“At the moment, I think the Macintosh platform’s biggest weakness is its reliance on Microsoft Office for productivity software. Microsoft has always built solid products for the Mac, but they were always just a bit behind or somehow incompatible with their Windows equivalents. Entourage does 90% of what Outlook does, but it lacks features right where it hurts — in corporate settings. Word for Mac doesn’t have the same Macro or OOXML support as the PC version. And PowerPoint files are still not 100% compatible between platforms,” Seth Weintraub writes for Computerworld. “Basically, Apple and its customers get the short end of the Microsoft stick.”
“Add to that the industry move toward Web 2.0 applications and Cloud computing — and several other recent shifts in the technology landscape — and you have a climate for change. I don’t think Apple wants to wait on Microsoft to delegate how its business applications will work. In fact, I think Apple would like to move forward with a leading-edge partner like, say, Google and create business rather than follow in it. That’s why I think Jobs will take the stage at WWDC next week and announce that Apple and Google are going to team up to bring Google Apps to .Mac customers,” Weintraub writes.
“In a recent stockholder meeting, Jobs admitted that .Mac has hasn’t achieved its full potential, but said the company is working on it,” Weintraub writes. “It has been 18 months, forever in software development at Apple, since its iWork app was last updated. That is lots of time for Apple to do some pretty interesting things.”
“It makes sense for all parties and would finally give Microsoft a run for its money,” Weintraub writes. “Plus, there’s that old saying: the enemy of your enemy is your friend.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader ” LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
by microsoft’s own admission mac office is better… ergo.. this is weak
I can only hope this is true. _If_ google can nail complete MS document interoperability (read/write all MS formats) in web-based apps, and Apple picks them up with .Mac or maybe a .Mac+ subscription, they could really hurt MS, big time. Like I said, I can only hope
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And we all know Microsoft NEVER lies.
.mac could definitely use a tune up. With or without Google.
Problem with Micorsoft – they can’t make their own software products compatible with their own software products. That goes double for cross platform.
That’s just pathetic for a Software company.
I’d like to see Apple turn .Mac into Mobile Me and make it accessible straight from the iPhone.
MW: directly
While this would helpful, I can’t see myself using google apps. I prefer my apps on my computer and not web based. Its a personal preferance. I can’t wait until Pages is beefed up and can compete directly with word.
This is what I think . . .
http://thesezipperblues.blogspot.com/2007/06/apple-to-give-google-pretty-face.html
I agree Slevin. Call me a control freak if you will but if an off site server goes down and that is where your apps are, you are hosed.
Aren’t Google working on versions that enable non-web based useage? I thought so.
Cloud computing sounds like Google’s answer to “How do we become the next Microsoft?”
Not to mention sounding like another way of expressing the ancient (in terms of computers) concept of thin client computing.
Also: In today’s world, I think it would be more appropriate to say “the enemy of my enemy is my competitor” rather than ” my friend.”
i need iwork updates!!!
Vote for Fake Steve Jobs
OOXML? Give me a break. This is Microsoft’s answer to ODF. They are trying to prevent the adoption of Open Document Format. The .doc format is in serious trouble. So they came up with their own “open” format called OOXML which is not really so open since its encumbered with lots of patents.
Independant One:
“And we all know Microsoft NEVER lies.”
LOL! You owe me a screen wipe!
What is Allah without her messenger, the USA without mideast oil, downtown without Hare Krishnas, …part A. What is a schematic without a schizophrenic, dogma without a fanatic or cellulite without some cellulose, …part A. If iPhone is part A and iTunes is part B …maybe .mac is a satellite way up in the sky ….maybe my new part A will be what Newton would have been but for the right time …maybe I’m part B, ..maybe after June 29th, I become more reasonable ..or maybe, …maybe not.
“Apple and its customers get the short end of the Microsoft stick.”
Did anyone really expect otherwise?
At this point in time “no one” and I do mean “no one” needs anything from M$
Between Apple offerings such as “Pages” and the pending iWorks 07 with it’s new spreadsheet app. called “numbers”, as well as the rest of the “open source” community, plus the “freeware/donerware” community.
There isn’t a business person alive that really needs M$…
If anyone is still using M$ in 2007 it because of the person’s bad habits and/or poor business practices!
If anyone is familiar with Dotmac.info it has been suspiciously absent for several months now. There website states they will “be back very soon”.
Dotmac.info is a web ‘community’ that lacked the resources to really achieve their potential. Could it be possible that they will more closely collaborate with Apple (maybe even have agreed to by purchased by Apple?) to upgade the feature set of .Mac?
Hmm!
Therepy Guy,
Don’t be a nut job. There are business reasons in a corporate setting why Microsoft Office is required and not an option. Part of it includes requirements for ActiveX and advanced Macros that are not available on the Mac platform Anyone that argues this point is a complete moron.
I have been a Mac guy for a decade and have brought Macs into our office but with bigger companies, it’s impossible to change overnight. Extremely costly to change systems thoroughly integrated with MS and on its business systems and servers. That doesn’t mean Apple isn’t the right choice. Just means its a slower process to do and there are reasons why MS Office is still necessary.
As for Google Apps being a big part of .Mac, I’d doubt that unless Google brings iWork to the web for the masses….whether PC or Mac. Think about this one….they could run offline or on, on PC’s or Macs, a Google powered .Mac membership. Can you imagine how many people would sign up for this? Huge. Of course I don’t expect that. I just want an update to iWork that includes a spreadsheet that uses cool templates and re-invents the spreadsheet much like Pages does with Word Processors.
We’ll know soon enough!
Therepy Guy:
Just to clarify: “There isn’t a business person alive that really needs M$…
If anyone is still using M$ in 2007 it because of the person’s bad habits and/or poor business practices!”
That’s such a stupid, ignorant comment that just discredits any other opinions you may have. Are you 12?
“And we all know Microsoft NEVER lies.”
Um. In this case lying doesn’t make any sense. They’re comparing two products, both of which THEY make.
*rolls eyes
Taking it out of context much?
At the moment there is nothing comparable with M$ exchange. Until someone comes up with a complete replacement for that, that is backwards compatible with everything it currently does, we are, unfortunately, stuck with M$ in big business.
Needless to say, M$ goes also go out of their way to ensure a range of competitor software products are incompatible with featrures of exchange – they have not opened it up.
And before somone asks me to explain what this is, here is the definition from Wiki:
“Microsoft Exchange Server is a messaging and collaborative software product developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Servers line of server products and is widely used by enterprises using Microsoft infrastructure solutions. Exchange’s major features consist of electronic mail, calendaring, contacts and tasks, and support for the mobile and web-based access to information, as well as supporting data storage.”
MDN word: “Freedom” as in we don’t have any.
anti-creative cretin,
I want to party with you, dude!
Your posts always read like a rambling from Reverand Jim in the old TV show, Taxi.
I agree that it isn’t that easy to get rid of M$ in businesses and M$ do really go out of their way to make it difficult for others to work with their systems.
Even the Mac versions of Office are not identical to the Windows versions. When M$ came out with Office X they boasted that it contained features not on the Windows versions. What’s the point of that? If the software is going to be cross-compatible then it has to be identical as much as is possible. Now we hear the next version of Mac Office will not have use the windows macros. Same game. Sounds like monopolistic behavior to me.
Still Vista is having compatibility problems. I was sent a doc file that was generated on Vista. I had to DL a converter to view the file in Office 2003! We got some new computers with Vista installed. A number of important apps including Business works wouldn’t run on it. Ended up having to downgraded the PC to XP!! I told the guy who deals with IT that we should not use Vista because of incompatibility problems. We have a mixture of 98, NT, 2000 and XP machines. We don’t need another WinOS making even more of a mess.
MW issue
@ ShadowMac
…yes, at the moment. stay tuned!
MDN: that magic moment… is right around the corner.