“As Apple Computer Inc. enjoys rebounding popularity among computer users rejecting the dominance of Microsoft Corp., one of the biggest beneficiaries is — oddly enough — likely to be Microsoft,” Terril Yue Jones writes for The Los Angeles Times. “That’s because outside of Apple itself, Microsoft sells more software for Apple’s flagship Macintosh computers than any other company. With sales of Macintosh machines rising sharply, archrival Microsoft stands to bolster its long-standing business selling Office and other programs for Mac.”
“‘We’re ecumenical people,’ said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. ‘We have to run everything. Our first graphics interface was on the Macintosh. We’ve always done well on Macs.’ Microsoft executives declined to discuss just how well, and the company does not break Mac sales out in its financial reports. But Microsoft’s Mac offerings are routinely credited as being more innovative, elegant and robust than its mainline PC products,” Jones writes. “Although Apple and Microsoft were founded within months of each other at the dawn of the PC age, the global share of computers running Apple’s Macintosh operating system has been squeezed to only around 2% of PCs today, down from a peak of 9.6%.”
“Because it serves a different universe of PCs than those that run Windows the Mac BU isn’t tied to releases of Office for Windows and operates on its own schedule. That means that Office 2004, which is for Macs, has features not available in Office 2003, the latest edition available for Windows PCs,” Jones writes. “Both Mac and Win versions, for instance, introduced a function that allows users to record a conversation or lecture onto a PC while taking notes. The Mac BU built that capability into Word, so it comes built into Office 2004. But the Windows team made the function work only with the purchase of the $99 program “One Note,” and even then files aren’t created as Word documents.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s AppleWorks provides Microsoft Word and Excel compatibility and Apple’s Keynote (part of iWork) imports and exports Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. Apple’s Pages (also part of iWork) also imports and exports Microsoft Word documents. And Apple’s Filemaker also imports Microsoft Excel files and Access data and instantly converts Microsoft Excel files to FileMaker databases.
Related articles:
More would switch from Windows to Mac if Apple advertised more effectively – September 04, 2005
Mac users should not buy Microsoft software (or hardware) – May 16, 2003
Holy crap… could it be… first post?
MW: “read”… “Does no one read the news on Labor Day?”
I often end up explaining this to a lot of people around me that Office for Mac is not only way ahead of its Windows counterpart in being 2004 vs 2003 it has a lot more features as standard out of the box as the article explains for audio attached note taking.
I have yet to try sending an audio attached Word document created in 2004 to a Windows user on 2003 and see if it would work with sound attached?
With iWork I am hopeful that this will provide users an effective alternative to Office and still allow for the same efficiency in workflow from one user to another regardless of platform used by each. I wonder how IBM are getting along with porting Office to Linux?
Or is this an utopian dream where if you want you can choose Office, iWork, Openoffice, Nisus Writer or Neo and open each others documents and maybe not even know which program created the original without a hitch or have to re-format the page each time.
Good stuff – but Apple doesn’t make Filemaker.
Adam, you are first only because I had to check on my BBQ.
MS Office is the only M$ product (cheap student addition of course) that I have on my Mac. Forgive me folks but I really like it. Word is nice but many other programs can do the same or similar. What I really need and like is Excel and PowerPoint. Even a broke clock can be right twice a day.
Macjammer,
Unfortunately MS Office file formats are proprietary to MS – witness the MDN item earlier this week that the State of Massachusetts government will drop MS Office by 2007 because of those proprietary standards.
Massachusetts plans to switch all workers off Microsoft Office starting in 2007
Until there are open stanards for file formats, everyone else has to play follow-the-leader; and right now that is Microsoft.
For better or worse, that cuts both ways. Keynote has features beyond PowerPoint, so Keynote documents cannot be freely read by PowerPoint users.
So until there are vendor independent file formats, this will persist. It will most affect the advanced features of the respectve applications – those used bt power users.
oops filmaker is owned by apple. I was wrong… I am a dork
Although I have office, Excel is the only thing I use. I’ve got Pages and Keynote for everything else.
PointOfOrder…OK mr. smarty-pants, Filemaker is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Computer, hence Apple does indeed make the program.
MW- happened.. as in “I happened upon a know-it-all that didn’t”
Microsoft has always been good at making money no matter who sells what to whom. Most famous was their DOS contracts in which PC makers had to pay Microsoft for every computer sold–even those that had no Microsoft software installed.
re; iDON’T
I have yet to meet a person who actually prefers Powerpoint over Keynote. Are you sure you really tried Keynote??? I mean, it’s impossible to make something in Keynote (even as a complete beginner) that doesnt look better than Powerpoint. The best part is when die-hard powerpoint “experts” get confronted with a fullblown Keynote presentation…they tend to shit their pants. Oh and and I like their expressions when they have to realize it’s an OSX-only app. Only problem with Keynote is the low-key interest from Apple – as of regular updates. 🙁
Reposted here because it is on topic:
“Apple introduces Safari and M$ stops supporting the Macintosh platform with there crappy Internet Explorer. When Apple introduces their spreadsheet program and solidifies their office suite with a general upgrade to Pages and Keynote, will M$ once again be on the run?
Well, let’s get the ball rolling: If you truly despise M$ and everything they stand for, stop using their shit, bloated Office product. Stop sleeping with the enemy! There are very good, nimble alternatives to M$ crap.”
Rock on Steve!
“‘We’re ecumenical people,’ said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. ‘We have to run everything”
EXACTLY!!
And Billy boy has his right hand goon “monkeyboy” throw chairs at you and threaten to kill you if you disagree.
I have not used a M$ product since IE and I have been totally happy with my computing experience.
It was like everything was wrong with everything they make.
Still today we get Macro viruses for OfficeMac!!
Just recently about several months ago, a series of vulnerabilities was found in Excel products that stretched back from the very first versions.
It allowed remote code execution on Mac’s. So for all these years our Mac’s were vulnerable to remote code execution, like government snoops.
That’s really who M$ works for is the US Government snoops.
Who in their right mind allows their users to suffer using their computers for years on end?
Viruses number almost 100,000 for windows and only a few dozen or so for all versions of Mac OS.
Is M$ stupid? No, they created a problem so IT workers can solve and they recommend M$. The snoops love M$, I know of a case where the US Military cracked a spy stores computer to view their inventory before invading Grenada.
YES SPOOKS I KNOW. Apparently you can’t keep your gorillas mouth shut. He spilled his guts in a act of superiority.
And YES I know about the bar code on the forearm that can buy anything in just about all US stores and other countries that are hooked up the credit card system.
And YES I KNOW about the blank credit card with just a magnetic stripe on the back the black ops like to carry around.
So like a scene out of the X-Files, M$ has been in bed with the spooks and his lousy code.
Cisco routers are easily tapped, Xerox color copies have almost invisible yellow ink marks to state what machine made the copies.
Echelon listens to and processes every word spoken or written on the internet.
To get PGP you have to register so they can crack your messages if they have too.
BIG BROTHER IS SPYING ON YOU AND M$ HELPS
And Apple , they are not perfect either. They can keep tabs by having avenues in your machine through Safari and iTunes. They are just a lot slicker than M$ that’s all.
We learned about their treachery during the “URL handler exploits” of pre 10.3.5. Where any website had complete control of our Mac’s under Mac OS X.
Don’t believe me? Google it!
What really has shocked me lately is why the f$ck iTunes continuously contacts the internet even when the “Store” or Radio is not activated?
Why does Address Book contact .Mac when you don’t even have a account? Where is the option to turn it off?
This is called introduced complacency, they get you accepting programs just reaching out and sending out information you don’t know what it is. Next they monitor your every click, website and every song you listen too.
Just like cookies, spyware and adware does on Windows.
M$ has sold it’s soul to spooks, communism and cold blooded marketeers.
I don’t do anything illegal, I just want me privacy and peace of mind from intruders.
I got Mac to be free of them. I got a Mac to be free of M$.
It is estimated that MS makes ~ 300M/year on Mac Software. Not bad.
We all know, deep in our hearts, that Apple could produce a iOffice suite that would blow the doors off of Office on both platforms.
Gates loves Apple, and even at one time I think he was going to buy it they way the 5 year deal was headed.
But it probably would have caused the “monopoly” effect to rear it’s ugly head for them again.
To tell you the truth, I hate and dispise Microsoft, they made their way to the top not by producing a better OS, but by shady means.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they owned John Scully.
M$ has set the computing world back about 20 years.
If your a true MacHead, you should avoid M$ at all costs.
You’ll be doing the world and yourself a favor.
I can’t stand that every sale of a Macintosh machine is typicaly accompanied by the obligatory purchase of Microsoft Office. Microsoft benefits on (just about) every sale of an Apple computer.
C’mon. All we do is watch & download movies, music, play games blah blah. What for we need MS Office ?
Um… marketshare is NOT 2%, it’s more like 4.5% of the commercial market of which maybe half use office.
http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/07/apple_mac_marke.html
In the gov’t and tech business, it’s about 20 – 30%. For NASA, the latest IP scans show a mac base of about 33% as of June 2005.
“…..M$ has set the computing world back about 20 years. If your a true MacHead, you should avoid M$ at all costs.
You’ll be doing the world and yourself a favor…”
{opie} …I’ll drink to that ! …
The only thing I have (on my Mac)…written by the Evil Empire is that crappy WinCrap Media… and thats only cuz KNBR doesnt know about low-bandwidth / hi quality streams !! (re: mp3 or h.264)
Anyone interested in starting a “gentle” email campaign ??
“…Apple’s Mac growth benefits Microsoft…”
Sure it does … !! After all, MicroShaft has (obviously) run out of ideas on how to pile more sub-standard code on top of ancient DOS .. until Panther came out … and look how long it is taking them to copy it with “LongHorn” ….
Its been so long, they changed the name to “Vista” !!
In fact I think Microsoft once boasted that they made more from each Mac sale than Apple did.
It should be noted that most PC users don’t “choose” Windows. It just happens to come with most PCs, and customers don’t know any better.
Roland,
You need to chill man! That or get more foil to cover your antenna.
Roland: I just want me privacy and peace of mind from intruders.
M/W: “now”
If they can come up with a good alternative to Excel for iWork I will probably stop buying M$ Office. As long as I can send files to Windoze office users it should be OK.
That said, a lot of people know M$ Office really well and I think the fact that it runs on the Mac and is cross platform is a big factor for a lot of switchers. So at this point in the game it behooves Apple to encourage M$ to continue to produce it for the Mac.