The Mac has always endure in a seat of oppositeness to Microsoft products , from the days when PCs running MS - DOS to today , when most of the Earth ’s information processing system run Microsoft Windows . It ’s easy to forget fact that Microsoft was one of the first major Mac software developer , given everything that ’s pass off since those days .
Every fourth dimension I drop a line about Microsoft , in print and online , the feedback I receive runs the gamut from indignant to accepting . What all Mac user have in vulgar is that we ’ve decided that the Mac is the best computer around ; but there are as many reason behind that decisiveness as there are Mac user . Sometimes it ’s about sheer dislike for Microsoft — I ’ll get letter from drug user who deny to use any Microsoft product on rationale . On the other extreme are people who never really minded using Windows , but discovered that the Mac was friendly and easier to employ .
I get plenitude of that kind of feedback when I indite my recent “ Parallels Universe ” column about using Parallels Desktop to run Windows XP . And here we are again , because the cover of the upcoming issue ofMacworldincludes an real Microsoft Windows Vista retail box . I mean I can feel those furious letter being composed even now .
The reason we compose so much about thatotheroperating organization is n’t that we do n’t do it our Macs . It ’s that Apple ’s switch to Intel processor has some profound implications for the Mac , ones that jeopardise to wipe out the Mac persecution complex once and for all , transmute feeling toward Microsoft from outright hostility into a shoulder joint - shrug indifference , and transform the Mac into a much more popular electronic computer than it ’s been over the last decade .
Trapped in a tiny box
Most people would probably say Mac user have a superiority building complex , not an inferiority composite . Yes , most of us are convinced that the Mac is good than Windows . But for most longtime Mac user , that feeling is blend with a common sense of vulnerability , of fear that some company ’s deficiency of Mac musical accompaniment will keep cool fresh product out of their reach evermore .
I used to get this feeling all the time . A new vane website would launch , but only ladder in the Windows rendering of net Explorer . A fresh or upgrade package program would be announced , but Mac support would be conspicuously absent . An modern piece of hardware would be relinquish , but you could n’t secure it into a Mac and have it cultivate properly , if at all .
That was all frustrating — infuriating , even . But the incompatibility issue was part and package of being a Mac user . You just had to deal with it . That ’s one of the great things about live in a world of Intel - based Macs : that fearfulness has for the most part dried up . Almost every day I play a session ofDiamond Mind , a baseball simulation that runs only on Windows . I ’ve watched a few hours deserving of streaming video that I get for free as part of myNetflixaccount , even though Netflix ’s Watch Now feature of speech is current incompatible with non - Windows systems .
Is throw to alternate into Windows an worriment ? You bet it is . Should web and software program developers support the Mac natively , without just snidely secern Mac users to corrupt a copy of Windows and a copy of Parallels ? Of of course they should . But a lot of them never will , and from now on being a Mac user never has to signify you ca n’t visit that Web site or play that dark programme if you really , desperately need to .
Fear of abandonment
When the Intel Macs were first announced , many commentators say that it would bring on the death of the Mac , because once Macs could run Windows , developer would simply cease ontogeny of the Mac versions of their software .
That has n’t happened yet , and while there may be a few case of it in the future tense , I do n’t see any immense Mac exodus coming down the thruway that would turn the Mac into an empty plate with a handful of Apple programme and a copy of Windows indoors .
Take the late documented event of an unearthed Microsoft memo from 1997 that shows Microsoft considered peril the cancellation of Office for Mac as a bargaining chip in contract negotiations with Apple . That train of thought has grabbed all the headlines , but if you take the original memo by Ben Waldman , then the read/write head of Microsoft ’s Mac Business Unit , you ’ll see something else : a portrait of a group of people who are committed to listening to Mac users and making the good possible Mac ware they can .
The end result of that development was Office 98 , which was an impressive tone ending that managed to right a luck of the wrongs of the legendarily bad give-and-take 6 . Not only was Office 98 immensely more Mac - like , but it was profligate than late versions and even included a collection of Mac - first innovation , include drag - and - cliff installation . The failure of Word 6 teach Microsoft a worthful moral : mackintosh drug user wanted to utilise computer software that ferment like the Mac , not software that puzzle out like Windows .
That example still holds true today . The ability to operate Windows software might give Mac users freedom , but if we like the mode Windows worked we ’d have chosen it . Most Mac developers , including Microsoft , empathize that . The ones who did n’t get that have departed from the Mac market place , and good riddance .
Where does Microsoft go tomorrow?
Then there ’s the larger consequence of Microsoft ’s future relevancy altogether . Already , Macs are the only computers in macrocosm that can switch over between Mac and Windows programs at will . Even if Microsoft toss off Office for Mac off whole ( and there ’s no sign of that happening anytime soon ) , it would n’t stand for now what it would have mean in 1997 .
Back then a lack of Office compatibility meant doom . Today , not only could Mac users run Office for Windows , but there are a score of government agency competitors that provide data file compatibility . Apple ’s TextEdit , a program do with every Mac , can open up and save Word - compatible Indian file . Numerous Mac programs offer compatibility with Microsoft Office . And of sterling concern to Microsoft is the rise of vane - based software program such asGoogle Docs & Spreadsheets , which render many of Word and Excel ’s most common features ( including opening and saving Word and Excel documents ) online .
So far , Microsoft ’s reception to the rise of Web - based political platform has been to reaffirm that it has no plans to move Office to the Web . I suspect that in a few years those statement will be as quaint as the horse cavalry and barmy , but Microsoft has reinvented itself before and it ’s got enough money to do so again . Repeatedly .
In any event , the futurity of Microsoft and its disposition toward the Mac is not among my major leaning of concern these day . I still use Microsoft Office on a unconstipated basis , and when I talk to the people at the Microsoft Mac Business Unit , I find that they still have a unattackable commitment to free the best Mac software they can . The next reading of Office will be Intel native and compiled using Apple ’s Xcode exploitation surroundings , a sign that Microsoft has made a serious investing in the future of the Mac reading of Office .
And in the meanwhile ? Hey , we all get to run all the Mac program we loveandthe Windows software program we must . Who else but Mac users gets to do that ? Nobody else , that ’s who .
