Office X Discontinued?

tboxman

I was just notified that Microsoft may have discontinued Office X yesterday, March 11. Here is the quote I recieved, "It's just possible that Office X was discontinued yesterday." There is no link. This is coming from the bowels of the software distribution universe."



This was coming from a software developer.



If this is true, We will really need MS virtual PC now. This would cut developement costs, yet they still sell VPC and have Mac users as clients.



What do you think?

trailmaster308

Well it says that you can still take advantage of the "Office Romance" special until April 7th. I wonder what happens after that if your right? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

fuzz_ball

Wow! The voices in my head also said that big oil is going to give up its "dirty ways" and start mass producing clean energy!&lt;/sarcasm&gt;



Seriously, anybody on any discussion board can throw up *cough*troll-bait*cough* anything prefaced with "I heard..."



Provide some reference(s), then we'll consider whether this is worth the time to read - let alone to type this reply

amorph

Maybe Apple is further along with an Office replacement than we thought.



Or maybe MS is terrified of the imminent release of Nisus Writer for OS X. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

stunned

I like MS Office. Its one of the reasons I bought the Mac. Entourage is a great program with a great interace.



Though our MS Office is so much better than the MS Office for windows now, it will be sad to see the reverse in a few years time.

arbernaut

When have you ever known Microsoft to turn off a revenue stream? Office X might only be a small part of the MS empire, but it's a profitable part, unlike, say, the X-Box...

os10geek

Yes. Entorage kicks butt. And all Mac businesses have Office.

tboxman

I was only passing on what I was told. They guy wouldn't divulge more info, nor can I confirm it. I can only tell you I'm not making it up, and he isn't either. But because he heard something, doesn't mean it's true.



Just thought everyone here would like the first crack at info like this.



I use MS Office every week, and would hate to see it go. Unfortunalty, with the strangle hold Microsoft has on the technology field, Apple still needs MS Office for the survival of the Mac platform. If Apple were to release a Uber-Appleworks, or some new Office type application, it would need to seamlessly read and write Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Microsoft can easily change the file format, and we are back into the game of being "less than compatable".



Seems Apple is always battling this perception in the marketplace.



Hoping it isn't so,

Terry

jared

Yeah...the Mac BU at Microsoft went belly up...because Microsoft is cutting costs. Hundreds of people will be out of their jobs. They put millions of dollars into development and advertising. To bad...



Uh no...it is not like they would not cut something which they know they are making a lot of money off of. There are still plans of Microsoft making an Exchange solution for Mac OS X

othello

i remember reading somewhere that the mac bu makes more profit (measured against investment/staff etc) than any other department at M$

chych

Also heard that mac users spend more on microsoft products than windows users...

matsu

The technology exists to deliver a fully platform agnostic "Office" (running in a browser window) to the mass market. How much longer can M$ really hold onto the Office revenue stream?

gizzmonic

Figuratively speaking, Microsoft would cut off its right arm if it thought it would hurt its competition. It loves wars of attrition because has the resources to prevail in the computer world.



MS has done stuff like break NT so it wouldn't work with Netscape Directory Server, to encourage people to use Exchange Server. It would break the hugely profitable Office X if it were truly at odds with Apple, and it thought that it would hurt Apple.



That being said, I don't think relations are that bad between Apple/MS. I just think the MacBU is dragging its feet (seriously, when was the last time IE got a real update, 2001?)

hobbes

Why would MS deal its ace card against Apple right now? What would be the intended purpose?



Doesn't make sense to me.

mrmister

Bah. Maybe development of Office v.X has stopped because the next version, which they have previously announced and confirmed repeatedly, is where their emphasis is.



I prattled on about MSFT and how they feel about Apple a while ago, so I won't repeat here. Until there's a lot better evidence, this is aggressive FUD.

tboxman

[quote]Originally posted by mrmister:

<strong>Bah. Maybe development of Office v.X has stopped because the next version, which they have previously announced and confirmed repeatedly, is where their emphasis is.



I prattled on about MSFT and how they feel about Apple a while ago, so I won't repeat here. Until there's a lot better evidence, this is aggressive FUD.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Since I posted the orginal message, I wouldn't call it FUD. I was thinking something along the same lines as your hypothesis was possible. The developer I was talking to wasn't meaning to spread any kind of rumor, he was simply repeating something he had heard.



I would imagine you are correct. Development of the current version of Office X has been discontinued, while developement of Office Mac suite continues.



Not meaning to spread FUD,

Terry

addison

FUD? What does this mean.

paul

fear uncertainty doubt

defiant

FUD /fuhd/ n. Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering [Amdahl] products." The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. See IBM. After 1990 the term FUD was associated increasingly frequently with Microsoft, and has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon.

artman @_@

...thought it was F@cked Up Dreck...which is what this "news" is.

mac os x addict

[quote]Originally Posted By Othello:

i remember reading somewhere that the mac bu makes more profit (measured against investment/staff etc) than any other department at M$<hr></blockquote>



Yeah, I remeber reading that as well. MS makes a lot of money from Mac s/w.



To get back on topic. MS is not going to be cutting MS Office for the Mac anytime soon. There is a lot of revenue comng in from it. When Apple comes out with there Word and Excel alternative, MS will still be there providing competition. Competition, that is a new one for MS anyway. But Office is a a revenue boat for MS. Do you see Adobe running away when Apple released FCP? I didn't and MS won't run away. The greenback is just too powerful.