Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Blogging
Microsoft Mac BU launches blog
I'm a blog booster (shocking, huh?) and I am all for open communications between gigantic faceless corporations and users. Microsoft has taken the lead with having its employees staff official, Microsoft hosted, blogs. It looks like the Mac Business Unit (the Mac BU) of Microsoft has thrown its hat into the blogging ring.Remember that Microsoft is the second largest Mac developer in the world (who is number one? Apple), so before you bash 'em in the comments remember that lots of people use Office very happily on their Macs.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Austin Heller said 8:10PM on 8-30-2006
Good for them. I like the Mac BU, and use Office almost on a daily basis (even though I haven't yet forgiven them for making IE).
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Justin said 7:32PM on 8-30-2006
I'd like to see some actual accounting for the claim that MS is the second largest mac developer... They now offer only one for-pay product for the mac. File services for Macintosh is being discontinued (and hasn't been developed in a while...).
How do they figure the numbers? Beause they have more programmers or employees than other people? I'd really question that after the Adobe / Macromedia merger.
Furthermore, it could be argued that simply having a lot of programmers doesn't mean they're actually all that productive or the products they produce are all that good....
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John Russell said 8:56PM on 8-30-2006
I prefer iWork to M$ Office anyday.
iWork '06 > M$ Office '04
Seriously M$, update Office for mac already.
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andy said 8:32PM on 8-30-2006
cool, just asked them if they are forced to keep features off of the mac msn messenger lol
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jason mark said 10:11PM on 8-30-2006
Microsoft MBU does a great job of shipping quality applications ready for real businesses. We use Office every day around here. Word, and Excel are musts in a business enviornment, and they perform wonderfully.
Entourage has some issues, but a lot less than Mail. A couple of people around here try Mail every time there's a new OS (Tiger, Panther, etc.), but it does every quite "just work" the way Entourage does (simple things like correctly autofilling email addresses).
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Wojtek said 11:03PM on 8-30-2006
Hmm, how about a comment on the blogs themselves? I think the writing itself is OK, might provide some good insight. Keep it coming.
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Robert said 2:08AM on 8-31-2006
I agree with Justin. I would like to see some accounting for claims that MS is the second largest developer, based solely on Office for Mac. I often see this claim but NEVER do I see any numbers to back it up.
That said, I like the Mac BU. They do a nice job with Office, and while it's not flawless it is pretty close to it.
It's great that they are doing a Mac blog. Anything that increases their profile in the Mac community is a good thing for users and a good thing for them. It can only encourage more sales and more software development.
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David said 4:00AM on 8-31-2006
Uhm, Office almost flawless? Far from it, really. I also use it almost-daily, and while it works, it's generally slow as hell. Booting up Word takes way to long, which really shouldn't have to happen on the hardware that I use.
Don't get me wrong, I find it's great that Microsoft has Office for the Mac, but dang, upgrade the bastard will ya...
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deev said 11:35AM on 8-31-2006
david,
do you have acrobat installed on your machine?
-deev
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Jeff said 6:26AM on 8-31-2006
Color me unimpressed.
I recommend OpenOfffice.org to anybody who asks, and those who don't.
C'mon people get off the MS kool-aid!
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alex hofstetter said 7:00AM on 8-31-2006
Here's another blogger from the MAc BU:
http://davidweiss.blogspot.com/
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Ehic said 12:40AM on 9-01-2006
David, da reason Office boot up soo slow is that you're using a Intel Mac or a G3.
And i think Pages does no serious work at all.
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Mr Lizard said 8:18AM on 8-31-2006
@ #8: What hardware are you using?
It only takes 4 seconds to fire up on my MacBook, 2ghz & 2GB Ram.
I rarely notice it's running under Rosetta, except when hitting print I notice a slight lag compared with, say, Pages.
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peeweejd said 8:40AM on 8-31-2006
I'm a whiz on office at my work. Some people say that I know Excel better than Bill Gates, and I bet I do. Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck on PCs at work.
I have office at home on my mac and I find it to be good software. I dont see why people bitch about it so much. With a few minor exceptions, I think office on teh mac is better than office on the PC.
OT
regarding the "IE" comment above.. IE for the mac was a very good browser for its time IMO. It was much better than its PC counterpart and by far the best browser on the Mac in the OS9/early OSX days. Opera charged money. Netscape Navigator was huge, ugly and slow. Camino was not born yet. Safari was still just a dream. It suffered from a lack of development later in its life, but there was nothing wrong with it.
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Mark said 9:07AM on 8-31-2006
I don't mean this to an attack or anything, but I just commented on another, reputable, blog for a complete inability to find a link to the subject matter. This isn't much better. "Blogging ring" is a completely misleading phrase to link to when the target of the link, Microsoft's Mac BU blog is better served by "thrown its hat" as a phrase. Better yet: "thrown its hat into the Blogging ring with its [new blog]."
Best practices and solid writing for the web make things better for everyone.
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Patrick said 10:17AM on 8-31-2006
"Entourage has some issues"
Wow, that's the best laugh I've had all week!
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