Did you know that Microsoft are the longest standing developer group for mac products outside of apple? How ironic!
" In 1984, Microsoft's then-CEO Bill Gates was quoted as saying, "the Mac is the only microcomputer beside the IBM PC worth writing software for." At the time, Macs were still shiny and new like, well, a freshly picked apple. Holding true to his word, Gates oversaw the development of two little applications called Microsoft Word and Excel, which would eventually become household names.
Twenty years later, Microsoft continues to deliver on Gates' promise. At Macworld Conference and Expo 2004 in San Francisco this week, Microsoft announced plans to release Office 2004 for Mac and Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 in the first half of 2004. These new releases, and other products Microsoft makes for the Mac, are developed by an oasis of Mac-only developers in an otherwise Windows world at Microsoft: the Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU). The Mac BU has made its mark in the industry, and at Microsoft, in large part by transforming four applications -- Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Entourage -- into the most popular productivity suite for the Mac platform.
Passion for the Word
Macworld magazine Editor in Chief Jason Snell, one of 7 million passionate Office for Mac customers, began using Microsoft Word 3.0 for Mac in 1987 when he wrote for his high school newspaper. Snell immediately liked the program, finding it sophisticated, yet simpler to use than competing word processing applications. Nearly two decades have passed, and Snell is still using Word, specifically Word X, and considers it the standard word processing application for the Mac platform.
"Word is a fantastic program," says Snell. "My Mac wouldn't be as impressive without it. The features introduced in Word over the years have absolutely changed the way I work. For example, I used to highlight the changes I made to a document in different colors when editing. When Microsoft introduced Track Changes in Word 98, it changed the way I worked, ultimately helping me work more efficiently."
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