Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Developer
Microsoft's MacBU gets new GM: Craig Eisler
I know it is traditional for Mac users to dislike Microsoft, but I think that's silly. Outside of Apple, Microsoft is the largest Mac developer and they do make some cool software (can you imagine a world without Office? I can't. And judging from what I saw at Macworld 2007, Office for the Mac 2008 is going to rock). I bring all of this up because there is a new sheriff in the MacBU (that's the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft) town. Gone is Roz Ho, former General Manager of the MacBU. She has been replaced by Craig Eisler, though don't worry about Roz, she is still at Microsoft and we at TUAW wish her all the best.Check out Craig's first post on Mac Mojo and this post on his personal blog in which he lists ten things he loved from Apple.
Welcome, Craig, and when you get a chance could you make sure that Microsoft released a Universal Binary of Remote Desktop? That would make this blogger a very happy fellow.
[via News.com]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
vert said 3:21PM on 6-08-2007
I can't wait till "!" comes and call you guys a bunch of "switcheurs"...
Or is he banned already?
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Sabon said 3:25PM on 6-08-2007
"Welcome, Craig, and when you get a chance could you make sure that Microsoft released a Universal Binary of Remote Desktop? That would make this blogger a very happy fellow."
I second that. I remote into Windows computers all the time and it would be nice if it was UB.
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Scott McNulty said 3:31PM on 6-08-2007
Vert, we asked ! to try and be civil in the comments, but he refused so we had to ban him.
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Brady J. Frey said 3:43PM on 6-08-2007
"I know it is traditional for Mac users to dislike Microsoft, but I think that's silly..."
But us designers can still dislike them. IE 7 is just mopping up some of the mess; I don't take anything they say for face value anymore, only what they do.
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Yanone said 4:06PM on 6-08-2007
Thank you for letting us know. And by the way: I can't wait till that true mac port of OpenOffice comes out.
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Wheels said 4:24PM on 6-08-2007
"can you imagine a world without Office?"
I dream of a world without Office. Office gets so much wrong that I don't know where to start. Office, for the behemoth that Microsoft is, and the amount of developers work on both versions of Office, is schlock. And really, nearly everything Microsoft puts out can be characterized that way.
So excuse me if I don't like a company who should be able to put out quality like nobody's business but never does.
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d-90 said 5:39PM on 6-08-2007
To Yanone: A Mac port of OpenOffice that runs natively exists. NeoOffice. http://www.neooffice.org
"can you imagine a world without Office?"
I stared using NeoOffice/OpenOffice for work and home for about a year ago and haven't looked back since.
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C said 5:40PM on 6-08-2007
"can you imagine a world without Office?"
I used Corel stuff back in the day, so yes I can. Oh well...Office gets the job done, I guess.
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Thayne Miller said 5:53PM on 6-08-2007
here's another vote for neooffice. MS office just plain sucks.
oh, and don't forget about google docs & spreadsheets!!
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! said 5:55PM on 6-08-2007
This is a perfect example of why I think the Mac community has been compromised by using Office X, and other products from Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. As I have mentioned here before, I do not trust PC-type people. They do not think like us. They are not like us. They are as close to "alien life forms" as we can get without having to leave this planet.
Seriously, they do not share our values. They hate that we have good taste. They like to keep their windows maximized and their ligatures uncombined. They think gray is a color. Hell, most of them are perfect little squares in perfectly square holes and if you go to PC strongholds like Staten Island you'll see most of the media they consume is produced by Mac users, as the Windows demographic is incapable of creativity in music, the arts, interior design, etc.
They are backwards. They live in the 1980s. They've contributed nothing meaningful to humanity for decades and decades. While we different thinkers are out writing AppleScripts, making HyperCard stacks, mixing in Logic Pro, editing collaboratively in SubEthaEdit, proofing rainbow banners in Illustrator, creating wealth through a variety of postmodern/postindustrial models and winning Nobels and Pulitzers and Grammys and Tonys and Oscars and Pritzkers along the way, the PC users are sitting on their asses downloading the fruits of our labor (how else do you explain so many being able to reference Futurama, bash the New Yorker, etc.?) The only thing they have in their favor is old, fat, white-bread bankrolls accumulated on slavery and imperialism and, personally, I wish their inherited wealth would run dry. Sure, we'd have a hell of a headache funding our next indie production, but so would the whole world, and when faced with adversity the ingenuity of Mac users truly comes to the fore.
Anyway, back on point. Why don't I trust the Mac Business Unit?
Because to have PC-type people writing software to help us finance our projects, communicate with our studios, write our manifestoes and organize our political protests, is a disaster waiting to happen.
Whereas we may allow products from other dull, dogma-bound companies into our /Applications folder, none of them pledge allegiance to a corporate master churning out horrifying simulacra of Mac users' innovations. On top of that, given that they are run by Windows users, how easy would it be for one of them to allow a "friend" to dummy up a Trojan, have another "friend" port it to the Mac, and then allow another "friend" to unleash a remote controlled hell on our private Bonjour-configured LANs? After all, they are "blood", right?
Which leads me to how some in our own community are encouraging PC-type people to switch to the Mac.
If you go back and do some checking of stories, you will see that in most cases where lifelong Windows users suddenly buy Macs, or people who are Linux to the core suddenly pirate Intel OS X from the internet, it is almost all done in cahoots with another recent switcher (read: poseur) on the "inside" or one that "knows" someone on the inside.
So if we have these so-called "switchers" from Linux and Windows in the Mac community, facilitating crass, classless ass-pickery on our platform by encouraging more PC-type people to switch, just how far a stretch is it to say the PC users in charge of the MBU won't do the same when it comes to our applications? HMMMMM?!?!?!
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nycstern said 6:05PM on 6-08-2007
Given that VBA support has been removed from Excel in the new release of Office, I see no reason to upgrade. Now it's just a random spreadsheet with plenty of free competition.
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oxjox said 6:32PM on 6-08-2007
Hopefully Craig is better on stage than Roz.
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JohanB said 6:46PM on 6-08-2007
I can really recommend CoRD if you want a universal version of a remote desktop app.
"CoRD is a Mac OS X remote desktop client for Microsoft Windows servers using the rdp protocol. It is easy to use, fast, and free for anyone to use or modify."
http://cord.sourceforge.net/
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zerock said 9:19PM on 6-08-2007
They should mention Microsoft Messenger 7, i wonder whats up.
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Stephen Antonucci said 9:39PM on 6-08-2007
Good part of Europe already is Office free. I also "DREAM" this will happen here. The new Office will cost, and after the paying will not be on par with the Windows version as far as Macros. This is a crime to not be truly cross platform anymore. This is what us Mac users get for getting a bigger market share!
My advice is download NeoOffice and save a lot of money. I can't wait until the straggle hold of MS Office wilts in to a bad memory! With OpenOffice gaining in popularity and a Mac Aqua version on the way, this may happen sooner than you may think.
I watched as WordPerfect got killed off years ago by monopoly, not BETTER software!
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rvr said 10:32PM on 6-08-2007
imagine a world without office? i hardly use it anymore, and rarely miss it. so yeah, it's pretty easy to imagine. office, even though the mac version is better than the windows version (that's like a pile of crap is better than a steaming pile of crap?), is badly engineered bloatware. 90% of the features is has are used by 10% of the users, yet it's built as if every single user desperately needs all those features, all the time. i could go on. and on. but i won't. i have a hard time seeing how someone could come to rely on office as if it's a fantastic app that does so much so right. sorry.
so yeah, give me a world without office. please.
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JeffDM said 11:52PM on 6-08-2007
I'm still using an old version of WordPerfect Office (ver 8?), as well as NeoOffice, OpenOffice and even Pages, though Pages is more of a basic layout program than a text editor.
I haven't used MS Office in a long time, if ever.
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Elias said 4:10PM on 6-09-2007
I would also like a UB version of Remote Desktop that allows for multiple instances (without having to use RDC Menu).
I'm a Windows Server admin (for several companies) and I use my MacBook Pro every single day. This would make my life easier.
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