It was easy to miss among the talk of the town of iLife updates and MacBook Pro unveiling , but today ’s Expo tonic also featured the later development in the Microsoft - Apple saga , a relationship with more twists and turn than your average romance novel .
The light translation : Apple and Microsoft are still buddies . The slightly longer version : Microsoft and Apple ink a new agreement in November 2005 that lists the following three conditions :
Now possibly you ’re like me and you ’re wondering , “ Or else what ? ” In others , just for the saki of statement , permit ’s say Apple has a innovative technology that itdoesn’tdeliver to Microsoft in a timely manner — what happens then ?
A whole lot of nothing , says Scott Erickson , film director of product management and merchandising with the Microsoft Mac Business Unit . “ This [ correspondence ] is n’t about [ penalties ] , ” he said , when my colleague , Jim Dalrymple and I , posture the indelicate question . “ It ’s about reassuring the public . ”
In other words , this is a pact that essentially re - affirms what Microsoft and Apple have already been doing for some time now for the express purpose of spiking all those eternal “ Will Microsoft desert the Mac ? ” stories — at least until late 2010 , anyhow .
Maybe you also mark that the agreement seems to only name Office while neglect anotherMicrosoft offer . So I posed that interrogation to Erickson , too .
Not to interest , he say . “ We ’re waiting for the last version of MacTel to become available ” before seeing how Virtual PC accommodate into the parliamentary law of thing , he say . “ But we ’re very interested in continuing that product . ”
Just so there ’s no confusedness , though , let ’s see what Roz Ho , worldwide managing director of the Mac BU , has to say , in a quote purloin directly fromMicrosoft ’s own military press material :
And if that does n’t assure you , consider that the last time Microsoft and Apple announced a five - year accord during an Expo tonic , it featuredthe Big Brother - like kisser of Bill Gates smile down on Steve Jobs . So at least this time around , you were spared that visual .
