“Over the past three weeks, we’ve laid out in this column a sequence of clues and events that suggest Apple is planning to next year take on not only Microsoft’s hardware OEMs, but also possibly Microsoft, itself, by leveraging a vestigial legal right to some portion of the Windows API — in this case, literally the Windows XP API. This bold strategy is based on the high probability that — if something called Windows Vista ships at all next January — it will really be Windows XP SP4 with a new name. Microsoft is so bloated and paralyzed that this could happen, but what’s missing is an Apple application strategy to go with this operating system strategy, because Microsoft’s true power lies not in Windows, but in Microsoft Office. Fortunately for Apple, I believe there is an application plan in the works, and I will describe it here,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS.org.
‘We’ve been here before of course with IBM and OS/2,” Cringely explains. “The two key differences between that time and this are that Apple isn’t IBM, and this isn’t 1989. Windows is far more vulnerable today than it was then from a security standpoint. Rather than being an OS on the way up, as it was then, today Windows is the OS we tolerate. But that doesn’t mean Apple can ignore an application strategy, which for the most part means an Office strategy.”
“Office is how Microsoft makes most of its revenue, and Office is the bludgeon Microsoft uses to keep other software vendors in line. Without Office, Microsoft is just a company with an archaic and insecure OS. If Apple does go ahead to compete head-to-head with Microsoft for Microsoft’s own Windows customers, Cupertino will have to be ready in case Mac Office is withdrawn and Windows Office mysteriously breaks on Apple hardware,” Cringely writes. “Just as Apple had contingency plans for losing Internet Explorer and kept Safari secret even from the KHTML developers, and quietly planned for the contingency of an Intel/AMD switch, so, presumably, they have a contingency for the equally large problem of Office.”
“But finding an alternative to Microsoft Office won’t fully solve Apple’s application vulnerability. That’s because for its core media and graphics markets Apple is as dependent on Adobe as it is Microsoft for the general office market. And now that Adobe owns Macromedia, Apple is even more vulnerable. Adobe has already made one feint away from Mac development that required personal pressure from Steve Jobs on John Warnock to reverse. If Apple kinda-sorta embraces Windows enough for Adobe to question whether continued development for the native OS X platform is still warranted, well, then Apple WILL just become another Dell, which isn’t what Steve Jobs wants,” Cringely writes. “Steve wants Windows applications to run like crazy on his hybrid platform but to look like crap. In his heart of hearts, he’d still like to beat Microsoft on the merits, not just by leveraging some clever loophole. So he needs the top ISVs who are currently writing for OS X to continue writing for OS X, and that especially means Adobe. There’s only one way to make that happen for sure, and that’s for Apple to buy Adobe.”
Much more in Cringely’s full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: One minor mistake that Cringely makes is writing, “Apple’s Aperture photo touch-up program could die so PhotoShop could reign supreme. Hey, could that be why Apple is rumored to have this week just laid-off its entire Aperture development group?” Change “Photoshop” to “Lightroom,” which is the real (future) competitor to Apple’s “Aperture” and Cringely’s lines then make better sense. John Kheit’s excellent article for The Mac Observer, “If Apple Buys Adobe, Is the Operating System Market up for Grabs?” from December 16th, 2005 is also worth re-reading along with Cringely’s latest today. More on Kheit’s article here.
[UPDATE: 10:10am EDT: Fixed PBS.org from incorrect “PBS.com.”]
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Related articles:
Steve Jobs: no interest in being Disney exec, plans to spend more time at Apple – April 27, 2006
Report: Apple axes bulk of Aperture team, app’s future in doubt – April 27, 2006
Buh-bye Freehand? Adobe offers Freehand to Illustrator migration guide – April 26, 2006
Adobe releases Lightroom Beta 2 for Intel-based Macs – February 14, 2006
Report: Adobe to take on Apple’s Aperture with new ‘LightRoom’ application for Mac OS X – January 06, 2006
Should Apple buy Adobe as leverage against Microsoft? – December 16, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
What will users lose as Adobe swallows Macromedia? – April 19, 2005
Adobe to acquire Macromedia in $3.4 billion stock deal – April 18, 2005
Adobe prefers (and promotes) PCs over Macs – March 25, 2003
I seem to remember talk of ‘should Apple buy Adobe’ about 10 years ago. Anyway, “Cringley” fails to mention and factor in Server 2003 and Exhange as major Microsoft products. Microsoft’s enterprise solutions is what keeps people buying Windows for their home computers. Think about it, Windows is in their face all day at work and so when it comes time for these lemmings to buy a home computer what do they choose? They buy what they know and what they know is what they use at work. If Apple really wants to take down MicroSoft they have to develope an Exchange killer.
Georgy Porgy: M$ buying Adobe would never pass EU anti-trust muster (it would probably be ignored by US regulators). Apple buying Adobe might not pass EU muster either (and might catch the attention of US regulators).
So … what happens if Microsoft buy’s Adobe instead.
yikes!
Buying Adobe might explain why Apple eliminated the Aperture team.
MW: Consider
Apple is not going to be so stupid as to let Mac users have to rely on reverse engineering MS Office file formats, when they per date have full access to those formats and hence Office documents.
So no, there is absolutely NO point in challenging Microsoft on Office right now.
Apple will not buy Adobe. Get over it.
Apple will come with an Office killer when needed. It does not want to distress MS (and there are so many Mac Office users out there) that this is not feasible right now. Besides, if Apple really wants some corporate customers, Mac Office is obligatory.
What I really would like to see, are two simple things:
1. Numbers in iWork ’07
2. An Apple Photoshop competitor (meaning that in the long run Apple would produce a photography suite like it did for video editing).
Apple will not buy Adobe to get rid of Microsoft Office. They might to capture the rest of the desktop publishing and photography market.
It’s true … Apple is vulnerable to the THREAT of Office for Macintosh being pulled from the market.
Today.
A year from now (less, but who knows how much) the latest/greatest Macs will be able to run Windows concurrently with OS X, thus eliminating any such threat. I wonder if it’s possible to set it up so the Windows VM lacks connectivity, or must pass connectivity through the OS X side.
Buying Adobe in no way addresses this temporary threat. Which doesn’t make it a Bad Idea, just not relevant.
Adobe is a natural fit for Apple. Adobe is in the creative industries which is Apple’s sweet spot however it would cost billions to acquire it and Apple may do better spending its money somewhere else.
I don’t think there is much of threat on the MS Office side. Office mac will be around for at least 5 more years. If MS changes its file formats to XML and publishes them (which they have promised) it would be easier for Apple to come up with its own replacement. They are already half way there with Pages and Keynote. They need an Excel replacement (not an easy app to replace) and better integration with FileMaker to compete with Access.
MS is not dumb and I doubt that they will abandon the Mac market. Office is its most profitable app product and they are not going to let a mac replacement come in and gain mac market share so that they can go into the Windows market and compete against MS there too. Look at Office for the Mac as a defensive move to protect its Windows turf.
dbcoyle
FrameMaker may be what you’re looking for, which was purchased from (I believe) Frame Technologies by Adobe then killed off for the Mac. Documents are true cross platform.
I still use it (v6.0) under Classic. It can used for everything from memos, books to thousand page manuals and can incorporate quicktime movies.
IMHO this story shows that most people still funamentally misunderstand Apple’s business model, and Job’s core philosophy. Microsoft and Apple are NOT the arch rivals they are sometimes portrayed as because they are completely different companies. They sell totally different products. Apple is a hardware company and MS is primarily an enterprise software company. Job’s main interest is identifying new and innovative markets where he can develop products he likes that can operate with the minimum of competitiion. When apple started there were no consumer computer competitors. The mac OS, personal printers, ipod, newton, ITS..all were designed to exploit a new and previously non-existent markets. Notice that once one of Apple’s ideas catches on (or tanks)… apple loses interest, especially if the competition gets hot and margins decline… then apple gracefully exits that market. This is one reason why they have always stayed profitable (under Jobs, anyway). I don’t believe apple is deseperately interested in picking a counterproductive fight with MS, especially in a field as boring to (to Jobs) as bread and butter office type software. Yawn. That’s old territory best left to others. Apple would rather work WITH MS to the benefit of both. Apple doesn’t really care what software you run on its hardware, but is happy to encourage ANY company to develop software for its platform. MS doesn’t care what hardware you run its software on. Bootcamp is an area for BOTH companies to expand their markets, so BOTH companies will benefit from it. Meanwhile, sure, Apple is happy to make a little extra $$$ selling you some basic software if you really don’t want to use MS, but it’s obvious from the small effort expended that this has never been a high priority for apple. On the other hand apple loves to explore NEW and innovative software needs that you don’t even know you have yet. imovie, the ITS and front row were all interesting to jobs because they explore new markets and technologies. One of the reasons I like apple is precisely because of this innovative and agile business model. Jobs understands evolution, and he understands when to fight, when to run and when to change. He understands the importance of avoiding competition and attacking only those enemies that have something that you really truly NEED. Most importantly he recognizes new opportunities and the importance of adapting in ways that will exploit those opportunities. He is NOT going to waste resources on a totally pointless and wasteful battle with a huge and powerful company like MS.
People need to get past the idea that in order for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.
MS won’t be able to make Office break on Mac machines. The Anti-Trust fallout would bury them.
People are <swear words> if they can’t see MS’s strategy here. The REAL money is the business market. Businees Intelligence software, finance software, server, and on and on. Notice that while MS has not been able to legally tie these apps into their OS’s, they are closely integrating them into each other…for example, Office 12 will be tied in via proprietary technology to MS Project, MS Scorecards/BI, etc.. Plus, most of these are ActiveX tools requiring the dreaded IE to view – no way around that.
Apple won’t break this in 5 years just by coming out with a competing office suite. They may get Mrs. Jones using it but at a business/enterprise level there needs to be so much more. They would need to do everything. MS has been increasingly capturing the business/server market for a decade and to do this in a year period or even 5 isn’t reasonable. And while I am a huge, huge Apple fan, this is a very difficult and slow task.
Hence the result: Leopard running Vista and Office 12 in virtualization. Suddenly, if Mac Office dies, Mac business users can simply use the MS version. Suddenly, the Mac can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. If MS prevents Office from working, they will be screwed both in the media and in the courts so there is almost a zero chance of that happening. This IS the contingency plan if MS pulls Mac Office.
dbcoyle,
try out Lyx (http://www.lyx.org). It’s a kind of front-end to LaTex and it produces beautiful output for scientific publishing. It is not as polished as a word processor, but the results are worth it. Plan to spend some time getting acquainted with LaTeX, though, if you are not already. 90% of your writing can ignore the LaTeX details, but you’ll need to know how to tweak the environment to produce the kind of output publishers want.
Framemaker was suggested, but it is not really an alternative. Beautiful sw for writing long documents (I wrote my dissertation with it), but Adobe let it die after they purchased it from Frame. Three big problems: first, it runs in Classic only, and we know the classic environment will be withdrawn soon. Adobe will not port it to Carbon/Cocoa. Second, it cannot do endnotes without tortured and painful kludges. If you are a researcher that’s a no-no—most journals and publishers won’t accept footnotes. And third, the integration with bibliography software is rather poor (I am thinking of Endnotes and BbTeX).
Stefano
dbcoyle:
Have you tried Grapher? It’s an equation editor/graphing application included in Mac OS X Tiger (maybe was included in Panther as well). It’s located in the Utilities folder. You can copy and paste the equations you create into any word processor as a graphic. The output quality is beautiful! I’m not a mathematician or physicist, so maybe I don’t understand your needs fully.
I don’t think Apple could afford Adobe, or at least not be willing to put that much out. I think Macromedia went for 3.4 billion, so Adobe would probably want something like 7 or 8 billion. Our my numbers off?
Unless Adobe’s in on the idea of joining with Apple, then it would be less of a buy out and more of a merger with Adobe having more involvement in Apple. What do I know though?
If Apple bought Adobe and bundled the Creative Suite with all new Macs, market share would skyrocket.
Microsoft’s rise; their ruthless rule; and their over-extended, ineffectual, reactions once past their peak reminds me of something: the rise and fall of the Roman empire.
The Romans were prosperous only as long as they were concurring other civilizations to seize their wealth (literally crates of gold) and taking slaves. Once they had expanded to the limits of their Army’s ability to secure their borders, they could seize no more. With no vats of gold in the public coffers and no slaves for public works projects, merchants’ buying power became as unremarkable as anyone else’s in the region. All of Rome developed an “urban blight” attitude and no one felt “glorious.” Decay set in. The “collapse” was an “endless series of announcements like ‘the stage coach doesn’t stop here on Saturday’s anymore’.”
A lot of moaning and lamenting from programmers inside Microsoft is leaking into the blogosphere. Gates—their king—is widely considered to be so utterly greedy that he is the utter embodiment of evil. Gates’ business model isn’t “let’s do anything we can do well,” it’s pretty much “let’s take it all and crush all who oppose us.” Balmer is seen as uncharismatic, volatile, bombastic, and selfish. They have lots of talented programmers but their leadership is so ineffectual that they’ve totally botched the development of Vista and now look like the Keystone Cops. Moral is at an all-time low. Their expansion has totally stalled and they are embattled on all fronts. now Balmer was recently quoted as advocating that all companies should do as they now intend: lay off 6.5% of your employees each year in every department. He said 6.5% is the “magic” number that keeps people on their toes. Effectively, “the floggings will continue until moral improves.” The problem isn’t with their programmers and other personnel, it’s with their leadership.
Then there’s Apple. Everything they do is classy. In fact, when Steve Jobs was once asked what irked him most about Microsoft. Steve said (with palpable disgust) that it was the fact that Microsoft had no sense of class (or something to that effect). Apple has begun to look like the H.G. Wells’ equivalent of the Eloi whereas Microsoft is now looking like the Morlocks.
Bottom line: Microsoft blows.
Outlandish idea: Apple may not buy Adobe but what if Disney bought Adobe at the suggestion of one of Disney’s largest stockholders?
Greg L,
What Jobs said was, “The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And what that means is . . . I don’t mean it in a small way. I mean it in a big way.”
What he meant was that saying Microsoft had no taste was not an insult or a slam, it was a comment on what MS was bringing to the table and its impact on society and culture.
MS simply converted corporate office tedium into digital corporate office tedium.
Apple does not want in that market.
Pooh on MS Office: its always doing things for you that you don’t want it to do, and it won’t do what you do want it to do. In short it has done those things which it ought not to have done and not done those things which it ought to have done. [Hortense is an Anglican.]
An ordinary cow just wants simple word processing and spreadsheets, without all the cowbells and thistles. So why not add a spreadsheet to iWork and be done with it? Then, any cow could have both MS Office and iWork, and guess which one she would chew on most of the time?
Hortense just can’t understand why iWork isn’t more like AppleWorks when it comes to spreading the sheets. Hortense thinks this would simplify life for the whole herd.
Apple would do better if it didn’t come out with some bloated software suite like Office. That thing is a dinosaur (haven’t you seen the ads?). There are better opportunities in creating a web-based office product. Maybe this is why they started installing Ruby on Rails with Mac OS X all of a sudden.
You better believe that Apple doesn’t release a beta of Boot Camp unless they have all their ducks in a row.
As far as Adobe is concerned, they should be very afraid of Apple. Apple didn’t put image and color correction tools in the OS for nothing.
Observing the bloated has-beens, Steve wields the flashing blade and produces clean, minimal new software….
DLMeyer “A year from now (less, but who knows how much) the latest/greatest Macs will be able to run Windows concurrently with OS X, thus eliminating any such threat. I wonder if it’s possible to set it up so the Windows VM lacks connectivity, or must pass connectivity through the OS X side.”
You can do all that now: parallels.com
I agree that MS Windows is a disaster, the victim of MS’s own avarice. Dvorak is on target in his PC Magazine article, in which he correctly (highly unusual for him) points out that Gates’s decision to have Internet Explorer encorporated into the Windows OS was major blunder. The chances are excellent that at some future date, MS will have to scrap Windows and come up with something different. Maybe they adopt some UNIX kernel as Apple did.
The same does not apply to MS Office: it simply is not that bad. It is feature-bloated, but some people have specialized needs, and both Word and Powerpoint can usually satisfy those needs. The interface in both can be customized so only the functions the user needs are readily accessible.
I bought and used iWork’06, but the truth is that MS Word and Powerpoint have features, not in Pages or Keynote, that I need. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of users don’t need these features.
It’s unlikely that MS will pull the plug on the Mac version of Office. If it did, Apple would probably release “yellow box” immediately.