“Apple needed to ensure that Microsoft would continue to provide MS Office for Mac, or we were dead,” Fred Anderson, Apple’s chief financial officer, testified in U.S. District Court. “They were threatening to abandon the Mac.” When the five-year deal expired last summer, neither company expressed interest in renewing it. Pundits speculated then that Microsoft was planning to abandon the Mac. Now, it appears the opposite is true.
Apple’s Office Politics
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Read the tea leaves… Apple has employed most of GoBe’s engineers. I can assure you they aren’t updating appleworks, but are part of team that is developing a word processor and spreadsheet in cocoa.
Did you think when Hyatt went to Apple he was gonna work on mail.app? The second he got there I knew we’d see a browser soon.
Apple is becoming a software company.
Quote sounds misleading at first glance. The article is not about MS doing a 180 with regards to supporting Apple.
“When the five-year deal expired last summer, neither company expressed interest in renewing it. Pundits speculated then that Microsoft was planning to abandon the Mac. Now, it appears the opposite is true.”
The article is about Apple possible not needing MS anymore. Of course in the near term that would a huge problem. Longer term that might be possible.
Right now most websites are designed to work with IE and many flat out don’t work with Gecko, let along KHTML which is still a bit behind in the “ability to render pages correctly” category. That plus the fact the world runs on .doc and .xls makes Apple giving MS Office the boot unlikely. If Apple is intent on moving out its current niche markets it needs MS Office still. Especially in the business world where .doc is the universal format. Still though I’d love to see Apple say “no thanks” to IE and MS Office.
> let along KHTML which is still a bit behind in the “ability to render pages correctly” category.
Question. Does IE render standarized sites correctly?
Why? Do you have evidence to the contrary?
“Question. Does IE render standarized sites correctly?”
It depends. Many site written to strict standards don’t work or look right in IE. As far as being “standard’s compliant” IE ranks behind KHTML and Gecko.
Well, then… IE is also behind the “ability to render pages correctly” category.
Safari is almost a great browser.
> Apple is becoming a software company.
I agree, and I am very excited about that. This actually means that apple could drop their hardware section some day and make OS X available for x86 and other platforms… or at least that’s what I’m dreaming of…
loaded on nearly everyone’s computers, but as None says, “ranks behind” pretty glaringly in the www standards dept.
It continues the GP3 story we talked about, there was a very illustrative post there explaining the Cocoa transition it’s worth read.
BTW how much subsidiary is Filemaker from Apple Inc.?
IMO the AppleOffice conspirancy will continue during this year while OpenOffice, Kword and Abiword do the nasty work for apple and open standards succeed. Only after MS sends the “bomb” apple will probably contra attack with something PRO. A small version of apple works could see the light this summer (after the real priority processors is solved) but this is just a logic transition from an old world app to OSX.
Has anyone who’s done cocoa development looked at Open Office code? I would guess it wouldn’t be too difficult to ‘reskin’ it so that it fits in more. It’s not like they’d lose anything since you’d still have to run OS X to get the nice interface, and they’d be free from Microsoft.
Oh, and IE is the worst browser out there as far as features (well, maybe with the exception of lynx; and I’ve only used the browsers that run on Windows and Linux) are concerned. It does render web pages written in Front Page better than anything else, but that’s not really an advantage unless you frequent Microsoft.com
Apple will still have to do alot of work to get itself adopted. A withdrawal by Microsoft will devistate the Mac community, I do not care what any article says. Other companies will see it as a loss of faith and follow suit, Steve Jobs needs to do just enough to keep MS happy and developing for the Apple platform. Also unless Apple makes the move to OS X x86 it does not matter how good the software offerings are the hardware will not sell. To expensive and because of the economy people are looking for cheap systems.
Why is Apple so worried if they have the OpenOffice.org office suite? or is OpenOffice.org not good enough? If that’s the case, what makes you think it is good enough on Linux?
They’d come out with their “pro” version for both the Mac and PC.
Big proof, that no, our product will play nicely with your PC.
Ernesto, FileMaker is a wholly owned subsidiary. It was spun out with Claris (which was still wholly-owned but it was planned to be an independent unit), which was making ClarisWorks along with some of the other apps (HyperCard, I believe) way back when it appeared that Apple would build out more of a software offering.
When it became apparent that Claris would be brought back in, the software subsidiary became FileMaker, Inc. because FM had established itself as a large enough project that it would have suffered being brought back into the main operations (unlike AppleWorks which needed close integration).
You might want to check out this link for a good history:
http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/clarisworks.php
It focuses on Claris/AppleWorks, but still noteworthy.
Someone else pointed out in the Keynote discussion the high degree of Quality Control at Claris–this actually hada very negative impact on the software… somewhat like Quark today.
As for Gobe LOGICALLY working on NEW Cocoa apps.. that’s not entirely clear. The Eazel guys and Hyatt worked with Gecko but built a KHTML browser. Wilfredo Sanchez returned to Apple after his original kernel hacking and Unix porting to do WO work with .Mac. Just because they did something once doesn’t mean Apple will not do something new with the same people.
“Well, then… IE is also behind the “ability to render pages correctly” category. ”
What exactly is your point? The web is designed for and works best on IE. The fact that IE stumbles on the very few sites that code to standards doesn’t mean much. You seem to want to make some sort of statement, but I haven’t a clue as to what it is. If you trying to convince me that alternative browsers and standards are important your barking up the wrong tree.
“The web is designed for and works best on IE. The fact that IE stumbles on the very few sites that code to standards doesn’t mean much.”
Sorry, but that’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week. Much of the web has been designed AROUND IE, but to say it was designed FOR it is simply wrong – mainly, the web was here first.
The web has standards – and for good reason – and MS twisted that to set up their own ‘standards’ built into IE. This make IE look better in comparison than it actually is…and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when you have the monopoly market share that MS does, and you create these proprietary standards, that people will code to YOUR standard and not to the ones laid down by the standards organization.
Standards are important so that the Web isn’t just an amalgamation of chicken-scratch coding. And if you don’t know why having choices is an important thing, well…you’ll just have to repeat that part of the class. And no sleeping, this time.
is less standards compliant than any other major browser I’ve used. A lot of DHTML that works in Mozilla, WinIE, Konquer, even Opera will not run on it. It is crap, IMHO.
But it does have better security than the Win version and is not as much of a privacy concern.
The web has standards – and for good reason – and MS twisted that to set up their own ‘standards’ built into IE. This make IE look better in comparison than it actually is…
It really doesn’t matter which one is ‘better’. What I care about is, which browser works with the sites I visit? If a browser that is 100% ‘standards compliant’ stumbles on sites that are built ‘around’ IE, then what difference does it make how standards compliant it is? Although I do understand the political aspect of open standards, this is the REAL world and IE IS the standard – deal with it.
> REAL world and IE IS the standard – deal with it.
I won’t accept that. If AOL doesn’t use Microsoft as a browser, they are far from “The Standard.” Deal with that.
When I used IE, I often had trouble accessing several sites. Now that I’m using a Gecko-based browser, I never have any problems anymore with sites not working. It might depend on what kind of sites you visit which browser you should use.
Also page made for IE5 often do not work in IE6 (and the otherway). Gecko’s quicks mode just supports 99% of the pages made for IE, doesn’t matter which version.
//If AOL doesn’t use Microsoft as a browser, they are far from “The Standard.” //
You do realize that the majority of people surfing the internet across the world do *NOT* use AOL. …so…Deal with that.
I work in a company developing web – based apps, and we develop our sites to work with ALL standard complient browsers, even W3M – and we all hate IE for beeing all but standard – compliant.
And in germany, most universities and federal organisations use Netscape or Mozilla, anyway, so we prefer W3C – standards over Microsoft’s…
I hate making websites, but it’s better than manual labour. I choose to code all my webpages by hand and not use any apps like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. I know enough HTML to able to code it and expect it to look like what i expected, that is…on mozilla. I spent god only knows how many hours trying to get the page to work right in IE, ended up making the mozilla version looking just not quite right, which made me feel bad.
Then i got into CSS, and DEAR GOD!!!! You call IE the standard?! w3c is pushing CSS hardcore now, and IE does it HORRIDLY. If you’re gonna support something, you better support it all the way, and not this half way shit that IE is doing. I’ve LOST money making a website trying to figure out how to do stuff in IE to get around the lack of proper CSS support.
As for the web being designed for IE..lolol. The web was designed on a NeXT computer, i dont think IE was out for NeXTStep. IE is one of the worst browsers i’ve ever used, on any platform, i seriously rather use dillo than IE.
Microsoft was briefed about Keynote and Safari before the keynote. See The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24678-2003Jan7.html (look near the bottom). It has also been mentioned that there are still development plans for IE on the Mac.
Complaints about Apple’s existing web-rendering framework, combined with many complaints about IE 5 for MacOS X, are two good reasons for Safari. The fact that OmniGroup are seriously looking at adopting WebCore and JavaScriptCore for use in OmniWeb makes me very happy, too. But the most interesting part of this is that it shows where Apple stands. They were offered a choice: run the gauntlet with Microsoft & friends, or run the gauntlet with Open Source. This shows clearly they have chosen the latter, and this article is akin to Saruman’s movie line: “So you have chosen death…”.
As far as Keynote, the pundits and curmudgeonlys believe Jobs when he says it was developed for him, and I agree. Whether it hints at a broader “Get Microsoft” approach is very much up in the air.
Now, I don’t believe that Office for MacOS X or even IE for MacOS X are in any imminent danger of falling into disrepair, despite the announcements of Keynote and Safari. It should be noted that the reasons for this are due to antitrust concerns, and the fact that the MBU pulls in quite resepectable profits; it has very little to do with the areas in which Apple actually competes with Microsoft. If you’re thinking that’s perhaps unfair, and that Apple presently has a free license to punch at Microsoft without getting punched back, you’re probably right. Welcome to the industry, 2003.
My experience with IE is the same as Richard Fillion. IE CSS “support” sucks. I always seem to have to change a great design due to its lousy support and odd bugs. If you read the CSS-D mailing list you would see just how much IE sucks and how many bugs there are. But at least the mac IE is better than PC IE when it comes to standards.
Long live W3C standards! Viva CSS3! Viva XHTML 2.0!
“Sorry, but that’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week. Much of the web has been designed AROUND IE, but to say it was designed FOR it is simply wrong – mainly, the web was here first. ”
No crap the web was here first. So what? You telling me over the past 7 years the web hasn’t been designed for rendering in IE? I stand by the statement that the web works best with IE. I’m not saying this is right(it’s not), but really that’s a fact as much as the sky is blue.
“The web has standards – and for good reason – and MS twisted that to set up their own ‘standards’ built into IE. This make IE look better in comparison than it actually is…and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when you have the monopoly market share that MS does, and you create these proprietary standards, that people will code to YOUR standard and not to the ones laid down by the standards organization. ”
Correct, but your gonna tell this to me?
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2) Gecko/20021202
I’m all for standards and do my best to make sure websites work with real open standards. But being that the web is made to work first with IE and all other browsers second is just a fact of life. Hopefully it will change with Apple adopting KHTML, but the reality that IE sucks at standards doesn’t mean much to most people. So no, I don’t think my statement was dumb.
Having taken the plunge and coming out with Safari and KeyNote, it would not surprise me if Apple went all the way with a professional office suite. Even before these recent developments, there has seemed like something must be going on. AppleWorks has not really been updated for a long time. It has been pretty static. There have been rumors of a re-write of it. It seems to me there is something going on.
It’s so hard to tell with Apple, they are able to keep things so close to the vest. As far as I could tell, even the best Mac rumor sites were totally unaware of Safari (I mean Apple doing a khtml browser), KeyNote, Final Cut Express and the new PowerBooks. Before MacWorld, there were rumors about just about everything, except the things they, in the end brought out.
They will make Word and Excel look like the overloaded and hard-to-use crap that they are (esp. Word). They will feature lots of integration with other Apple apps like Address book and Keynote.
But that won’t affect Office. Lots of people will still need or want Office because they are used to it, use it at work, already own it, etc.
MS won’t cut it. Cut Office for the Mac and they face increased antitrust problems. There will never be a credible business justification for this. There is demand for mac office, a high price and lots of profits (the software is written, updating it a little to keep it running costs almost nothing). Even if Apple didn’t sue, another company might for some other MS evil deed and it could point to the cutting of Office for the mac as proof of MS’s anticompetitive conduct.
Also, Apple has a poison pill if MS ever tried to “kill it off”. It’s called releasing OS X for intel hardware. Apple is happy in its hardware/software integration niche. But it that fails (provoked by MS or happens for some other reason), OS X is just not going to go “poof”. How many companies own an OS with thousands of native and commercial applications other than MS and Apple: zero. Apple will become a software only company.
I look forward to the day that i can go to the store and get a copy of a mac os and bring it home and run it on my AMD box, someday soon? probebly not, but sometime in my lifetime i think.
If you say a clone PC powered by AMD chip keep dreaming, this won’t happen. Apple will never be a software only company, the far they can go is a close system based on wathever chip PCs uses in the future.
Probably a Mac with a AMD-IBM processor…soon, 3 year away.
At risk of being contrary, I’ve been doing web development work since 1997 and do my best to follow W3C standards, doing everything in HTML 4.1 or XHTML 1.1 with CSS (nearly) everywhere. And I can assure you that Internet Explorer 5.x+ and Mozilla 1.x are not only the most standards-compliant browsers out there, they’re frequently the only ones that don’t horribly screw up moderately complex style sheets.
People still have this idea of IE as a horribly broken browser, but they’re basing it on perceptions years old. It hasn’t been broken since IE 3. It supports a few non-standard HTML tags, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t support real ones. Mozilla does a bit better on CSS (for instance, I can assign a width to the BODY tag to constrain pages without tables, and it works on Mozilla–and IE for the Mac!–but not IE for Windows). But when it comes to overall CSS Level 2 support and, just as importantly for “standards” mavens, DOM support, IE is light-years ahead of KHTML, OmniWeb, iCab and Opera. (Omniweb makes an attempt at DOM support, at least, the others don’t even try. And iCab, for all of its snotty “let me smile” attitude, blows off any post-1998 standard. You want to take the smile off its face, give it 100% validating XHTML.)
I think Apple could be profitable as a software company. I believe there is a huge market of people who hate Windows, but are put off by the cost of Apple hardware. Selling a version of OS X that could be installed on x86 hardware would be a money maker. I personally would love to buy a fast Dell, delete Windows, and install OS X as my operating system, running only Apple applications written in cocoa.
Apple as a software only company, at least in our current context, equals death for Apple.
No, BEFORE Apple dies, there’s a deathbed conversion: OS X for intel. Even if that didn’t work (repeat of OS/2), then it’s released for free and maintained as open source. It’s written. It ain’t going away.
Now, why would MS do anything to lead to this, like cutting Office? They won’t. It would be stupid.
They will not Open Source MacOS X in a death throw, they will sell it, prob. to MS/group of Apple die hards (which it then might become Open).
ain’t gonna ever happen
Hrm.. so if Apple dies.. everyone but microsoft gets a crack at whats left over?
I may be wrong.. appleforever maybe you should enlighten us as to why?
> Hrm.. so if Apple dies
ahhh… forget it.
The reason was that Apple spent too little in marketing Mac OS X to current OS 9 users, which is very true. They should have spent their marketing money in ending the migration effort as fast as possible.
Microsoft isn’t the only one threatening to abandon. Quicken and Corel too. I presume others too.
If Apple succeeds in create quality competition to Microsoft Office, it will spur Microsoft to create superior products…not cede 3 percent of the market to a competitor. And if Microsoft creates a better product, Apple benefits even if its own product fails to dominate. Put differently, Safari will push Internet Explorer- and that’s a good thing, regardless of which is the dominate browser, because it benefits the OSX platform as a whole.
OpenOffice may be very immature at the moment, but it does open MS Word documents quite well and it’s packed with features. As it’s opensource, surely it would be quicker for Apple to fix it’s problems and redesign the GUI than write a new Office suite of their own?
how close actually is AOL to using Gecko instead of IE? Well, they said two years ago (2001), so I guess we would never know. Plus, AOL has been gradually loosing market share not only to MSN, but to companies like SBC, Earthlink, etc. Mostly because of the ill concieved merger. Plus, AOL has little market outside of USA, especially in Asia where the Internet market is growing in leaps and bounds compared to the stagnant Western market.
Besides, to point out, prior to being dethrone, Netscape is exactly the way IE is today, almost completely not standards compliant, makes its own extensions etc.
//They will make Word and Excel look like the overloaded and hard-to-use crap that they are (esp. Word).//
You seriously think Word is hard to use?
Wow. Dumb you must be. My 74-year-old mother can create simple tables and charts in Word. She’s no genius, by a long shot.
Please don’t add inflammatory crap to your otherwise good posts.
If Apple transitions for it, it wouldn’t mean death. Heck, they may be a more viable competitor to Microsoft than Apple, maybe maintain and perhaps increase their market share and earn more profit.
However, if they suddenly say “No hardware, try the company next door”, you may as well sell your Apple stocks as fast as possible. It must be done in transitional stages. The first step being granting licenses to other hardware makers not competing directly with you (like Palm did with Handspring and Sony). Then later, seperate the company in two, one hardware and software. From then on, depending on the market, the transition would be relatively easy.
Just say they come to a stage where they don’t need to sell hardware anymore, I highly suggest they drop the hardware like Psion.
They probably can make a lot of money (if executed properly), however would loose some (or more) of its exclusive shine.
I do hope Apple does make this transition. Their hardware sales, due to their premiums, are small in comparison with PCs. In other words, they market share is growing smaller and smaller that one day third party hardware and software developers would find it hard to justify supporting the Mac platform.
Sure they may be (almost) profitable today. That’s good. But they should focus on the future (without forgeting the present). Jobs should learn from its mistakes. Apple is in shape today to allow clones again, I hope they do it soon.
However, I doubt Apple would make such a big move without fully transitioning to OS X, and I highly doubt they would enter the commodotized x86 market and compete directly with Windows. At least not in the early stages of transition. And BTW, the transition is a lot harder than it sounds, it takes a lot of work to make it happen.
Porting OOo to OS X would be very costly. It wouldn’t be as simple as writing a new UI over OOo, it takes a lot more than that. It would be far easier writing from scratch and using Sun’s documentation of Office’s formats and reimplementing them.
Besides, not only would it be costly to port, but costly to maintain. OpenOffice.org/StarOffice may be Office’s best competitor, but technically, it is crap.
I may have been a little harsh on Excel, which I do think is really a decent, even good program.
But word? I write for a living (lawyer) and use this product every day. It’s a typical MS product — too much clutter in the interface, too much digging required to do what you want, and a lot of annoying glitches (footnotes in particular – you can’t get them to look all the same easily, even using that style paintbrush).
Basically, you need a frickin “Wizard” to help you, or to be a Word Wizard yourself. MS is just not good at UI.
How about better outlining? How about more of a “dragging” approach to formatting – you know, just move stuff where you want with the mouse rather than screwing with digging 10 layers deep through a bunch of nested dialogs and buttons in some paragraph style sheets.
Word can do everything, but most users can only do 20 percent of that unless they undergo heavy duty training, keep using those features all the time lest you forget where they are buried, and reading phonebook sized manuals.
Apple’s future looks good to me. They are honing their OS and software into things that the competition can’t match (subjective – I know), they have come out with the hugely successful iPod (I couldn’t reconsile the price with my walet, but a lot can it seems), and I’m sure more is yet to come. Keynote is very impressive and a step ahead of PowerPoint. Safari is the best browser on the Mac (Chimera is too buggy for me) and is quickly catching up with Windows, if it hasn’t already. The iLife apps are really starting to look like compelling reasons to buy a Mac.
I don’t want to start a Mac on x86 debate, but it might happen. If Apple could sell the iLife apps, Keynote, the AppleWorks replacement, and the OS to PC customers it might be profitable enough to augment the loss on hardware sales. They couldn’t give away everything as free as they do now though. Probably won’t happen, but you never know.
I recall a time (back in the early days… when the web was just emerging) that people referred to HTML and NHTML.
What?
NHTML was “Netscape” HTML…. this is because they added a buch of non-standard stuff. Eventually, however most of the code ended up in the standard.
If I recall… the table tags were a Netscape extension that wasn’t part of the standard for at least a year.
🙂 The front end developers on my team once had to put in some conditionals to handle the WebTV broswer!!!! Because there was one user who used the site.
Okay… back to my pond. Quack! Quack! Quack!
Would be if Apple released it’s new software and made it windows compatible. Imagine a Linux/windows versions of Appleworks Pro? I can imagine that you could get a lot of converts. Espcially if Apple cut the price and license fees.
rajan, yes, that’s why I said it would be death for Apple “in our current context”. It would be very interesting to see the scenario you laid out. I don’t know though, as long as Jobs is there…he loves fancy hardware and Apple does make money from it, although in a way that precludes many from buying it. Who knows though, Jobs had to give up hardware at NeXT. It would have to be a big transition though. But also, in the recent quarterly results, it is the PowerMac G4 (even with the dual processors) that dragged Apple’s profits down. The iMacs and eMacs and iBooks did pretty well, but the PowerBooks shot through the roof with a 74% increase. Ack, who knows what Apple will do? 🙂
You’re such a Hater.
Quicken is threatening to leave Mac?
They just brought BACK QuickBooks after foolishly abandoning Apple a few years ago. Quicken has a killer market in Apple-based small businesses.
It just make sense to me, after keynote this is the next step
What is the financial incentive for Apple to create a Word contender? None. They certainly can compete on price, but I think that’s a double-edged sword. Any person who would think to replace Word, even Mac users, has made a big monetary and time investment in Word. So why would they throw that away? Even if Microsoft left them no choice and stopped writing Word for the Mac, Apple could only make a product as good as Word, otherwise it wouldn’t be Windows compatible, and that seems to be part of the mantra for selling OS X. I don’t think they could make something so spectacular and price it to the point that it would shift their market share. So why try to reinvent the wheel when Open Source efforts are doing that. I think you can apply the same arguments above to Keynote, which leaves you asking why?
People keep whining that they should become a software company… that they have to open their hardware to commodity parts.
The only way to do that is a multiyear transition. NeXT gave them some enterprise level programming and the hardware entrance into the enterprise. They have moved into highend viedo and audio apps. They are transitioning their web services to paid services. They are transitioning their free apps to paid bundles.
Is this enough that they can survive as a software company? Hell no. This will take many more years. Need more of an enterprise presence to get the software developers over. They need to get to 99.99% compatibility with MS apps. They need to get their own revenue strema for non-OS and -media apps.
And then there are still needs to fulfill. But the goal, the motivation is to create independence and survivability as a business through quality applications. They cannot do so if they say,”MS Office will always be better or equal to whatever we can do…” because this will always give MS complete control of the platform… Think about it: if Apple did open the platform (which is either 5 years+ away or still never) and Apple did have their own Office package, do you think MS would abandon the Mac platform, cede that makret to Apple.
Well, if that is Apple’s long term goal, then it would appear that Apple is in a catch-22 situation. These “Office” apps are all about representing info. Will Keynote, or any Microsoft-competitive product from Apple, provide its users with a more varied/ richer way to represent that information, and still remain compatible with its Windows counterparts? If not, they can’t grow. Someone mentioned QuickTime as a way to do this, but can you interact with something in QuickTime the way you can in PowerPoint? Will it be worth it to people to “Switch” to these new apps and forget the time and money invested in what they have? If not, they can’t grow. Will those apps be inspiring enough to drive people to “Switch” to a Mac? It won’t work on anything else, and the hardware is where they make more money (I read somewhere recently that most of Apple’s profits come from dividends on monetary investments). Are they convincing enough to get people to forget the current perception that Macs have poor price performance at the high end? If not, then they can’t grow. If they can’t grow, they won’t be able to convince more 3rd party developers to develop for them. If they can’t get more 3rd party developers, they can’t make the transition that you speak of.
Poor price/performance at the top end has, oh, maybe 6-9 months left. Enjoy it while you can.
Why would it need to provide more? Why couldn’t it provide the same capabilities but in an easier, more refined fashion? The need wouldn’t be to get switchers; the need would be to provide what Office provides now. And as I said, if this does factor into becoming a software company then this is a 5-8 year plan that is a gradual migration. They wouldn’t need to convince people to accept the higher cost if they moved away from being a hardware company, etc. They are currently attracting third parties. They are probably best positioned in high end media–and this attraction is still occurring, but seems to be moving towards complete participation of leading third parties. HP has ported some enterprise tools. Sybase has ported their DB tools; Oracle has ported their client tools. Borland is happy to provide highend tools to Mac dev’ers. Intuit returned with QuickBooks. Aple’s Chief Software Dev Relations dude is now courting the CADD market. The only third party market they are not penetrating is games.
This is my perception of where they may be heading, and I can’t imagine the things I haven’t thought of. But in the very least we are talking about 2-3 years just to move away from Classic/Carbon compatibility. Then there are opportunities to diversify hardware. Even then they may keep it proprietary if they haven’t developed their own software markets. As they develop their software markets (and consumer devices too–that’s an important new area of revenue that I didn’t mention), they can move away from the hardware business.
They are working several lines at once. Beginning with unburdening themselves of the MS dependence. Think about it–Keynote is the first volley because it is the least crucial piece. It’s the least threatening. Say in six months they release a midrange AppleWorks (a works suite) and a full-fledged $99 FrontPage competitor. (Still doesn’t scare MS too much.) IN another six month, a $99 Excel competitor with compatibility. (Bit more interesting.) Another six months and a Word competitopr and they’ve got a full on Office suite. That’s a 1-2 year plan to remove MS dependence with a new reven8ue stream every 6 months. At the end of that 1-2 years, they have a free consumer Works suite and a $250 Office package which you can buy the separate apps for $99. If all these apps had 95% Office comaptibility, the same features for the most part, and greater ease of use and finesse, and greater integration with Mac apps and Mac OS and .Mac–I’d say that would be pretty compelling.
This strategy is dependent on many different efforts on many fronts over the next 2 to 8 years. It’s jsut a theory, but I think signs indicate that’s what Apple is up to.
Actually, there is a version of AppleWorks 6 for Windows, but you can only get it through the Apple education channel.
Ernesto, great minds think alike! Last night I was thinking, “What next?” as far as Apple software. The first thing I thought of was a great html editor.
I think Apple is moving ahead on these fronts. Initial bugs aside, if Apple can come out of nowhere with a presentation application that already leapfrogs PowerPoint…well, then there is no reason not to move forward.
And as I stated above–I think Keynote was first because it’s the least threatening, least crucial part of the suite. A Web Editor would be the same because there are plenty to choose from–remember HomePage?
Yes, Apple does make a Win version of AW–it would be interesting to know if Keynote and future apps are being designed for portability.
And, Jay, consider whatever bugs are in Keynote… They wanted to keep this top secret. They let MS know in advance, but you can trust a corporation to an NDA. If Keynote had a larger beta seed program, the word probably would have slipped. I suspect that since people are getting wind of the plan, the other apps will be able to undergo stricter beta testing because people are expecting them to move through the pipeline anyway now.
Anonymous, why does Apple have to provide more? Again, its a cost issue. If I’m Joe Corporate Bean Counter, and I’ve just shelled out however much to equip my business with Word for OS X, and then Apple tells me its got something that does the same in a better way, I have to consider a few things. 1) I just shelled out big bucks for Microsoft stuff that is what Apple is trying to be compatible with anyways 2) OK, I’m wiling to let the investment in part 1 go into the toilet, I still have to make sure my people know how to use Apple’s software, which costs money and money (time is money, after all). 3) Will the potential benefits gained by using Apple’s new stuff outweigh the long term costs of the 5 % incompatibility with Microsoft’s stuff? And that’s for the few large businesses that use Apple’s stuff exclusively. Add perceived hassles and Windows bigotry to the list if you want to talk about companies that Apple would target to switch.
Yes, I’ve heard of the IBM 970, and by playing around with numbers I found here about power consumption:
http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html
http://inquirerinside.com/?article=2333
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0210/16.ibm.php
I’d bet these chips will only be found in desktops. Apple’s released a couple of new PowerBook models recently. How will they look if they aren’t sporting the new IBM chip.
appleforever: It’s a typical MS product — too much clutter in the interface, too much digging required to do what you want, and a lot of annoying glitches (footnotes in particular – you can’t get them to look all the same easily, even using that style paintbrush).
Uhmmm yes….. what version of Office are you using? I’m using Word 2002 right now, and it absolutely doesn’t feel nor look cluttered to me. Besides, most of my documents, if not all, comes with headnotes and footnotes, somehow I don’t understand what do you mean..
appleforever: How about more of a “dragging” approach to formatting – you know, just move stuff where you want with the mouse rather than screwing with digging 10 layers deep through a bunch of nested dialogs and buttons in some paragraph style sheets.
Yes. When I want Word to give all my paragraphs a 1 inch line spacing, I drag it to the left? When I want bold, I drag it to the right? When I want a indent, I drag it to the left and right?
Word can do everything, but most users can only do 20 percent of that unless they undergo heavy duty training
I never went through heavy duty training. Yeah, I may be using less than 20 per cent of Word’s features, but does it matter to me? Nah. Word still makes me more productive than any word processor I know.
Besides, have you used Word X? I heard the Mac version is far easier to use. Can’t say for sure though.
Sean: Keynote is very impressive and a step ahead of PowerPoint.
As cool Keynote is, because of its target market size, I don’t expect it to be widely used because most PCs in the enterprise market is just that – PCs.
Jay: he loves fancy hardware and Apple does make money from it, although in a way that precludes many from buying it.
A businessman should never sell something because he fancies them. Yes, Apple makes money from the hardware. But every year, the market share is dropping. It would be soon, perhaps by the end of this decade, where Apple would fall in oblivion. Why? For example, why should Photoshop continue a Mac version if Mac OS have only 0.01% of the market?
Jay: Who knows though, Jobs had to give up hardware at NeXT.
Steve Jobs created NeXT as revenge :-). They drop the hardware because it was too expensive for most people especially when it does nothing.
Anonymous: They just brought BACK QuickBooks after foolishly abandoning Apple a few years ago.
Microsoft just brought BACK Office after foolishly abandoning Apple a decade or so ago. :-).
Yes, Jobs make a deal with Quicken. Quicken made a lot of profit from its OS 8/9 version. It didn’t however make a huge financial gain with the OS X version.
Anonymous: Quicken has a killer market in Apple-based small businesses.
Same with Microsoft. But both companies, like many others, are hurting because Apple is spending money trying in vain to make its market share bigger rather than make the migration to OS X fastest.
anonymous: Is this enough that they can survive as a software company? Hell no.
Right now, they can survive a transition, heck maybe increase their profits a little by it. Apple won’t be in the harm if they licenses Mac OS to certain manufacturers now that doesn’t compete with Apple on its niche.
Anonymous: Apple did have their own Office package, do you think MS would abandon the Mac platform, cede that makret to Apple.
Microsoft may not have much competition, but they don’t mind them. As long as the Mac market remains profitable enough, they would invest in it. If it becomes more profitable, they would invest in porting more products. However if Apple takes all the market (like bundling their office suite with every Mac) and leaves no room for Microsoft to gain profit, they would leave just like they left in the early days of Apple.
appleforever: Poor price/performance at the top end has, oh, maybe 6-9 months left.
The 970 may be going into mass production 9-10 months from now, it doesn’t mean PowerMacs using it is going into mass production. How long was it till Apple released a G4 PowerMac?
Are you considering just the Mac market (“And that’s for the few large businesses that use Apple’s stuff exclusively.”) or the broader PC market? Because…
1) people aren’t shelling out for Windows. They are tired of the high costs. If Apple’s alternatives are cheaper–when it comes time to upgrade–you’d save, not incur extra cost.
2)”I still have to make sure my people know how to use Apple’s software” Huh? People using Macs don’t know how to use Apple software?
3)”Will the potential benefits gained by using Apple’s new stuff outweigh the long term costs of the 5 % incompatibility with Microsoft’s stuff” The quick adoption of Safari (even as a beta) and Keynote seems to suggest so.
Again, if they provide 95% compatibility, provide better ease of use, demonstrate that they are no longer dependent on MS and will support their own tech and platform for other developers (instead of wondering if MS is staying around), and provide it at a cheaper cost (Keynote is $99; Powerpoint is a $150 upgrade–full version $200)–I don’t see how within the Mac market Apple would have a problem.
And it would look fine if the PowerBook’s had G4s and pro 64 bit workstations were 970s. Do you think it’s alarming now that iBooks have G3s? They’re selling fine–in fact, leading PowerMacs. And from what I’ve read, the 970 is actually cool enough for a PowerBook. Have you heard that the 17 inch will probably have dual G4s at a later upgrade?
You do not understand that Word is confusing? What happened to the Editting interface? Now all I see for acceptting rejecting edits/comments are icons–this continues to confuse many people at my place of work. Why is it when you select New you are led to the New Taskpane which you then click for templates to open the old Template Dialog? Why not keep the old option of New… From Template? etc, etc, etc…
“Yes. When I want Word to give all my paragraphs a 1 inch line spacing, I drag it to the left? When I want bold, I drag it to the right? When I want a indent, I drag it to the left and right?” You didn’t understand appleforever so you talk nonsense? Whatever. He’s talking about dragging and dropping text, easily editting styles (MS does NOT understand how to implement styles–they should be more like Adobe app styles), and other formatting… As it is done in better apps on the Mac.
“Word still makes me more productive than any word processor I know.” You’ve never used Nisus Writer then.
“As cool Keynote is, because of its target market size, I don’t expect it to be widely used because most PCs in the enterprise market is just that – PCs.” Who cares–we’re talking about the Mac market. And he was talking about quality of the app, not number of users.
“But every year, the market share is dropping.” Actually it went up this quarter and it was one of the worst quarters.
“Steve Jobs created NeXT as revenge :-). They drop the hardware because it was too expensive for most people especially when it does nothing.” That’s just foolish. Jobs has led three companies because he’s been passionate about them. He returned NeXT to Apple or Apple to NeXT too–where’s the revenge. They abandoned hardware because they had the best platform independent OS and great software that reaped millions.
“Microsoft just brought BACK Office after foolishly abandoning Apple a decade or so ago. :-).
Yes, Jobs make a deal with Quicken. Quicken made a lot of profit from its OS 8/9 version. It didn’t however make a huge financial gain with the OS X version.” What are you talking about? The Office apps almost all started on the Mac and NEVER left. Quicken whined about Quicken sales early on (you are over a year behind), and after that decided to port QuickBooks–what does that tell you about how they felt about the Mac.
“But both companies, like many others, are hurting because Apple is spending money trying in vain to make its market share bigger rather than make the migration to OS X fastest.” I didn’t know Apple was obliged to help MS. They had unrealistic expectations (750,000 Office sales at the same time Apple was predicting 2 mill X users? Come on… and for $400 – $500? Please!) Apple shouldn’t be forcing those who will have the most difficult migration–they should be easing that migration (and they are–schools, Quark users, etc…); they SHOULD be advertising to people who will experience no pain in migrating or are outright switching… Those who are loyal but dependent on OS 9 now will eventually migrate.
“If it becomes more profitable, they would invest in porting more products.” Baloney. Visio could easily sell well on the Mac. A truly integrated Exchange client would sell on the Mac. We won’t even discuss Access or other products… On the other hand, who gives a rat’s @ss about MSN for Mac?
“The 970 may be going into mass production 9-10 months from now, it doesn’t mean PowerMacs using it is going into mass production. How long was it till Apple released a G4 PowerMac?” Actually the G4 came out of Apple before Motorola said it would be available–thanks for proving the point that IBMs estimates may refer to it selling to other purchasers beside the company that asked them to design it in the first place.
Thank you, anon.
1) people aren’t shelling out for Windows. They are tired of the high costs. If Apple’s alternatives are cheaper–when it comes time to upgrade–you’d save, not incur extra cost.
I was talking about the Apple market, since the point you made which spawned my comment was that they wouldn’t be going after switchers, and you’d incur extra costs because …
2)”I still have to make sure my people know how to use Apple’s software” Huh? People using Macs don’t know how to use Apple software?
If a business’s employees are used to using one piece of software to do a certain task, and switch to another, it doesn’t matter who makes it. The fact is it is different, and as such a business that chooses to make the switch on a large scale will incur extra costs to retrain its employees on the new software.
3)”Will the potential benefits gained by using Apple’s new stuff outweigh the long term costs of the 5 % incompatibility with Microsoft’s stuff” The quick adoption of Safari (even as a beta) and Keynote seems to suggest so.
These applications have been out for a few weeks, so I’m not sure how adoption rate in the short term reflects benefits or costs in the long term. The fact that people are willing to take a risk on a new piece of software doesn’t mean that there aren’t any risks associated with its use (Keynote has shown that already, granted that’s unrelated to Microsoft compatibility). How many copies of Keynote have been sold to this point?
Again, if they provide 95% compatibility, provide better ease of use, demonstrate that they are no longer dependent on MS and will support their own tech and platform for other developers (instead of wondering if MS is staying around), and provide it at a cheaper cost (Keynote is $99; Powerpoint is a $150 upgrade–full version $200)–I don’t see how within the Mac market Apple would have a problem.
You’re right, for the Mac market, and it may work to convert Windows users to.
And it would look fine if the PowerBook’s had G4s and pro 64 bit workstations were 970s. Do you think it’s alarming now that iBooks have G3s? They’re selling fine–in fact, leading PowerMacs. And from what I’ve read, the 970 is actually cool enough for a PowerBook. Have you heard that the 17 inch will probably have dual G4s at a later upgrade?
I’ve always assumed that the PowerBooks were supposed to mirror the performance of the PowerMac in a portable form. You’re contention that the larger PowerBooks are supposed to get dual processors in the near future would seem to bear this out. As such, I still think that the PowerBooks wouldn’t look as enticing if they weren’t sporting Apple’s latest available processor.
Anonymous: What happened to the Editting interface?
I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s the Editting interface. You see, prior to using Office XP, I used StarOffice 5.1/5.2, StarOffice 6 beta and OpenOffice.org.
Anonymous: Why is it when you select New you are led to the New Taskpane which you then click for templates to open the old Template Dialog? Why not keep the old option of New… From Template?
That’s it! You do NOT agree with appleforever. Does this statement proove that Office is indeed hard to user and not productive? Nope. The reason why you see this as a bad thing is because it is different from the previous versions. That means you are used to the old interface. It does not prove my comment wrong as I didn’t say it was super easy for Office 97/2000 to move. In fact many companies shrugged off Office XP for its expensive training cost.
Anonymous: (MS does NOT understand how to implement styles–they should be more like Adobe app styles),
Adobe’s feature is not only patented, but only works for graphic editing apps. I don’t want to confront either a dialog box or have a tiny window dialog for layers just because I want to add a shadow to a layer?
Anonymous: You’ve never used Nisus Writer then.
Actually, yes. It doesn’t do what I want, and obviously not made for me. (If you have any doubts, it is a Mac word processor from Nisus. The last version I tried was 6.0).
Anonymous: Who cares–we’re talking about the Mac market. And he was talking about quality of the app, not number of users.
I was making a point that PowerPoint engineers aren’t sweating profusely and running around panicly because of Keynote.
Anonymous: Actually it went up this quarter and it was one of the worst quarters.
The last quarter was the holiday season. Besides, read my statement *again*, I said every *year*. not *quarter*. If you don’t know the difference, consult a dictionary.
Anonymous: He returned NeXT to Apple or Apple to NeXT too–where’s the revenge.
In case you missed the smiley, it means that I was joking on that one.
Anonymous: great software that reaped millions.
The software that reap millions somehow didn’t manage to push NeXT into the splendor of repitive quarters of profitability. Why do you think he sold the assets of his company to Apple at such a low price? For fun?
Anonymous: The Office apps almost all started on the Mac and NEVER left.
Actually, only the key three apps were originally written for the Mac. Other applications weren’t (Frontpage for example, was bought later on). And they left. Unless you hold a very wrapped defination of left. In that case, I pressume Microsoft still makes a Alpha and PPC version of Windows NT..
Anonymous: They had unrealistic expectations (750,000 Office sales at the same time Apple was predicting 2 mill X users? Come on… and for $400 – $500? Please!)
They made a much higher expectation on OS 9. The reason why they targeted such a large number is that for so long Apple boasted on ADC that the migration would be fast. In other words, Apple convince Microsoft to make a OS X-only version.
Remember, it is only later when we know there is about more or less 2 million X users. Hoever earlier on, Apple predicted a larger number. Microsoft’s fault for believing them.
Anonymous: Apple shouldn’t be forcing those who will have the most difficult migration–they should be easing that migration
I DIDN’T say they should FORCE those who have difficulties migrating to move. I’m saying they should SPEND more on making that easy migration possible at a sooner date.
Anonymous: Visio could easily sell well on the Mac.
Market proof? Surveys? Stuff like that? Besides, Visio is a relatively new Office application, you can’t expect a version out for Mac immediately. They still have problems integrating it with the Windows version.
Anonymous: A truly integrated Exchange client would sell on the Mac.
It didn’t sell well on OS 9.
Anonymous: A truly integrated Exchange client would sell on the Mac.
Does Apple target the corporate market? Does Exchange target the corporate market? No and yes in that respective order, I don’t see how a Exchange clint on OS X would really sell well.
Anonymous: On the other hand, who gives a rat’s @ss about MSN for Mac?
Apparently, a lot of people accroading to Kevin, MBU’s ex.
Plus, a port of MSN Explorer is very easy. The front end itself is the easy part. The backend (the web services on MS’s site) is the hard part – and already done for the Windows version.
Besides, it was designed to hit AOL on one of their new markets – AOL just made AOL (the software) available on OS X.
Porting Outlook, Exchange and Visio on the other hand would be very hard and costly, and if it isn’t greeted with profit, Micosoft have no reason to make a port. You said it yourself, OS X has 2 million users, the only way they can make a profit is to have a OS 9 version – a market they left.
Rajan, you can talk all day long. talk this way, that way, sideways.
here’s what I want:
less than 20 items and objects (button, menus, window) in the first level interface. 10000 different items is just confusing
I want ONE FRICKIN style of footnote, easily. Like I told you, I can’t even get them all to look the same by using the formatting paintbrush. WHY, WHY, WHY??????!!!!
I want to grab the text with the mouse and move it.
Here’s another basic one. when I’m outlining, I want the letter “A” to appear after the roman “II”. In word, all the time, if I stopped at “C” after roman “I”, I get frickin “D” at the beginning right after “II.” OH, and the “start renumbering” checkbox doesn’t always work — assuming your average person can even find that – which is always a BIG QUESTION — with any MS hunk of junk.
When will people wake up. NO COMPETITION EQUALS
CRAP PRODUCT
OVERPRICING
CRAP PRODUCT
NO INNOVATION
ONE SIZE FITS ALL (NOT)
did i mention the CRAP PRODUCT
>>>I want ONE FRICKIN style of footnote, easily. Like I told you, I can’t even get them all to look the same by using the formatting paintbrush. WHY, WHY, WHY??????!!!!
Precisely — if you want “ONE FRICKIN style of footnote” — why don’t you just change the footnote style setting instead of trying to manually change the footnote style one by one. You are attempting to directly change character style when you should be changing your footnotes indirectly through the master footnote style setting.
>>>>Here’s another basic one. when I’m outlining, I want the letter “A” to appear after the roman “II”. In word, all the time, if I stopped at “C” after roman “I”, I get frickin “D” at the beginning right after “II.” OH, and the “start renumbering” checkbox doesn’t always work — assuming your average person can even find that – which is always a BIG QUESTION — with any MS hunk of junk.
I have never encounter this problem before, what are your settings?
I only use office due to lack of descent alternatives. Office is an overpriced suite that isn’t really all that good, the only thing keeping them ahead in the market is that it is standard. What we really need is a fully developed office suite that consists of easy to use programs without all the needless “features” of most office suites. Something simple and powerful.
Office too expensive? Kazaa, my friend… around 404 megs.
Another thing you can’t do on a mac.
less than 20 items and objects (button, menus, window) in the first level interface. 10000 different items is just confusing
You are certainly exagerating. There is 39 icons, and reducing it even more, to me, would be counter-productive. There is only 2 toolbar, there was the Taskpane when (but it’s closed in the screenshot below). Besides, Office isn’t made for first time users, neither is cars.
http://www.angelfire.com/wrestling3/rajan/index.html
I want ONE FRICKIN style of footnote, easily. Like I told you, I can’t even get them all to look the same by using the formatting paintbrush. WHY, WHY, WHY??????!!!!
You never even bothered looking in the help files, have you? I never used Office before last year extensively yet I know when you edit one page’s footnote, it would come off on the other pages’ footnotes. In fact, you can put bold, italics, whatever they’s be fine.
I don’t know why it is different for you.
Here’s another basic one. when I’m outlining, I want the letter “A” to appear after the roman “II”. In word, all the time, if I stopped at “C” after roman “I”, I get frickin “D” at the beginning right after “II.”
I tried recreating your problem. I tried and tried, I couldn’t. That’s with Word 2002 though, I tried Word 97 on my father’s office laptop, it didn’t happen like that.
Here’s a screenshot of that; remember, I didn’t even open a dialog for that, except to change the bullet style:
http://www.angelfire.com/wrestling3/rajan/2.html
OH, and the “start renumbering” checkbox doesn’t always work — assuming your average person can even find that
OH, and it’s available in that dialog which is available in the context menu, if the average user KNOWS HOW TO USE THE FREAKING COMPUTER!
Of course, most average users DON’T FUCKING KNOW HOW TO READ.
Office isn’t made for people that just wants something easy to learn, Office is made for people ready to learn to be as productive as they can.
CRAP PRODUCT
At least it is way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way wayway way way way less crappy as their competitor’s products and your post.
OVERPRICING
They won their market with the price they picked. It would put fucking competitors like Sun in trouble if they lower their prices. Guess what? Antitrust suites.
Besides, to me, with the amount of typing I do, I’d say $400 for the suite is worth every penny.
NO INNOVATION
Innovation:
Main Entry: in·no·va·tion
Pronunciation: “i-n&-‘vA-sh&n
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1 : the introduction of something new
2 : a new idea, method, or device : NOVELTY
This word have been so thrown around, it practically lost its’ meaning. There are very innovative ideas in Office, but even if there aren’t, they manage to combine features that makes people productive everyday.
If you find the product sooooo bad for you, what Office suite is better for you, given the compatibility thing is off and you are your own boss in your firm?
ONE SIZE FITS ALL (NOT)
If it doesn’t fit all, why aren’t competitors picking out niches? The only niche player in this field is WordPerfect Office, and it fills its niche perfectly.
did i mention the CRAP PRODUCT
did I mention the CRAP POST?
>>>>Office is crap.
>>>>I only use office due to lack of descent alternatives.
Make up your mind. If there aren’t any decent alternatives, then office isn’t crap — it’s the best one, period.
appleforever, from your previous post, you said your firm moved from WordPerfect to Word because of the so-called compatibility reasons (I don’t really understand, WP export to Word works fine).
Now, I have used WordPerfect before. I have used WordPerfect 6 (download edition), as well as tried WordPerfect Office 2002. WordPerfect’s user interface is world’s apart from Word, their formating features too. So what you expect is that it should be similar with Word. Guess what? Word is its own product, While once upon a time, it was very much a WordPerfect and WordStar clone, times have changed! Word and WordPerfect went different directions with their products.
So in other words, you are used to WordPerfect. If your firm used some other word processor prior to Word, the same arguments stand. This doesn’t mean Office is hard to use, it means you are used to something else. End of story.
And to HondaKiller, nobody would buy something with less features. Everybody uses different features. My father and I use Office a lot, yet besides the basic features, our use of Office is so different. So if someone makes a competitor with only the features you need and nothing else, it would only suit you and people that work like you and no one else.
insignia!, saying that a product is easy to warez doesn’t mean it is cheaper. Sure, the BSA doesn’t check on consumers, but they do check on businesses, and using illegal versions of software is not only risky, it is very ricky. Did I mention it is risky?
Of course, I found a office v. x on kazaa, in .app form. There is even more .app Office packages on Gnutella.
Gnutella, eh?
I can’t believe I actually help a freeloading warez junky…..
first, you admit word is not for first time users or beginners. but everyone, first time user or beg, is forced to use word if they want to communicate with others. the translation filters don’t work 100%
you say if I don’t like word, or don’t find it innovative enough, or find it too expensive, then go to a competitor’s product. You can’t because then you can’t communicate with others.
first, you admit word is not for first time users or beginners.
In never once said it was for first time users or begineers. Office’s UI is built for productivity, not so that first time users can have a field trip.
A tricycle a toddler uses is far more easier to use for beginneers than a car. But does it get someone from one place to another place faster? So what if you have to go for driving school?
but everyone, first time user or beg, is forced to use word if they want to communicate with others.
I “communicate” much more (i.e. with my Office-using church) in my 2-years Linux using flint while using StarOffice, and apparently, except for a couple of documents with macros, I didn’t have any problem with it.
Certainly the Central Bank of Singapore have clients that uses Word, yet they use StarOffice. Or 15% of the world NOT using Office, certainly they have to communicate with those using Office. If communications between users of different applications is such a problem, why doesn’t Word have 100% of the market?
Compatiblity and communications is far too over-exagerated, and I have debunked it several times only to have you repeat your already debunked points again.
You can’t because then you can’t communicate with others.
I certainly can. if you can find me a word processor, as well as a spreadsheet app that works better for me, I would switch.
But frankly, you can export very well to Word (unless you use one of those rare WP-only features) with WordPerfect. Ths same in StarOffice (if you don’t put any of those 3D ugly graphics created in StarOffice).
Besides, when using a piece of software, the thing I care least is how much innovation goes into it. But rather what can let me do more with less time.
And then your examples (actually, only two of them) of why Word’s UI sucks, I successfully debunked both of them, with screenshots even. So it is either you are far too used to another product or you plainly cannot read. If I use Mac OS the same way I use Windows, I would be horribly dissapointed and frustrated. That’s why I don’t. To close a app for example, I use Command-Q instead of closing all the windows.
I suggest you do the same for Word. And take time to learn about Word’s many features, you probably *might* find them entirely useful later on.