Internet Explorer for Mac officially killed by MS

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Microsoft has announced that they will no longer be developing Internet Explorer for the Mac. (article here).

Now, this isn't a huge deal. Hell - i'm glad they've put it out of its misery. The question is, will it end with IE? What's stopping MS from pulling Office for Mac? And if they did, what would be the remifications for Apple?

This article comes shortly after I found this one through Digg. It talks about what might happen if MS pulled Office, and how Apple could fight back by buying Adobe.

I think he is grossly exaggerating the effect it would have if Office was cancelled, but I still think it would be a major blow for Apple, and would slow down the momentum of success they have been riding these past couple of years.

I'm interested to know what people here think are the chances of MS doing this, and what would happen if they did?
 
Chances that MS kills Office for Mac in the next 2-5 years: Zero. Maybe 5 percent. Chances for the next 10 years: 10 percent. But if you want it less mathematical: I clearly _don't_ think MS will stop producing Office for the Mac.
 
They stopped developing IE for Mac shortly after Apple released Safari. Now they're just stopping supporting it, too.

I doubt MS will kill Office for Mac anytime soon. It still makes them money. And if they did? Well, it'd light a fire under Apple's and other Mac developers' asses to get a decent replacement out there. It'd probably be good for the market.

Then again, I'm speaking as someone who doesn't rely on any MS software in any way. I'm sure there are some people who would jump off the nearest bridge (or worse yet, switch to Windows) if MS announced the end of Office for Mac.
 
While it certainly _would_ light that fire you mention, I'm not sure that'd be enough to counteract the damage of not having MS Office for the Mac around anymore.

Having MS Office available for the Mac is important not only for switchers, but also for many old-time Mac users. If you have to work with people who're using MS Office on the PC, your best bet for compatibility is still MS Office for the Mac.
 
Lt Major Burns said:
all it needs is a program with a complete support for .doc formatting.
Click to expand...

Not so sure about that. Even if you came up with an app that offered 100% working compatibility for Office that was cheaper and better, many many people (especially businesses) would still sooner switch to Windows than swap over IMO.

The people who cling for dear life to web browsers that don't display pages properly will be the same people who panic when they smell the scent of change and switch OS just to stay with what they're used to.

hopefully iWork '06 will introduce a rival to Word. It will take at least a couple of years, I suspect, but Apple may be able to convert people like they have with Safari.

Or maybe what they need to do is beef up Text Edit, so the user already has a full-featured word processor with OS X (maybe a 10.5 or 10.6 addition?). As I say, certinly worked with Safari.
 
I thought MS stopped supporting IE like last year. It really makes no sense for MS to stop making office for the Mac. I agree, it sells, and that is simple reason enough that development will continue for office on the Mac.
 
Microsoft stops supporting IE, and eventually possibly Office for the Mac......

..........


(long silence......Nixgeek shrugs and continues working on his Mac, Windows and Linux PCs running Oo_O 2.0 and Firefox....) :D
 
Has Apple ever put out their own version of a Office suite?

I doubt Microsoft would end Office for Mac's, because their very greedy when it comes to money. But if anyone knows of Apple's own Office suite please feel free to tell me! :D

- Eric
 
they do a small desktop-publishing program called iWork, but is by no means a replacement for office just yet. before that, they bought clarisworks off claris and called appleworks.. you can still get it, but it is very dated now, and was never really that powerful to start with. you could definately write a book on it, but it is not a rival to the gargantuan MS Office.

There is also the not-apple affiliated, but worth a mention anyway Open Office, aka NeoOffice/J (google it). it appears to do everything ms office does, and more, for free. the User interface is rather clunky, and dated, and it feels very amateurish, but it definately works, and it's free. it's very powerful, and is constantly being updated.
 
Snaffle said:
Has Apple ever put out their own version of a Office suite?

I doubt Microsoft would end Office for Mac's, because their very greedy when it comes to money. But if anyone knows of Apple's own Office suite please feel free to tell me! :D

- Eric
Click to expand...

Indeed, Apple acquired Claris in 1991 and later renamed their ClarisWorks office suite to AppleWorks.

It's still available in the Apple Store, but the whole application is really quite outdated.
 
AFAIK, Claris was a subsidiary of Apple in the first place. Claris wasn't "bought back", it was just that all Claris products came back to Apple whereas FileMaker was turned into FileMaker Inc. (still an Apple-owned subsidiary).

TTC: Do you _honestly_ think Apple will leave Pages as is and release yet another word processing application? I mean: I agree that Pages in its current state isn't a good Word competitor, but I'm _pretty_ sure they're going to improve that instead of releasing yet another word processor.
 
i never liked ms office. i hate it when a program trys to guess what i want it to do, and have it follow through. it always was messing up what i was working on. and i could never figure how to turn it all off, just a bit here or there. so i stated using claris so that i could get what i want on print.
 
ksv said:
Indeed, Apple acquired Claris in 1991 and later renamed their ClarisWorks office suite to AppleWorks.

It's still available in the Apple Store, but the whole application is really quite outdated.
Click to expand...

Yes, I just remembered Apple iWork. What do you prefer MS Office or Apple iWork?

Sorry if I just hi-jacked this thread.
 
@ snaffle

At this point, it's hard to even compare iWork to Office. iWork doesn't include a spreadsheet app, a database app or a Word-like word processor. It does include a rival to Powerpoint, Keynote, which I think is far superior. Pages is great though, it has some of the most impressive templates I have ever seen.

@kryke

true about Apple upgrading Pages rather than creating a new app. I guess I've always considered Pages more of a Publisher-type app than a Word-type app. Eventually Pages will probably be useful as both (it does make sense...MS really should merge Publisher and Word into one app IMO).
 
Microsoft Office:mac does not include a database app. Neither does Microsoft offer Pulisher for the Mac market, which is a very good thing. There is certainly no good reason to increase the bloat in Word by adding the unnecessary code for Publisher to it.
 
Posted awhile back about me exploring other word processors. Finally settled on Mellel. I purchased the license and shortly after, just recently, they announced Mellel 2. No upgrade license carried over, and if I want to use it I have to pay. In any event, if anyone wants a well developed Word replacement, with .doc compatibility, check out Mellel. It renders text exceptionally well. It loads in seconds, and is not bloated with useless features. Like I mentioned, my only complaint is new version without allowing any kind of pricing for upgrade.:mad:
 
I don't know how this turned into a discussion about the fate of MS office.

MS killed IE because they hadn't done anything with it in a long while and there were much better solutions on the Mac, they also weren't making any money off of it. Office on the other hand is the _standard_ office software package. They would be losing out on a lot of cash dropping it for the Mac, although it is slow as hell even on my G5... but that is a different story.

I personally got on my knees and thanked the internet gods the day MS dropped IE:Mac.
 
The fate of MS-Office is a non-issue. Microsoft makes substantial revenue from its Mac Business Unit (which equates to just Office, Virtual PC and MSN messenger) and the unit is quite profitable. MS are determined to preserve the perception of MS-Office as the industry standard. It simply is not going to be canned in the foreseeable future.

I liked Slashdot's tagline on the fate of Internet Explorer for Mac, though. It read something like "... as a result of this announcement, the Mac platform just became, by the tiniest fraction of a percent, even more secure and reliable."
 
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