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Showing messages 1 through 11 of 11.

• Two things...
  2002-08-05 08:44:32  zzzurn [Reply | View]
  
  
  1. Microsoft is complaining about soft sales of Office v.X, not about sales of Mac OS X. They want Apple to help them firm up those sagging Office v.X sales or else...
  
  2. For the people Tim quoted, they should know that the abbreviation should be "Mac", not "MAC". Macintosh is not an acronym for anything.

• Office for X Vs. X-Box
  2002-08-01 14:44:15  kimwilliamson [Reply | View]
  
  
  If Mr. O'Reilly is correct in his assumption of profitability for Microsoft in sales of the Mac OS X version of the Office suite, then the folks in Redmond can hardly excuse themselves from further Mac development based on revenue concerns. If money is the problem, then they should turn off the hemorrhaging that the X-Box represents. Given the overall business woes, however well deserved, that Microsoft has now and will face in the future, one wonders if the company doesn't see the X-Box as one way out. It appears it is, although with a different definition of "out," where the word is usually paired with "down and."

• MAC Usage
  2002-07-29 21:58:14  ashishn [Reply | View]
  
  
  These comments may not apply to the article but I would like to point out that in countries like India where Windows usage is almost 100 %, Apple has failed to project MAC as an alternative.
  
  I have not seen any advertisement which can help user understand the advantages of MAC over Windows. Technical specifications are hardly made available and I think Apple is a very arrogant company who cares only about rich peole who can spend $1500 (This is what we in India have to pay for a MAC) or more for a MAC system.
  
  When someone thinks of computers in India, he thinks of Windows. Can Apple attract the mass market with low prices ? How much processor and OS power an average person uses on a computer ? Does putting more and more features and power into a system make it better than other ?
  
  NO.
  
  Make it affordable to public, cut the costs, cut upgrade costs, try hard at markets like India, make it a popular application development platform, make OS X run on Intel platform.
  
  I donot want a computer to watch and create only movies. I also want to develop applications on it.
  
  Can Apple do this ? If it does then I will buy a MAC.

• Additional Followup Comments from Mac and MS developers
  2002-07-22 20:23:42  Tim O'Reilly | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I've received a couple of followup messages by email, which I've posted as separate blog entries. If you're following this thread, you might want to see More on MS Mac FUD and MS Mac Developer Responds.

• Slight Math Correction
  2002-07-20 20:33:01  spenser [Reply | View]
  
  
  Sorry, Tim, but when I went to school (granted that was a really long time ago), 300000 out of 800000 was 37.5% penetration, not 20%.
  
  Anyone who thinks that Office's market penetration has anywhere near as much to do with the sniping as Apple's "Switcher" campaign is being naive.
  
  There are two things holding Office's penetration back -- a lot of the OS X sales have been to Unix converts and if anyone thinks less of Microsoft than Mac-fanatics, it is the Unix and Linux world. Office isn't going to sell to those people. The second is Office's pricing. The upgrade price is almost reasonable, but it is more than many are willing tospend when they had recently purchased Office: 2001 (which still works in Classic) and they don't feel that the additional features, even being native, are worth the cost. I bought it because I needed it for work.
• Slight Math Correction
  2002-07-22 18:22:22  Tim O'Reilly | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Ah, but the MS 300,000 figure was for 2002 ytd (6 months) while the Apple figure was 800,000 for the second quarter. 300,000 isn't 20% of 1.6 million either but given the precision of the data (I know neither how many machines Apple sold in the first quarter, nor how many had OS X installed), 20% seems like a pretty reasonable rounding of the data.
  

  
  As to the analysis of OS X adoption being heavy among the Unix/Linux crowd, that confirms my own observations. However, I would disagree that that crowd doesn't want Office. While they often dislike Microsoft in theory, in practice, dual booting under Linux is extremely common, because people do need to read and write Office files.
  

• Here we go again!
  2002-07-20 07:32:27  mindstream [Reply | View]
  
  
  Of course, we are all 100% plugged into the actual contractual agreement under which microsoft put money into this? And of course, even if those criteria aren't being met we expect microsoft to stick with it because...um...because why?
  
  I don't actually take sides in all of this nonsense, but I am tired of those that think microsoft needs to act like the apache group. in many of these instances, this is simply called business. We all make similar decisions, albeit on a much smaller scale, everyday.
  
  If they've pulled a fast one, then I agree that they should pay the consequence. But many seem to argue that the great beast (read Microsoft) has no right to exist or do business for a profit. That's pure bull!
• Here we go again!
  2002-07-22 18:27:21  Tim O'Reilly | [Reply | View]
  
  
  No one said that MS has to stick with the Mac market. But it does seem to me that making an announcement on the eve of MacWorld that you're rethinking your support for the platform can't be anything but a calculated attempt to put a stick in Apple's spokes.
  

  
  And as I tried to say in my article, I believe that Apple has been baiting Microsoft as well. This is far from one-sided. But it's still ugly, and I would rather see both sides trying to win users. While Apple's "switcher" campaign is a poke at Microsoft, it is a positive marketing statement -- "Choose our product" -- while the Microsoft message is purely negative. "Don't choose their product. Even if our stated lack of committment to the Mac market hurts our Mac products, it will hurt Apple more."

• Is MS greedy? Check my math...
  2002-07-19 15:01:27  odellj_wi [Reply | View]
  
  
  I haven't seen anyone else talk about the numbers. What does 300,000 copies of Office v.X translate into in real money? Assume all the copies are upgrades (which they weren't, but this is a worst case scenario) ($275/copy). Assume they were sold at a 100% retail markup, and MS gets 50% of that (again, a worst case scenario).
  $275*0.5*300,000 = $41,250,000. Keep in mind Office came out in October, 2001. That means 10 months ago. Is it reasonable to assume that it would take that long to break even (again as a worst case scenario)?
  
  Let's figure out what that revenue translates into in programmer's time. Assume everybody associated with the project a)worked on it full-time b)was compensated at $100,000 (again, an over-estimate, because packaging people, interns, programmers with few years of experience, and maybe QA people never see that kind of money) c)devoted 3 years to Carbonizing the code they had already written (I really doubt it took that long, but I am not a programmer). Take the $41 million above and divide by $300,000 and you come up with 137.5 programmers. So, now tell me, are they breaking the bank programming Office v.X, or is Office just not the profit center they anticipated to use to fund their .Net Borg collective?
• Is MS greedy? Check my math...
  2002-07-22 19:16:31  Tim O'Reilly | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have heard that the Office X Mac team is 12 programmers. Of course, there are lots of other people besides developers who are involved in the development and marketing of a product. And salaries are not the only costs for personnel. Still, it's clear that this product would be a success by any one else's standards. Of course, Microsoft *does* have higher standards for profitability. If I recall from a few years ago, the Software Publishers Association published figures showing that the average revenue per employee at small software developers was somewhere around $130,000/year, while at the big guys like Microsoft and Oracle, it was $600,000/year (or so.) I don't know what proportion the developer team is to other MS employees, but it's certainly possible that the Mac software unit is less profitable than other parts of Microsoft. This doesn't have to be "greed" -- it can be a realistic assessment of "opportunity cost." But of course, it's still early in the OS X market, and I believe that the opportunity is huge.
  

• Let MS pull the plug - who needs them
  2002-07-19 09:58:17  rlong1 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Since every OS X app creates a flawless .pdf file, PC users can now open any document I create. This is GREAT! Who needs Word compatability. Also, Mariner Calc and Write appear to be very close in features to Word and Excel. Plus any document I create can be sent to Windows users in .pdf format. Apple should buy this company. I can send beautiful pdf docs to others and know that they will be able to open and read (which is all I want them to do.) With the addition of Acrobat, I can do even more. Plus, any doc can be a slide show - who needs power point.
  
  Who needs all those viruses?
  
  I use a computer alot but I find little need in owning a MS product. In fact, my computing experience is better because of it. With the web, creating a .pdf document makes more sense than a word doc.
  
  MS's comments may have been financially motivated but they should get the message that they just are not needed anymore.
  
  What surprises me is that the large PC box makers have not pooled resources to come up with a Linux OS as easy to use as OS X. They also better wake up, MS is getting into the hardware business (X-box and its direction). MS is bad for the tech industry.
  
  Although I would buy Office for $199, ; )