Quote:
Originally posted by va1entino
AppleOffice/iOffice/iWorks/whatever, won't see the light of day in my opinion. At least not for a while. Millions of people rely on Microsoft Office, and everyone uses the format.
Which is why the Apple office suite will use MS's formats, just as Keynote does.
Quote:
If Apple were to introduce their own Office suite tomorrow, MS would leave the Mac platform permanently, making the Mac a dinosaur once again.
Hmm, well maybe, but maybe not. Microsoft hasn't abandoned Powerpoint v.X now, has it?
The politics of the situation are complicated. I think Apple has a few cards in their hand to persuade MS to stay in the Mac platform.
I agree that I'm not sure whether Apple will compete head-to-head with MS Office with their suite -- at least right away. But they'll
definitely release a consumer/education-friendly iWorks suite within the next year. This is not a market segment that's threatening to MS, and it's very important to Apple, for at least three reasons:
- For the consumer market, Apple's steady sweetheart.
- An iWorks suite, built in Cocoa, can be readily expanded into a full professional suite, if Office v.X is threatened or begins to pale in feature-parity to the Windows version.
- Software is pure profit for Apple; they love to do it, and it's an increasing percentage of their revenue.