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Subtle hint from MS Office website: Get a Mac

by Michael Rose Jul 28th 2008 at 12:00PM

Going back to school? You'll need books, Microsoft Office... and a MacBook Pro, PowerBook G4, if the picture on Microsoft's Office back-to-school site is to be believed. Both the landing and inside pages of the site prominently feature the machines running what appears to be Office 2007 for Windows (which, of course, they can do with ease and grace). Still a bit surprising that the site doesn't feature a laptop from one of Microsoft's more traditional hardware partners.

This isn't the first time that we've seen Macs appear as Windows workstations via Microsoft's sites or events -- this Norwegian TV demo of Vista raised eyebrows for the distinctively iMacian nature of the demo machine. Perhaps the message from PC Magazine about the hardware that suits Vista best is getting through.

Update: As noted in the comments, the lack of an iSight clearly pegs this hardware as a G4, not a MacBook Pro -- so it can't run Office 2007 at all. Shame on me for missing it, but it's even funnier now.

Thanks Perrin!

Written by Michael Rose

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Lars Berntrop-Bos

Psah! There exist such a thing called Remote Desktop client for the mac, which could show a reasonable performing Office 2007 on a Powerbook G4, only office itself would be runnig on a PC somewhere out of view.

July 30 2008 at 10:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
cinaed

That's not the only hardware that doesn't run Windows that Microsoft has used in ads. About 5-8 years ago they ran an Exchange/Windows servers ad with an old IBM AS/400 pictured in a data center.

July 29 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to cinaed's comment
Big D

Thats somewhat true... But I just researched and found an article that was published September 13, 1999...

The article explains the ability to apply Windows onto the IBM AS/400.

Anyways, Bill Gates was the one who designed the IBM PC.

Source:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg242164.html

July 29 2008 at 7:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Big D

You guys are retarded... You actually think Microsoft will step this low for Apple? Oh Please, Microsoft is way better than that (better than Apple).

FYI: Thats a Sony VAIO VGN-N17L.

Sony is known to be one of Microsoft's "Traditional Hardware".

If you guys think that Sony copied this style from Apple, think again, Sony has always been making these kind of styles. Just look back through its history and see for yourself...

Examples:
Sony Vaio VGN-N11s
Sony Vaio VGN-N320E/W
etc...

July 29 2008 at 12:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Neil Anderson

What? I thought someone said Microsoft had no taste.

July 29 2008 at 9:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Blaktornado

They don't even show the Windows taskbar (it's because they're ashamed they're still using XP :P)

July 28 2008 at 11:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Blaktornado's comment
Big D

Microsoft if not ashamed... its called "Auto-hide the taskbar" just like in OS X.

July 29 2008 at 1:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MessengerBoy

That's not a PowerBook G4. I'm using one to write this post. First of all, the illustration above appears to have a CD port in the front the laptop. PowerBook G4 has them on the right side. Secondly, the other ports (i.e. the FireWire, USB, audio, etc. appear on the left side of the illustrated laptop. They are on the right side on a PowerBook G4.

Am I missing something?

July 28 2008 at 11:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to MessengerBoy's comment
scynn

@MessengerBoy while I may not be typing this on a PowerBook G4, I do have two at home. It sounds to me like you use a 12" Powerbook, correct? 15" PowerBook G4's have the slot in the front, not on the right. That is clearly not a 12" laptop in the picture. What really confuses me about your comments is your confusion of left and right. If your CD-ROM drive and all of your ports are on the right hand side of your notebook, what exactly is on the left side? Nothing? On a 12" powerbook G4 all of the ports are on the left. The picture above clearly shows the right side of the laptop, not the left. 15" PowerBooks have the audio ports, a USB port and others on the left side with the firewire ports and another USB on the right side.

August 06 2008 at 8:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MessengerBoy

scynn, you're correct. I guess I was having a senior moment. I am using a 12" PowerBook and the CD slot is on the right side and the ports are on the left side. Sorry for any confusion. Is the CD slot in the front on the 14" and 17" PowerBooks?

August 10 2008 at 7:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Erzzr

further proving that it is a powerbook is the slot-loading drive in the front, not the side, and it would probably be able to run office '07 using MS virtualPC for ppc macs, it would just be extremely slow, like, mind-bogglingly slow

July 28 2008 at 4:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MahRain

Since this is Microsoft, they're probably using VirtualPC emulating a 500MHz Pentium II, fullscreen with Windows XP and Office 2007 ;-)

July 28 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Wojtek

Oh, and by the way - a G4 Powerbook deals with Office 2007 without any performance problems. Office 2k7 is, you know, what they call "an Universal Binary". Are you new to Macs or what?

July 28 2008 at 2:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Wojtek's comment
Geoff

"... the lack of an iSight clearly pegs this hardware as a G4, not a MacBook Pro -- so it can't run Office 2007 at all."

Unless you count Virtual PC, which is now discontinued by Microsoft and unsupported under Leopard ... which would be perhaps the worst imaginable way to run Office 2007, and even funnier.

Or not.

July 28 2008 at 1:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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