What's left?

[eddjcaine]

Hmm. Windows Media Player ... gone
Internet Explorer.... gone
Messenger for Mac... vastly outstripped by competitors
Office ..... New version!

er..

That's it, right? Much though I appreciate the hard work you guys do,
seriously, how many people are there in the mac development part of
microsoft? I get the image of three outcasts gathered round a water
cooler... It's such a shame that Microsoft can't just act like any
other software manufacturer and port things on time and synchronously.
So many people rely on using various microsoft products. - they could
make a killing out of the mac market if they only didn't insist on
completely re-writing every program they have for the mac...

 

[JE McGimpsey]

That's it, right? Much though I appreciate the hard work you guys do,
seriously, how many people are there in the mac development part of
microsoft? I get the image of three outcasts gathered round a water
cooler... It's such a shame that Microsoft can't just act like any
other software manufacturer and port things on time and synchronously.
So many people rely on using various microsoft products. - they could
make a killing out of the mac market if they only didn't insist on
completely re-writing every program they have for the mac...

Hmmm...

Very few people who post here are MS employees, but several of us have
had a fairly strong relationship with the MS Mac Business Unit (MacBU).

What you post sounds pretty plausible until you actually examine the
statements:

how many people are there in the mac development part of microsoft?

Don't know exactly, but last I checked, MacBU is something less than 200
people. Given that that includes admin, marketing, research, support,
etc., probably <100 in "development".

It's such a shame that Microsoft can't just act like any other
software manufacturer and port things on time and synchronously.

Which "any other" manufacturers are you referring to? I don't know of
any that 'port things...synchronously' ("on time" is pretty nebulous
concept - what does one use as a basis?).

they could make a killing out of the mac market

If that were true, what makes you think that MS wouldn't harvest that
killing? MS rarely leaves money on the table.

if they only didn't insist on completely re-writing every program
they have for the mac...

If they actually rewrote every program, there wouldn't *be* a Mac Office.

Of course, XL was first developed for Mac, long before Windows even
existed. Word was released nearly simultaneously for Mac and MS-DOS,
again before Windows existed. PowerPoint was developed outside MS.
Entourage grew out of Outlook Express, of course.

Office for Mac is based on millions and millions and millions of lines
of legacy code. "Completely re-writing" would be prohibitive for ANY
software developer. That, of course, is why MS will never 'port' Access
to Mac.

'Porting' is an easy word to say. For non-trivial applications,
'porting' is extraordinarily difficult to do. It's not just a matter of
throwing the code on a different compiler. The integration of Office
apps with the operating systems is incredibly complete and complex.

Your premise that a 'port' of Office would make a killing is
questionable in any case, I think. Mac users expect a different
experience than Windows users - else they'd use Windows.

 

[CyberTaz]

they could make a killing out of the mac market

If that were true, what makes you think that MS wouldn't harvest that
killing? MS rarely leaves money on the table.
<snip>

Where exactly would this "killing" come from?...

New users who woud go Mac rather than Windows or Windows users who would
switch to Mac?

Either way MS gets the proverbial egg roll so why should they compete with
themselves?

But your premise is flawed in the first place - kinda the old 'chicken &
egg' routine - there isn't sufficient "Mac market' in which to make the
imagined "killing" - If there were, MS would be there... Bill Gates didn't
accumulate $59 Billion in *personal* wealth by making [many] bad business
decisions