It should come as no big surprise to Apple (AAPL) users that Microsoft’s (MSFT) Office 2008 for Mac is going to miss its "second-half" 2007 deadline and won’t be ready until January 2008, at the earliest.
Although the bundled suite of applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) made its first appearance on the Mac in 1989 and didn’t show up on Windows until the next year, it has since become a major Microsoft profit center, generating revenues — largely from the Windows versions — of nearly $12 billion in 2006.
And like the proverbial programmer who will walk through the desert in his socks to get to an installed base, Microsoft has lavished the Windows platform with upgrades and new features faster than users can keep up. Office 2007, launched with Vista in January, was Office for Windows No. 12. Office No. 14 is expected in 2009. (Like a skyscraper elevator, Microsoft is skipping No. 13).
The Mac, by contrast, lost market share for much of the 90’s and early ’00s and hasn’t had an upgrade since Office 2004 for the Mac. Meanwhile, the business unit that has been working on its successor — MacBU — is a computer industry joke. It advertises itself as "the largest, 100 percent, Mac-focused developer of Mac software outside of Apple itself," but has had little to show for it. Before she was unceremoniously sent to greener pastures in Microsoft’s entertainment division in June, general manager Roz Ho was best known for her lackluster Macworld performances and her cheery assurances that everything was still on track.
That could change now that the Mac’s market share is inching up. Hunterstrat picked up this interesting stat from the AP wire:
Sales of Office for Macs rose about 72 percent from 2001 to 2006,
compared with an increase of about 18 percent for Windows versions.
Sales of the Mac versions made up about 20 percent of dollars spent on
Office at U.S. retail stores and Web sites in 2006, up from 4 percent
in 2001. (link)
However Craig Eisler, who took over from Ho (and is MacBU’s fourth general manager in 10 years), seems no better at prognosticating — or making public pronouncements. Here’s what he wrote on Microsoft’s Mac Mojo blog on taking the job:
"Microsoft and Apple are both great companies in their own right, and
working in Mac BU, I get to experience the best of both worlds. I am
super excited to help Mac BU continue to rock the house with Office
2008 for Mac and beyond." (link)
On June 14 — six weeks ago — MacNN reported Microsoft’s assurances that the division was "squarely focused on delivering Office 2008 in the second half of 2007,
and the placement of new general manager Craig Eisler does not signal
that the project is off track."
Today, as Ron Ziegler used to tell the White House press corps in the Nixon era, those statements are "inoperative."
“We switched to Intel, and Office changed file formats,†Eisler told Macworld.
“It was no one thing. This release was harder than most just because of
all those things happening at once.â€Â
Although there are other –and perhaps better — word processors, spreadsheets, presentation programs etc. for the Mac, a functioning version of Office is critical to Apple’s efforts to break into the corporate workplace. IT departments need to be assured of interoperability before they can approve large purchases of Apple computers.
ADDENDUM: This just in from Edelman PR.
“Our number one priority is to deliver quality software to our customers and partners, and in order to achieve this we are shifting availability of Office 2008 for Mac to mid-January of 2008,†said Mac BU General Manager Craig Eisler. “We’re successfully driving toward our internal goal to RTM in mid-December 2007, and believe our customers will be very pleased with the finished product.â€Â
RTM, I am informed, means "release to manufacturers."
Written by Philip Elmer-DeWitt on August 2nd, 2007 with no comments.
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Over the years, it has been smart business strategy in the computer and consumer electronics industries to specialize in either hardware or software. But that’s changing.
Microsoft created one of the greatest business successes in history by fiercely sticking to software, dabbling only in minor hardware products, such as mice and keyboards, which were designed to propel its core software business. I have even been told by very senior Microsoft officials, in private, that hardware was a sucker’s business, a combination of low margins and big headaches.
Sony was perhaps the opposite case, turning out world-class, head-turning hardware, but paying little or no attention to software–and no, I don’t count “Spider-Man 3,” by the company’s Hollywood studio, as software, at least not in this context.
The only company that seemed to combine both skills was Apple, but it was widely regarded as a niche player that was slowly fading from the scene, partly because it didn’t fit very well into either world. By the late 1990s, it seemed clear that Apple couldn’t build hardware it could sell in large enough quantities, or license its operating system widely enough, to thrive, or even survive.
My, how times have changed. Now, with computers, the Web and consumer electronics all merging and blurring, Apple is looking more like a role model than an object of pity. The iPod has been a huge combined hardware/software success and Macintosh sales are surging, partly due to a great operating system and built-in software that Apple writes in-house and refuses to license.
Without announcing any big change in strategy, both Microsoft and Sony, as well as other companies, are racing to become combined hardware/software powers.
And everyone is also trying to add a third leg: tightly linked companion Web services–another thing that Apple has been skillful at doing, with its booming iTunes store and its smart, but badly underdeveloped, “.Mac” online service for Macintosh owners.
Microsoft has essentially set up a small Apple, called the Entertainment & Devices Division, run by savvy, strategic company veteran Robbie Bach, who was running Excel when I first met him many years ago. The division not only designs both the hardware and core software for the Xbox game consoles and Zune music players, but also operates online marketplaces and communities for both. And the company is considering other such end-to-end products, which would include Microsoft-designed hardware.
Sony, meanwhile, also taking lessons from both Apple and its own PlayStation game console business, has set up a software development group in California, run by a former Apple executive. Its mission is to develop distinctive Sony software that can run on most of the company’s products. And Sony is also trying to compete online, to match Microsoft’s great success with Xbox Live and Apple’s iTunes.
Other hardware companies are making similar efforts. Hewlett-Packard is designing some of its own programs for its consumer computers and engaging interfaces for its televisions. Nokia is trying to ramp up its software efforts for its nontraditional offerings, like the N800 Internet tablet, partly by tapping the open-source software community. Palm, which sold its operating system some years back, is getting back into that game.
This is good for consumers. Third-party software, hardware and Web sites are still vital. But nicely matched hardware and software platforms make things easier on average users than unwieldy efforts to combine different platforms, such as Microsoft’s failed PlaysForSure portable music system. Some of these combo products may flop (like the first Zune, or the Apple Cube). But the trend is a welcome one.
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Written by Walt Mossberg on April 30th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on H-P and Hewlett-Packard and Mac OS X and Macintosh and Microsoft and Mossberg and Mossblog and PlaysForSure and Windows and Zune and hp and iPhone card and mac and n800 and nokia and palm and playstation and sony and xbox.
One of the big tech news stories of the month was Apple’s announcement that it was delaying the public release of the new Leopard version of its Mac OS X operating system from June to October. The company said the delay was caused by the need to divert engineering talent from Leopard to Apple’s other planned spring release, the iPhone, which Steve Jobs’ minions assured the world was on track for a late June release. In order to ensure Leopard’s quality, Apple said, it needed more time because it had fewer people available to work on the project.
Still, the Leopard delay caused consternation among some fanatical members of the Mac cult, and caused Apple’s stock price to fall. Something similar happened to Microsoft last year when it delayed the release of Vista, the latest version of its Windows operating system, which finally emerged January 30. Microsoft also attributed the delay to a desire to make the product better, and it did so at higher cost, because it angered the Windows PC makers, who had expected new Vista machines to sell in the 2006 holiday season.
I didn’t bash either company for these delays, because they are non-events for most of the mainstream, non-technical users for whom I write. Most people aren’t desperately waiting for the next version of some computer, or gadget, or software product, or Web site. They just want the stuff to work right. And, if a company delays a product to make sure it will work better upon release, I’m fine with that — especially when the product is as important as a new version of an operating system.
Obviously, such delays may cause concern among investors, or stock analysts, or businesses whose own products may be tied to some feature of the new release.
But, for average users, quality comes before some arbitrary ship date. No matter how cool or useful Leopard’s new “Time Machine” file recovery feature may prove to be, average users aren’t sitting around dreaming about it. They have lives. They fantasize about sex, or money, or maybe world peace, not a new feature for their computers.
So, my advice to all the Mac fanatics out there is to calm down. Dream about winning the lottery, so you can buy a $499 iPhone. You know you want one, even if you don’t need one and can’t afford it.
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Written by Walt Mossberg on April 17th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mac OS X and Macintosh and Microsoft and Mossberg and Mossblog and Windows and iPhone card and leopard and mac and vista.
