Office 2011 promises end Microsoft’s war on Macintosh

16 years ago

“The long war between Microsoft and Macintosh is almost over. It will end when Microsoft ships Office for Mac 2011, the release that ends Redmond’s decade-long attack on Apple computers in business,” David Coursey writes for PC World.

“Office 2011, due before the holidays, replaces the much-despised Entourage e-mail client and information manager with a real version of Microsoft Outlook created for Macintosh,” Coursey writes. “When that happens, Mac users become full participants on their companies’ Exchange-based e-mail systems. End of the Mac as a second-class corporate citizen.”

MacDailyNews Take: Too late. We don’t use Office anymore; haven’t for years. The only reason to use the bloated Office is if you’re stuck working at a place with dim-witted IT doofuses who’ve screwed their companies by shackling themselves to Microsoft “solutions.”

Coursey continues, “Microsoft could have done this previously, but used Entourage to create a barrier between Mac users and Exchange. Given the issue persisted for a decade, the incompatibility must be considered intentional. This nonsense went on much too long and Microsoft still deserves roasting for having pulled such a stunt in the first place. So, no congratulations from me.”

“Entourage appeared in 2000, replacing the previous Outlook Express that shipped with Office 98. Asked why they didn’t just offer a new Mac version of Outlook, Microsoft replied that Entourage was intended for a different audience than Outlook served,” Coursey writes. “That ‘new audience’ being Mac users who didn’t need to connect to Exchange, which left out a huge number of potential Windows-to-Mac converts over the decade. Intentionally crippled as a client for Exchange servers, Entourage was a sure way of keeping Macs from expanding their presence in businesses large enough to use Exchange and Outlook.”