Microsoft's Mac Business Unit: Love the sinner, hate the sin
Summary: There's good news from the Microsoft's Mac Business Unit about features in the forthcoming in Office for Mac 2008. So why is my blood boiling?
Unlike many in the Mac community, I don't hate Microsoft with a passion. Okay, maybe just a bit. As I mentioned in a post a while ago, when the giant visage of Bill Gates talked about deals over Steve Jobs' shoulder at the Macworld Expo keynote in 1997, I wasn't one who booed and hissed.
And I recognize that Microsoft's Mac development team, called the Mac Business Unit and based in Santa Clara, Calif., are "real" Mac guys and gals. They make real Mac programs and care about the Mac platform. They are nice people.
Still, at times we can be annoyed with the company and its policies but not at the programmer.
This happened to me the other day, after reading a post by Andy Ruff in Mac Mojo, the official blog for the Office for Mac team.
He wrote that the OOF, or "Out of Office," notification found in Windows Exchange and Outlook as well as Outlook Web Access, will arrive for the Mac in Entourage 2008. The OOF notification lets you set your Exchange account to reply automatically to incoming messages, telling senders that you're out of the office. We've all received such messages.
Ruff continued and described the current situation on the Mac. It isn't pretty:
This hasn't always been very easy on the Mac. For years, you've had to launch Safari, log into Outlook Web Access, and hunt down my Out of Office settings. Then, after every flight and an Inbox full of new messages demanding attention, you must remember to log back into Outlook Web Access and turn the auto-reply off. Personally, I forget to do this a lot, only realizing my OOF message is still on a week later after a coworker replies with "are you still on vacation?"
When Office for the Mac 2008 arrives, hopefully in 2008, we won't have to go through this workaround and can access the settings in the Tools menu. Ruff said it will work just like Outlook on Windows.
Now, this is great news. Anything that makes improves the performance of the Mac Exchange client and makes the Macintosh a friendlier and more-compatible player in heterogeneous environments will be appreciated by enterprise Mac users (whether their Macs are approved by IT staff or not) .
At the same time, this post makes me grind my teeth. The Mac Exchange client should have had this very feature years ago! My level of gratitude to the Mac BU and Microsoft is tempered by having been forced to use this Outlook Web Access workaround for ages. (Don't get me started on the deficiencies of Outlook Web Access — that's something that Mac and Windows users can share.)
And worse, this reminds me that Mac enterprise users must continue with this Outlook kludge because the once-expected 2007 release of Office for the Mac slipped to next year. Do you feel me?
On the other hand, the Mac BU is reaching out to the community. Neil Ticktin, the publisher of MacTech magazine, reminded me that a subscription deal the Microsoft Mac BU started in the spring is continuing.
MacTech is a useful publication aimed at Mac geeks: business solution providers, developers and IT managers who deal with Macs on their networks, including Windows networks. The longer, most-useful technical articles don't appear on the MacTech website, Ticktin said.
The Mac BU is underwriting most of the cost for a 6-month subscription to the hardcopy edition of MacTech. New subscribers only pay for postage ($9.95 in the U.S. and Canada). The magazine has a newsstand price-tag of $8.95 each and a full-year subscription is $47.
Now, I don't know how much longer this deal will run, so it might be worthwhile to take advantage of it now while you can. It's useful information at a good price.
Anti-Microsoft die-hards will turn down this offer and send MacTech the requisite hate-mail. Ticktin said he has a folder full.
Here's my thank you, Mac BU.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
BULLETIN - Microsoft loses appeal against EU antitrust ruling
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=009036798&intsr
c=hm_list
Way to stay on topic
RE: Microsoft's Mac Business Unit: Love the sinner, hate the sin
Of course, it makes sense to have only one programme, particularly when you can charge for it (Outlook was free, iirc). But if you're going to replace something, then you'd better be sure that you have at least the same feature set.
Plenty of people - including me - gave Apple a hard time because the new version of iMovie lost features compared with its predecessor, but the fact that Microsoft dropped features when it moved from Outlook to Entourage didn't register as much - perhaps because fewer people care about Exchange on the Mac.
Exchange/Entourage/Mac
Then again, those who DO depend on Exchange Server, whether we like it or not, in the corporate environment, care VERY MUCH how Entourage integrates with it. I've also been offended at the appalling lack of detail in the MacBU's product. In addition, what the hell have they been doing the last 4 years since developing Office 2004? I've never received a straight answer from them as to why parallel development can't happen. No excuse, really.
The fact is
and only does the bare minimum required to support the platform. No Active X. No
ability to play protected WMV, no real exchange support. Dropping VB support. No
Access. And now it looks like Office 2008 is going to implement the asinine ribbon
bar from the Windows version and get rid of the formatting palette.
Don't these morons realize that monitors are WIDER than they are tall, so why do
they continue to put crap on the top and bottom of the display?
The truth here is that MS is slowly choking off their Mac support. They know that
Apple is getting awesome press, that Apple computers are selling like hotcakes in
the consumer market and that cracks are beginning in the enterprise market and
that Vista is a PR nightmare for them.
The only time MS has been successful is when they've been able to leverage their
windows and Office monopolies. No way they are going to do anything that will
seriously threaten that. Office for Mac will always be a crippled version of the
Windows software, and this comes by decree from Redmond, not from the MacBU.
Bill Gates is sentimental about Macs.
The mac unit profits must be minuscule for Microsoft. It's probably kept because being supportive of Macs runs so deep within Microsoft's corporate philosophy.
And the gesture is harmless. Seen the article in NY Times in which a Macv fan decries the fact that Mac has gained to market share?
The recent large increase in sales increased Mac sales as well, but only proportionately. Considering that the best guess about why OEM orders surged is Vista, it's possible that Vista is a reason people thought about buying computers, and Mac benefitted.
Don't snub Microsoft because it cares about the Mac. ;-)
sentimental journey
there." )))
Bill Gates ain't nobody's friend. The $150 million that
Microsoft invested in Apple was actually a settlement in
a QuickTime piracy lawsuit that Apple was winning (the
judge had already handed down an injunction barring
Microsoft from distributing its Video for Windows, which
contained illicitly-obtained Apple code). As retaliation
for the lawsuit, Microsoft was actually threatening to
cancel Office for Mac, an issue that would work to
Microsoft's disadvantage in its antitrust case. The $150
million settlement, along with a guarantee of Office for
Mac over the next five years, got Microsoft off the hook
with Apple. Sentiment, altruism and friendship had
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it.
For more background, go to wikipedia and search for
San Francisco Canyon Company.
How could Microsoft later sell...
No, Bill Gates was there for Apple like a true friend. And Apple, being a true friend as well, took the money.
Revisionist history...
you bought it hook line and sinker.
Settlement was also tiny
You are so right.
bundling IE with Windows was to make sure that Apple would have the best browser
on the planet when Netscape died. That Windows used the Apple GUI model in order
to show people how superior Macs were to DOS, so that people would look at
Windows and then realize they should actually buy a Mac.
It all makes sense now.
When Apple finishes phasing out OS X...
You're even more right than you observed in your post.
My monitor is square.
Actually, most monitors are (or rather, have been) square. They're just now starting to really go uniformly widescreen. I would venture to say that the most common place to find a widescreen monitor at this time is on a laptop, but can't back that up with anything than just the admission of a guess based on anecdotal evidence from my own experience.
Excellent post to ridiculous claims
Just like Apple has every right not to port iLife to Windows. Yes, yes, Apple makes iTunes available to Windows but let's not forget our history on this one, they only did so after a couple years of [b]atrocious[/b] iPod sales. Apple didn't port iTunes to be nice, they did it because they thought they could profit. Apple made their "niche market" bed and now have to lie in it. One of the wrinkles is that they need Windows users more than Microsoft needs OSX users. Tough, deal with it.
snicker, smirk :)
Back to your revisionist history????
on this one, they only did so after a couple years of atrocious iPod sales.[/i]
Does it make you feel better or allow you to sleep better at night knowing you try to
rewrite history to suit your lack of knowledge in the tech field?
It took less than 9 months (a far cry from you 24 months stated) to get the iPod on
Windows. And even before that time, it was a near instant success with hacks
galore to get it to work on Windows machines. A couple years of atrocious iPod
sales... Too funny.
yes, a ridiculous claim
square - a figure of 4 EQUAL sides... a 1 to 1 ratio
Other than a possible, custom POS unit, when have you ever seen a truly square video display?
Video follows a 4:3 aspect ratio (rectangular - unequal adjacent sides, equal opposite sides) and usually landscape vs photos/slides at 3:2.
The original post that there's more real estate on the sides vs top and bottom (screens wider than tall) is, and has been, correct. Floating palettes are more efficient and make more sense than using up top and bottom screen space with locked-in "ribbons".
...
It's the quality
How about Mac versions of the new Office 2007 default fonts so we don't keep having display issues?
Where are the wizards?
be that many extra steps to getting the wizards ported over. The workaround of
using Office on a PC to generate a template and then save it so it can be transferred
to a Mac and used is ridiculous.
Set OOF automatic off date
Should have been "years ago"? How about a decade ago!
Hmmm, according to a G* search, it seems Outlook 8/Mac had it (http://www.macwindows.com/xch55sp2.html). Was that dropped? I'm not on Exchange right now, so I haven't kept up on recent stuff and don't remember clearly on older stuff.