“For a little more than a week, a team of Microsoft’s Silicon Valley software engineers has been examining the iPhone software development kit (SDK for short), a set of tools Apple released this month that let outsiders build software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Microsoft executives aren’t sure yet whether they’ll find worthwhile opportunities to sell iPhone software – but they seem eager to find out,” Jon Fortt blogs for Fortune.
Fortt reports, “‘It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone,’ Tom Gibbons, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Specialized Devices and Applications Group, told Fortune on Monday. ‘To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now.'”
“The Mac unit’s work certainly isn’t charity – it delivers millions of dollars in profit for the company with its Mac version of the Office productivity suite,” Fortt repots. “Microsoft doesn’t break out exact numbers, but we can extrapolate: Gibbons said the Mac Business Unit provides about a third of the revenue for the Specialized Devices and Applications Group, which also includes Windows Embedded, Microsoft Hardware, the Automotive Business Unit and Microsoft Surface Computing; the whole group did more than $1 billion in sales last year. So it’s reasonable to guess that the Mac unit provided about $350 million – and since Gibbons said the Mac group was one of the group’s more profitable units, it’s possible that Microsoft made somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million in profit from Mac software.”
Full article here.
Why doesn’t Gibbons get his crack team of spaghetti coders to “try to understand” why they dropped Outlook for Macintosh, just can’t seem to code and release a new one, and can’t deliver feature parity on any of their other products? We’ll save them the effort: It’s because Microsoft wanted to force businesses to keep buying PCs instead of Macs; not on their own merits (because they lose badly), but by creating artificial lock-in. It’s the Microsoft way. And it worked — until Steve Jobs executed an end-around with Intel-powered Macs that could slum it with Windows when necessary.
So, same as with our Macs, we’ll install intentionally-hobbled Microsoft bloatware on our iPhones as soon as infinity rolls around, thanks.
Article:
“Don’t think for a minute that Microsoft is ignoring the iPhone. In fact, the software giant is probing the gadget for profit opportunities.”
Translation:
“Don’t think for a minute that Microsoft believes the bullshit they’ve been saying about the iPhone. In fact, the software giant is probing the gadget for original ideas and hard code that they can steal and roll into their antiquated windows mobile OS.”
Comment from: KanMac
“The 2001 Space Odyssey shot of the monkeys around the monolith comes to mind with this story.”
ROFLMAO! Perfect!!
>MDN wrote: It’s because Microsoft wanted to force businesses to keep buying PCs … by creating artificial lock-in. It’s the Microsoft way.
You hypocrites! It’s also the Apple way.
Here’s a hint iTMS+iPod locks you into future iPod purchases unless you’re willing to throw lotsa money away.
It’s amazing you nameless MDN editors are taken seriously, being so far up Apple’s ***.
“Here’s a hint iTMS+iPod locks you into future iPod purchases unless you’re willing to throw lotsa money away.”
Heres a thought, give examples to back up your “theory” as above and maybe we won’t designate you a troll. The only thing that locks you is any PAID content that has Rights management on it, otherwise there is no lock-in – use iTMS and iPod any way you want – it’s called choice something you can’t comprehend.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. This remindes me of a time in the mid -eighties. Microsoft was going to serve the new Macintosh platform by writing application code for it.
Here’s a hint. I legally play music I’ve bought from the iTS on my computer or listen to songs burned from iTunes on CDs in my car.
There’s no iPod. You can play your own ripped songs from the iTunes jukebox or rip iTS to CD. All legally.
“You hypocrites!” No. You’re just not very bright because you keep repeating this hoping it will come true. Just STFU already.
@ Mr Reeee and Gil
“640 kb is all anyone will ever need…”
Gee, this story reminds me of monkeys and a big black monolith on a prehistoric plain.
Didn’t you just love Planet of the Apes and all those lousy sequels?
It is spelled s-a-r-c-a-s-m.
“The 2001 Space Odyssey shot of the monkeys around the monolith comes to mind with this story.”
HA HA HA, priceless
@LiM:
I just opened a 9 MB (138 printed pages) Word file with Pages. The document has a number of photos and and other jpg files (more than 50). The text also contains several instances of Central European characters. There was no indication of any kind of problem.
I have a suspicion that the problem is not with Word to Pages conversion. The lack of a definition of “biig” suggests that the writer is not a reliable observer.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
> macview wrote: otherwise there is no lock-in – use iTMS and iPod any way you want…
Apple holds the lead in PMP sales. They have a huge lead in online music sales. The iPod software is actually their online music software bundled into one. Once you start buying iTMS songs, you’re virtually locked into buying iPods in the future. Sure you can, do the burn-to-CD jailbreak, but what if you’ve purchased 200 albums? 2,000 songs? The burn-to-CD jailbreak is an option for those who’ve bought few tracks.
Besides, reread your argument as you contradicted your points by saying use “iTMS and iPod any way you want”. By your reasoning, you are in essentially locked in.
—
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>No Lock-In wrote: You’re just not very bright because you keep repeating this hoping it will come true.
Ummm, Mr. Sensitive, I said it once. What makes me not bright is if I were to say something stupid. I didn’t do that. You’re just in a bad mood today or something. Take a breath and gather your thoughts. Try again later when you can come up with something intelligent and worthwhile. Good luck.
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“Once you start buying iTMS songs” – again a choice there is actually people who don’t buy on line, rip their own cds to mp3s and use the ipod with that. If you want to rip to MP3s with itunes and move them to another player go ahead. Once again KNOW ONE IS FORCING YOUR TO BUY THROUGH iTUNES.
There was no contradiction in my thoughts, only what you see as contradiction. Use itunes to rip your music to Mp3s, put on another player OR put on iPod. Or buy your tunes (YOUR CHOICE) through Apple and use with itunes.
Sorry but you can’t blame a company for being successful by giving you a decent product, a decent software that Enhances that product, a buy OPTION within that software that further enhances your use or choose to use other hardware software offerings. I guess they are doomed to fail huh?
“I said it once.”
No, you’ve said it before on other threads.
“The burn-to-CD jailbreak is an option for those who’ve bought few tracks.”
It hasn’t been a problem for me and I have several thousand songs.
Locks you in and virtually locks you aren’t the same thing. Pick one before you start calling other people hypocrites and accusing others of “being so far up Apple’s ***.”
“Try again later when you can come up with something intelligent and worthwhile.” You can shove that up your own smug self.
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/service.html
Printing for the iPhone
Who cares about Microsoft Word when I can’t even print my boarding pass from my phone?
C’mon Apple I don’t care if I have to buy from you the iPrinter because it is the only supported printer for the iPhone, just get that functionality working.
@Abraham Bainbridge
400,000 words – no pictures. Opened fine. Scrolled slow, and got slower and slower… beachball… adios.
2-1/2 seconds to open in Word – and we know Word is the worst file system there is. Unformatted text paste into BBEdit: 7-seconds – scrolls super fast. Oops… 320,000 words in 1,625 pages… must’ve edited it down.
MW: english (no shit).
I hope Apple beats them to the punch with an iWork suite for the iPhone. That would be sweet!
is there a word processor for the iphone yet?
>>No Lock-In wrote: No, you’ve said it before on other threads.
Actually I did post this a couple of times. The ones who take offense at it are usually the fanatical, bend-over-backwards-for-Apple types.
A good example of the type of person who’d throw a fit about my post is you. Look at your first response; you couldn’t come up with a reasonable counter-argument so you attack me on a personal level. That’s typical since your entire position isn’t based on reason; it’s based on a complete dedication to a corporation named Apple. I’m a fan of the company too, but I can still see the hypocrisy of many other fans and fan sites.
You’re just angry because I pointed it out.
>> No Lock-In wrote: It hasn’t been a problem for me and I have several thousand songs.
You’ve bought several thousand songs on iTMS? Really? Thousands? 2,000? 10,000? Did you just throw that out there to try and make your point seem more valid?
Whatever the case, let’s assume you’re telling the truth.
The fact that you’ve got that much time on your hands and are willing to waste money on enough CDs (and the time to apply the jailbreak), doesn’t mean there isn’t a lock.
Not everyone is willing to jump through hoops – you obviously are with thousands of jail-broken tracks, thousands!
>hardmanb wrote: It makes you wonder if they (Microsoft) are looking at Mac OS Mobile with a view to their continuing development of Windows Mobile 7, due out in 2009.
That’s the way a competitive world works.
Unless you live in a vacuum, you’re affected by what happens around you. Every company does it (including Apple)! Every person does it! That’s just how the world works. To think otherwise is naive, no matter what company you have in mind.
>macview wrote: Once again KNOW ONE IS FORCING YOUR TO BUY THROUGH iTUNES.
But then again, there once was a time we had fair use of the products we bought. Like the way a DVD works, we could play a Sony-pressed DVD in a Panasonic labeled DVD player.
If companies are going to use DMCA and such laws to lock down fair use, more people need to speak out. The vocal ones are people who so willingly give up their right to fair use.
As for “KNOW ONE FORCING… ITUNES”, perhaps NO one is forcing people but that’s not what my argument was. I raised concern about the iTMS-iPod lock. iTMS is the music store part of iTunes. Each purchase in iTMS is a step towards being locked down into buying an iPod. Buy enough tracks and for all intents and purposes, you’re locked in to Apple iTMS/iPod plans.
Back on topic, it’d be cool to see some Microsoft products on my iPhone. Entourage is actually one of the best apps I’ve tried!