The Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) at Microsoft is growing and Microsoft is launching their “biggest hiring initiative since the inception of MacBU eleven years ago.”
According to Microsoft’s Craig Eisler, MacBU is “hard at work planning for products beyond Office 2008, and we are growing our team to help turn our vision into reality.”
“We offer the feel of a small company with a strong team culture of innovation, creativity, and creating great user experiences. We combine the power of Office with the latest Mac technologies to create world class products – we develop exclusively for Macs, and we love ’em,” Eisler blogs.
Eisler offers up some reasons to join MacBU, including:
• We are the brightest, coolest, and most interesting business unit at Microsoft – if we do say so ourselves
• One of the largest dedicated Mac software development organizations outside of Apple
• We work for Microsoft and we are proud of it!
So, if you can’t get a job at Apple, Microsoft’s MacBU is hiring for multiple roles (Program Managers, Developers, Testers, User Experience, and Marketing) in Redmond and Silicon Valley. Send your resume to
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ampar” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Microsoft can read the market share trend charts, too.
I’m still betting on a release of iWork for all common platforms–Windows, Linux, etc. to truly compete with MS Office.
…if you can’t get a job at Apple…
In other words, At Microsoft, we are second best and we are proud of being number 2 (read what you want into that last phrase).
Jokes aside, I worry about this from the perspective that if indeed MS did develop innovative software for Apple and then of course port it to the PC, they could, when Mac users are dependent on it, make it not work as well as the PC version.
As the knights said in Monty Python’s Search for the holy grail…Run away, run away….
Buster…
I think the entire Office Suite (not Access or SorePoint) was originally developed for the Mac.
That’s right, Microsoft is hiring more folk to put an even shinier sheen on their turd.
But wait, Apple offers smoke and mirrors, too. Sno’ Leopard, it’s more secure, Apple says. Sno’ Leopard, it’s more stable, Apple says. After polishing the turd called Tiger, Apple renames its own shinier version of polished poop Leopard, then claims Sno’ Leopard is the real McCoy, the finest feces you really need, to be flushed to an Apple store near you… in the indefinite future.
You gotta wonder what the hell is happening in Cupertino when security and stability are afterthoughts in software design. Actually, it take no imagination to see that the Great Huckster’s primary mission has been an OS that “looks so delicious (you) want to lick it” even if it gives you gastritis. Leopard, Apple’s version of the salmonella tomato sandwich.
It looks like Ho Ho is crapping out of his mouth again.
Someone should stop pulling his string. Or feeding him sugar.
“Eisler offers up some reasons to join MacBU, including:
• We are the brightest, coolest, and most interesting business unit at Microsoft – if we do say so ourselves
• One of the largest dedicated Mac software development organizations outside of Apple
• We work for Microsoft and we are proud of it! “
Ehhhh, 2 out of 3 isn’t too bad.
@Mr. Reeee
I know that office was originally developed for the Mac. It is with that in mind, and all the uncertainly about MS dropping if from the Mac before Jobs got a commitment of 5 years from them that I say….I do not trust them.
@2/3rd Santa (Ho Ho). May the smooth muscle surrounding your colon have greater than usual contraction capabilities in order to match your verbal diarrhea
Too many freewares are starting to overmatch the M$ suite of products…
Ho, ho, go outside. The graphics are awesome.
Whoever the new ‘hirees’ are at the MBU, I hope they’re immediately assigned to reducing startup times for Office 2008 components to less than seven years <sarcasm>. And when they’ve cracked that, maybe they could have a lash at making said components run faster than in Office 2004 under Rosetta.
IMHO, there are a couple of existing, non-Office related titles MS could publish for the Mac that would have no competition.
One is Streets and Trips. I’ve used several of the Windows-based trip planning packages and I find MS S&T;the most flexible and intuitive. There is no Mac equivalent. The Mac offerings are either hard to use, overpriced or both. (forget Google maps and the Cloud. I can’t always connect to the internet when I need to plan a route. Having tried Google maps for route planning once, I’ll never waste my time again. It’s driving directions came up somewhere between “Preposterous” and “Just Plain Wrong”.
The other is Flight Simulator. There is no equivalent Mac product on the market. With just a little nudge toward the serious flight training side, while keeping the WWII fighter shootemups going, I think they’d reach a meaningful market.
Just my opinion.
10.5, we finally got it right!
Interesting thoughts, lurker. I’m not a M$ fan, but I also realize that not everything produced by M$ is trash. I’d like Flight Sim on the Mac.
Can I get some of what you’re smoking?
Could it be Embrace instead of Exterminate coming out of Redmond???
“we develop exclusively for Macs”
Infecting Macs with MS proprietary formats. No thanks.
Yeh-heh-hehessss Raymond, you Lenonite, you clearly embrace de bland among us. Stealing skits, insulting guests, not paying staff, cheap bonuses . . . hey, waitaminute — that sounds like ME!
No seriously, what’s de definition of a Jay Leno?
A person who has a large chin, annoying voice, bad humor, and who’s gotten something he doesn’t deserve. And a thief.
Jay Leno; verb; transitive. To steal; to “appropriate” from another; to not be original in any quantum reality. From the Latin, jadis crapinus: To suck with large chin.
Use it in a sentence:
“Billy overheard the premise for my Science Fair project and he totally Jay Leno-ed me.”
Hey, I keed. I keed de no-talent hacks.
Triumph…may you live forever!!!
@Tommy Boy
So does this mean that they’re gonna finally … Publisher?
They can keep Publisher. They’ve earned it.
@Tommy Boy
So does this mean that they’re gonna finally port … Publisher?
Oops!
It looks like Ho Ho is crapping out of his mouth again.
At least that stops it leaking out of his ears!
Well, pretty soon the MacBU will be the only thing keeping MS afloat (even that’s a stretch…), as Windows is finally being bled out of the marketplace by consumers who’ve seen the greener grass on the OS X side.
MS will likely never recover from the Vista debacle. It’s like the ultimate self-inflicted wound, or perhaps willful self-flagellation?
If MS had any sense, it would abandon Windows and become a Mac software business (as it was in the beginning).
How else is MSFT going to dig into the guts of Snow Leopard and copy what they can to build their next OS (Vista II, any months now…)? Duh.
“We are … one of the largest dedicated Mac software development organizations outside of Apple.”
I can remember a time when MacBU touted that it was *the* largest Mac software developer outside of Apple. The MacBU was, for a time, an oasis of relative creativity in Redmond. I liked Office 2001, Office X and Office 2004.
With 2008, Mac BU was assimilated, and started looking, sounding and coding like The Borg.
If this means that the MacBU is set to regain a measure of its autonomy within MS, mark me in the category of seeing this as a good thing. It is more evidence that any tech company that ignores the Mac is costing itself money.
@freebeer
You ought to see Windows 7. The taskbar is now (gasp) a dock! They’ve actually gone and done it… Plus, they’ve managed to restore the Fischer-Price kindergarten feel of early XP.
MS hasn’t a hope in hell of being taken seriously ever again. The days of flooding the market in mediocre ‘good enough’ junk are fast coming to an end.
However, it will remain in the corporate world, as there is no viable alternative (hurry up Apple!).