze:

1)But perhaps we will see a new and powerfull, Cocoa-based AppleWorks 7 on Wednesday?
2)What do you think?<hr /></blockquote>1)I don't believe so, but one day this shoud come.
2)About Office : most people use Word the excel then the rest.
Word could be easely replaced by abiword ( a MacosX port is in the way ).
The problem of excel could be solved by fink+xdarwin+Gnumerics, so I'm fine with this drop of support from M$

Justin W. Williams · Jul 15, 2002, 08:48 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ludovic Hirlimann:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ablaze:

1)But perhaps we will see a new and powerfull, Cocoa-based AppleWorks 7 on Wednesday?
2)What do you think?<hr /></blockquote>1)I don't believe so, but one day this shoud come.
2)About Office : most people use Word the excel then the rest.
Word could be easely replaced by abiword ( a MacosX port is in the way ).
The problem of excel could be solved by fink+xdarwin+Gnumerics, so I'm fine with this drop of support from M$<hr /></blockquote>Office is a selling point to get people to switch. Telling them that fink+xdarwin+Gnumerics is a viable solution for your spreadsheet is a laughing matter.

ablaze · Jul 15, 2002, 09:10 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Developer:
Reminds me of a friend of mine who sent me the pictures of his new baby inside a .doc file.

Do others also know people who send the simplest things in file formats that require $500 software to open it?<hr /></blockquote>I know this, too! But the problem is, that people just don't know anything else bt Office. It is another good example of the importence of good advertising.
I don't undestand exactly how it works, as I learned LaTeX to be my best friend some years ago, but it seems to work. OpenSource projects seem that they can live with having some people that have fun with their software and tell others to try it, too. But Microsoft has both: verbal propaganda plus the real big money to make the difference.
So I think they could get much more out of it if they would promote Office and its components as an multi-purpose file-handling system. But just wait for Office.NET�
But I really see some hope for AppleWorks (7 or even .MAC <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> )

Ken_F2 · Jul 15, 2002, 09:18 AM

Is Apple even working on Appleworks these days?

You can kid yourself all you want, but there is simply nothing else comparable to Microsoft Office. There is a reason Office has 96.5% of the market when it comes to productivity (Office) applications. Office is the #1 selling application on the Macintosh by far; nothing else is even on the same map. That said, I do agree that not everyone needs all the features that Office provides...

Assuming you own an earlier version of Office (or Word/Excel) for Mac, the upgrade price for Office X isn't that bad--about $250 online. I haven't checked recently, but I believe the price for students is about $150 for the full version (non-upgrade). Go to the education area of Apple's store and search for Office. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to know that substantial discounts are available for teachers/students.

As Microsoft's Mac BU group has said, they expect to continue producing Office for Mac so long as it is profitable. According to the WSJ article, uncertainty concerning future versions of Office for Mac stems directly from lackluster sales of Office X for OSX. Apparently it is not making them any money, with only 300,000 copies sold instead of the 750,000 copies that Apple and Microsoft had projected, according to the article. My guess is that most Mac users still aren't using OSX for day-to-day work, and thus haven't upgraded from their older Office suite (Office 2001 for Mac sold millions of copies). Once 10.2 is released, I think we'll see a far greater number of users moving to OSX full time, and presumably, a good many will spend the $250 to upgrade.

ablaze · Jul 15, 2002, 09:42 AM

Another interesting point is, that he said somehting about a new verion of Office for 2003. Do you think it will be an all new Office or just Office v.X SP 2 (or even 3). Will we see Office.NET on the Mac? I hope the OpenOffice guys will have a stable version until then!

KaptainKaya · Jul 15, 2002, 09:59 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ablaze:
Another interesting point is, that he said somehting about a new verion of Office for 2003. Do you think it will be an all new Office or just Office v.X SP 2 (or even 3). Will we see Office.NET on the Mac? I hope the OpenOffice guys will have a stable version until then!<hr /></blockquote>A new version. (18 months is usually the development cycle for software; Office v.X not included because it was relased 1 year after Office 2001)

I think Kevin Browne was quoted before as saying that would see how .NET would fit into the Offce suite for Mac.

Personally, M$ took a chance on early adopters and over-projected sales. With the release of 10.2 upon us, not to mention that next year may bring bigger things to Mac users, I think M$ has nothing to worry about. Look at Corel's Graphics programs. Or even Adobe. Adobe is reported as having a profitable term with the release of PS 7.

Developer · Jul 15, 2002, 10:06 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ablaze:

I know this, too! But the problem is, that people just don't know anything else bt Office. It is another good example of the importence of good advertising.<hr /></blockquote>The funny thing is he could have dragged all the images of his baby into the e-mail. Instead he pasted them all into a Word document and mailed that.
Advertising is futile. A Microsoft competitor is an unthinkable alternative (at least in Germany). Just mention the word Mac or OpenOffice, and you can virtually see the people's brains tilt (be carful, might lead to hysterical laughter or long pervading catatonic mode).

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ken_F2:
Is Apple even working on Appleworks these days?

You can kid yourself all you want, but there is simply nothing else comparable to Microsoft Office. There is a reason Office has 96.5% of the market when it comes to productivity (Office) applications. Office is the #1 selling application on the Macintosh by far; nothing else is even on the same map.<hr /></blockquote>Office is a good app, but that's not the reason it's number one. It had good competition on the Windows side. For Word AmiPro or WordPerfect come to mind. They killed it with their bundling strategies.

On the Mac Office is number one because people want to be compatible with the de facto monopoly on Windows.

What we need are standardized file formats for Office files like we have for Web (HTML/XML) and multimedia (JPEG/MPEG).

MacGorilla · Jul 15, 2002, 10:55 AM

I think M$ is just rattling the cage a bit. They make $$$ hand over fist on the Mac and we all know M$ loves the dollar!

Drizzt · Jul 15, 2002, 10:57 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by KaptainKaya:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ablaze:
Another interesting point is, that he said somehting about a new verion of Office for 2003. Do you think it will be an all new Office or just Office v.X SP 2 (or even 3). Will we see Office.NET on the Mac? I hope the OpenOffice guys will have a stable version until then!<hr /></blockquote>A new version. (18 months is usually the development cycle for software; Office v.X not included because it was relased 1 year after Office 2001)

I think Kevin Browne was quoted before as saying that would see how .NET would fit into the Offce suite for Mac.

Personally, M$ took a chance on early adopters and over-projected sales. With the release of 10.2 upon us, not to mention that next year may bring bigger things to Mac users, I think M$ has nothing to worry about. Look at Corel's Graphics programs. Or even Adobe. Adobe is reported as having a profitable term with the release of PS 7.<hr /></blockquote>Yeah.. but Photoshop 7 runs on Classic too.. so that's not the same game.

KaptainKaya · Jul 15, 2002, 11:04 AM

Yea, I had realized that after I posted, my fault

. I think Office should have been carbonized to run on both systems, with the next version OS X only. Oh well, live and learn eh?

Guy Incognito · Jul 15, 2002, 11:39 AM

MS is an example of cracking smoking at it's best.

These are the reason why Office doesn't sell well in OS X (or any other OS):

1. Expensive as Hell for something so simple...they overcharge for minor upgrades. No wonder people won't buy it when there's AppleWorks and other less expensive alternatives out there.
2. Shoddy apps! Yeah, you heard me. Office v.X is a badly coded mess of trouble that doesn't make use of the new OS X events. If MS made an effort to make Office not feel just like an Aqua-sugar-coated Classic app, people would feel more compelled to buy it.
3. Piracy! 'cuz MS ****es people off to such an extent, people feel like they've got to steal from MS as some kind of revenge.

MS's tactics to grab everyone's money using as little effort as possible (buying Bungie and releasing Halo is an example of such bullsh!t) has got to stop...

BOYCOTT MICROSOFT AND THEIR SHODDY SOFTWARE!!!!

I don't give a flying �uck about .docs and .ppts or Entourage. If someone sends me a .doc or a .ppt, I tell them to change it to rich text or plain text. If a boss is ****ed off 'cuz I can't read his Word document bullcrap, I tell him to �ork off and I quit my job.

Sorry but I'm sick of MS raping everyone. I can't believe people still feed that company money.

So sad...I feel sorry for the world. It's almost like Warcraft III...MS is the Burning Legion set to overrun this world.

Guy Incognito · Jul 15, 2002, 11:45 AM

MS is an example of cracking smoking at it's best.

These are the reason why Office doesn't sell well in OS X (or any other OS):

1. Expensive as Hell for something so simple...they overcharge for minor upgrades. No wonder people won't buy it when there's AppleWorks and other less expensive alternatives out there.
2. Shoddy apps! Yeah, you heard me. Office v.X is a badly coded mess of trouble that doesn't make use of the new OS X events. If MS made an effort to make Office not feel just like an Aqua-sugar-coated Classic app, people would feel more compelled to buy it.
3. Piracy! 'cuz MS ****es people off to such an extent, people feel like they've got to steal from MS as some kind of revenge.

MS's tactics to grab everyone's money using as little effort as possible (buying Bungie and releasing Halo is an example of such bullsh!t) has got to stop...

BOYCOTT MICROSOFT AND THEIR SHODDY SOFTWARE!!!!

I don't give a flying �uck about .docs and .ppts or Entourage. If someone sends me a .doc or a .ppt, I tell them to change it to rich text or plain text. If a boss is ****ed off 'cuz I can't read his Word document bullcrap, I tell him to �ork off and I quit my job.

Sorry but I'm sick of MS raping everyone. I can't believe people still feed that company money.

So sad...I feel sorry for the world. It's almost like Warcraft III...MS is the Burning Legion set to overrun this world.

Guy Incognito · Jul 15, 2002, 12:26 PM

Seriously, with OS X's Services (the default Speech, Find, and Spelling, Mail...and third-party 'Define in OmniDictionary' etc etc...) and Interface Builder, Joe Schmoe 2nd-year-computer-science-nerd can whip up something that competes with Microslap's Word in 1/1000th of the code MS uses.

Looking at Word X, I can see a ton of things that can be handled with Services. With Services, the possibilities are endless.

Things such as dictionaries and a thesaurus can easily be handled with Services. Spell checking, Find, Speech, Mail and Summarize, can be handled by OS X's built-in Services (multiple language spellcheck in Jaguar).

Word has it's built-in 'Address Book'...laaaame. With Jaguar's new 'Address Book.app' and system-wide database you can code your word processor to have a consistent OS-wide contact information (except when you use shoddy MS apps that use their own shoddy implementations.)

Statistical information such as word count, sentence counts, characters, lines, paragraphs, pages...are trivial to implement. I could code that with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back.

Printing? Handled by Cocoa. Documents? Handled by Cocoa.

Features such as auto-save? Trivial to code.

Toolbar? Cocoa! Undo, Redo? Cocoa! Fonts? Cocoa! Colors! COCOA!

In fact...why aren't there tons of Cocoa word processors? I think I'll code one myself and go up against the snail's-pace Okito Composer. The author probably got bored after noticing how unchallenging it is to produce a word processor for X and stopped working on it.

Edit: Spreadsheets and presentation apps are another story though...I can understand MS charging for those. There are free spreadsheet alternatives though for people that don't need all the fancy gee-whiz formulas and formatting.

Entourage sucks balls.

The Frogblast author is working on such an app. Daylite by Marketcircle rocks too. Yeah, yeah, Exchange...blah blah blah.

[ 07-15-2002, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Guy Incognito ]

ddukes · Jul 15, 2002, 12:43 PM

You know, MS probably didn't meet its sales expectations of 750,000 copies because it didn't market it's product the way it should have. Imagine that... MS doing a lackluster job of marketing their own product.

Most people I talk to in my profession didn't even know there was a version of Office for OS X.

Genocide · Jul 15, 2002, 12:50 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />You can kid yourself all you want, but there is simply nothing else comparable to Microsoft Office. There is a reason Office has 96.5% of the market when it comes to productivity (Office) applications. Office is the #1 selling application on the Macintosh by far; nothing else is even on the same map. That said, I do agree that not everyone needs all the features that Office provides...<hr /></blockquote>Actually, the only reason that it's the #1 selling app on the Mac is the same reason it's the #1 selling app on the PC. Most people aren't getting Office because it's better, they're getting it because they think that they have to. I remember a friend of mine last year saying "I have to get Office for at home because I use it at work." I always found that to be a bunch of crock. Like you mention, there are a lot of things in the suite of software that will never be used by your average computer user. I always laugh when I hear someone say "I'm getting Word because I want to write letters to my mom." Most text editors (TextEdit and BBEdit being two) are excellent examples of tools one could use to write those same letters.

I am curious to see how WordPerfect is going to turn out for X, but I'm rooting for the underdog: AppleWorks. To me, Microsoft is not an option, it's a death certificate.

Genocide

JLL · Jul 15, 2002, 01:01 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ken_F2:
Apparently it is not making them any money, with only 300,000 copies sold instead of the 750,000 copies that Apple and Microsoft had projected, according to the article. My guess is that most Mac users still aren't using OSX for day-to-day work, and thus haven't upgraded from their older Office suite (Office 2001 for Mac sold millions of copies).<hr /></blockquote>Or people are satisfied with running 2001 in Classic since Office v. X isn't exactly loaded with new features.

chris v · Jul 15, 2002, 01:10 PM

300,000 times 500 is still a huge pile of money. 150 million is not exactly chump-change. I don't think M$ will put down a cash cow like that, esp. since sales should be steady as OS X adoption progresses.

CV

walrusjb · Jul 15, 2002, 02:15 PM

Complete load of crap. This is propaganda, pure and simple. I'm disgusted by the entire tone of their comments - Switch + Jag must really be getting under their skin.

Have told no less that 4 different people this week that there was an X-native version of Office out... so you're spot on DDukes. Am starting to see a lot of 9 to X migration the last month or two... from people who could've cared less last year when this was in the X-centric press. Now that they're coming over, they're having to get their bearings. And the newer Windows converts I've been helping as of late are like the new kid in school - almost afraid to ask questions.

And I won't even get into a few of the folks I know who have a "pry it from my cold, dead hand" attitude to OS 8. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

But hell, to listen to Browne, you'd think there was nothing but X users, and let's not forget that Apple couldn't have pulled off 10.1 without them.

I had a feeling the first time I saw Switch on Apple's website - the propaganda is going to get thick. Put something like this out on cNet with a lot of PC-centric readership and suddenly switching doesn't seem so safe - regardless of wether or not they really NEED Office. True need is immiterial in proaganda - perceived disadvantage is gold.

C@cksuckers. And I don't mean that in the usual, loving way <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

jb

lookmark · Jul 15, 2002, 02:18 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by chris v:
300,000 times 500 is still a huge pile of money. 150 million is not exactly chump-change. I don't think M$ will put down a cash cow like that, esp. since sales should be steady as OS X adoption progresses.
CV<hr /></blockquote>Compared to MS's total revenue? It's a drop in a bucket.

MS develops Office v.X as an act of kindness. And mostly to itself -- to lessen the sting of the word "monopoly".

But make no mistake, this isn't about money. Or even sales. It's a little tap on the head from the class bully. Remember Jobs' extraordinary, RDF-infused question, "What's a few points of marketshare between friends?" This is the answer.

lookmark · Jul 15, 2002, 02:28 PM

Oh, by the way, the above shouldn't be taken as gloom n' doom for the Mac platform (due to that weird, pervasive thought process that people need Office to survive, even if they don't).

Hopefully -- if justice is done -- some kind of official board will be set up to judge whether future actions of MS (e.g. the threat of cancelling a Mac Office) constitute as wielding monopoly power.

Otherwise, Apple has to (a) play difficult game of trying to compete against Windows while acquiescing to MS's demands, or (b) go down the long, hard road of making and supporting a full Office alternative.

What happened to the States vs. MS case, by the way? There was a flurry of activity, then silence.

[ 07-15-2002, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: lookmark ]

walrusjb · Jul 15, 2002, 03:50 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> What happened to the States vs. MS case, by the way? There was a flurry of activity, then silence.
<hr /></blockquote>The flurry of outbound packets from an XP box for no apparent reason may lead you to an answer...

jwblase · Jul 15, 2002, 06:37 PM

M$'s pricing is a little wacky: $399 for just Word, or Excel, but $499 for all of Office?

If they sold Word alone for $150, then I'd probably buy it (I could use it at home and work, even if I don't like it).

They charge waaaaayyyy too much for a product that they think people "need". If people aren't willing to pay, they'll find an alternative (Such as Appleworks that comes for FREE with each new Macintosh)

M$ shouldn't be so greedy, and then they'd probably see better sales.

JB

curmi · Jul 15, 2002, 07:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ludovic Hirlimann:

The problem of excel could be solved by fink+xdarwin+Gnumerics, so I'm fine with this drop of support from M$<hr /></blockquote>This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. I hardly think MS quake in their boots at the power of Gnumerics.

Guy Incognito · Jul 15, 2002, 07:23 PM

The problem here is evident. People aren't buying Office because it's great. People aren't buying Windows because it's great. People are buying Office and Windows because the majority is using them. Frankly, Office and Windows are shoddy. Like was mentioned earlier, people buy Office because they feel like they're forced to buy it because they use Office at work...

How are you gonna bring your work back home if you don't have Office.

How are you gonna read those Word documents people send you through e-mail? Or those PowerPoint presentations?

It's sickening. People aren't buying Word to use the fancy little features (some do...not many). People buy Word to read their friend's .doc documents or their business' .xls documents.

If I had both Word and TextEdit (or Okito Composer) on my computer, you'd sure as hell see me writing my letters in TextEdit and only using Word *just* to read .doc documents.

It's time that Apple brings MS down.

[ 07-15-2002, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: Guy Incognito ]

KaptainKaya · Jul 15, 2002, 11:02 PM

With all the companies Apple has been buying, why don't they just buy the MacBU?

mattmarshall · Jul 15, 2002, 11:50 PM

i use Office X, and like it a lot, but am thinking it might be smarter to save my documents in Rich Text Format than MS's ".doc"

i just switched the option in preferences......and it said that some formatting may be the lost. is there any normal thing that can't be saved in .rtf? will i really notice? why doesn't everyone just use .rtf all the time?

why does apple make a different format for appleworks--why not just use rtf?

just curious. i think i like the idea of using rtf all the time, but just don't want documents to go screwy. will they?

thanks

-matt

Guy Incognito · Jul 16, 2002, 12:14 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by mattmarshall:
i use Office X, and like it a lot, but am thinking it might be smarter to save my documents in Rich Text Format than MS's ".doc"

i just switched the option in preferences......and it said that some formatting may be the lost. is there any normal thing that can't be saved in .rtf? will i really notice? why doesn't everyone just use .rtf all the time?

why does apple make a different format for appleworks--why not just use rtf?

just curious. i think i like the idea of using rtf all the time, but just don't want documents to go screwy. will they?

thanks

-matt<hr /></blockquote>I don't think rtf supports things such as tables. But for simple formatting, rtf can tackle almost everything non-MS-proprietary.

pliny · Jul 16, 2002, 09:10 AM

oh it's not very surprising to hear M$ prattle this �rap when the Apple home page has "Windows is lame, look, even Windows IT managers hate it" all over it. Apple is vulnerable on this issue of compatibility because 95% of the world uses Windows and 2/3 of these at least use Office. This is nothing new. M$ and Apple are direct OS competitors and unfortunately M$ produces one of the top selling Apple products(if not THE top selling, depsite the ludicrous price tag--I remember Word selling for like $20 back in the day). This is a risky game and will probably get even more interesting as Jaguar etc is rolled out. The last time this sort of thing got heated was around 95 or 96 or so, when M$ rolled out the Word 6.0 POS.

Apple says "switch", M$ says, "switch? there will be no more Office for MAC". classic M$ tactic.

dru · Jul 16, 2002, 03:35 PM

Anyone realize that if you're a switcher it's CHEAPER to get Virtual PC and use your existing Windows-based Office suite?

The only MS Office app I'd be remotely interested in is Word but not at $399.

Hopefully people with skills will begin joining the OpenOffice.org port (right now there's like 4 people working on it). I can code but know nothing of Macs. Damn Sun for eschewing an official OS X port.

Best case (right now) seems to be a Quartz (with a Win9x look) port ready sometime in '03 unless more people join up.

talisker · Jul 16, 2002, 07:48 PM

Yes, Office is too expensive, but the reason I bought it was mainly for compatibility with the mainly Office using world. While Appleworks and others promise a degree of compatibility with Word etc, for me compatible means that the documents will not be converted from one format to another, they will always open without any "File format not recognised" type errors, and the formatting will not change at all even on complex documents (eg - margins and tab positions will not move even by a mm). I dont want to have to do any work at all converting or reformating my documents - it just has to work right all the time. This is not just laziness, my Mac is also used by family members who dont as yet "trust" this strange new system 100%. Any strange messages or added complexity simply dent their confidence a little. I understand that some people can use PDF, RTF or whatever, particularly in the design or IT industries, but elsewhere these are not acceptable for many purposes and Word is the standard.

In addition, I like MS Office. I use Excel XP a lot at work, and find it to be extremely powerful and well designed on the whole. Not perfect, but a great bit of software nonetheless. I find Office vX on the Mac also works well and I'm very happy with it. I dont particularly care whether or not it's elegantly programmed using Carbon, Cocoa or Ovaltine, all that matters is that it works. And it does, even on my relatively weedy ibook 600.

Gee4orce · Jul 17, 2002, 03:19 AM

People use Office because other people use Office. It's as simple as that.

I regularly distibute my CV (resume) via email to recruitment agencies, as I'm a contract programmer. You won't believe the number of them that phone back, asking for a Word format version. Uh - like you can't open the .txt version I sent you with Word ?

My gf is expected to submit her degree course essays in Word format, even though she's simply writing text.

OK - Word and Excel are, I think, great products on the whole. What pisses me off is the assumption that they are the only products for those tasks...

Ken_F2 · Jul 17, 2002, 08:40 AM

Gee4force,

<blockquote>quote:<hr />I regularly distibute my CV (resume) via email to recruitment agencies, as I'm a contract programmer. You won't believe the number of them that phone back, asking for a Word format version. Uh - like you can't open the .txt version I sent you with Word ? <hr /></blockquote>It works the same here. They don't accept electronically sent resumes in any format but Word. Anything else and it is rejected.