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Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, aka the Mac BU, just released the long - awaited Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2004 Macintosh. In recent months, they announced their commitment to not only the next version of Office, “Office 12” for the Mac, but also to supporting the new XML formats that Office 12 on Windows will have. (Note that you're going to have to go to Mac news sources on the Apple 2005 WorldWide Developer Conference to get the annnouncement from Roz Ho about Mac Office 12, and to Rick Schaut's blog to get the XML announcement. Finding information on the Mac BU from Microsoft is like finding out about that brother that no one in the family likes. I'm kind of surprised the SP 2 announcement even made it into PressPass. The Mac BU tends to get ignored by the rest of the company.)

That last statement The Mac BU tends to get ignored by the rest of the company is a critical one, and the reason for this article. The Mac BU, and Microsoft's treatment of them, are at a crossroads. Yes, they've made some good announcements, and yes, I think they'll deliver as much as they're able, or allowed to. I know some of the folks there, and who have worked there in the past, and they are brilliant, focused, and do the best work they can for the resources they have. The Mac BU's problems aren't caused because they don't care about their customers. The Mac BU's problems are caused because, from what anyone can see, Microsoft doesn't really care about the Mac BU, and doesn't really consider the Mac BU's customers to be “real” Microsoft customers. (Note: Obviously, I don't work for Microsoft. So the viewpoint you get here isn't an “insider's”. It's the viewpoint of a long time Microsoft Mac software customer (pre Word 5.1 even), and someone who's been a part of the Mac news community since about 1999. The customer viewpoint is probably the important one.)

First, it's not like the Mac BU is even considered to be a producer of business software. The best evidence? They're not even in the same division as the main Office team. They're in the Home and Entertainment division, which was subsumed into the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division with the recent MS reorg. Where is Windows Office? In the new Microsoft Business Division, which inherited the Information Worker division, Win Office's former home.

So let's look at that: According to Microsoft, Win Office is a business software product, Mac Office is home and/or entertainment software. Mac Office is in the same division as the Xbox, Windows Mobile, and embedded software/devices. What's the mission of the Entertainment and Devices Division? From the press release:

The new Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division, which combines the current Home and Entertainment Division with the current Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, will consolidate Microsoft’s industry engagement around devices to deliver even richer and more relevant scenarios for individuals at work, at home and when they’re mobile. It will also bring more focus to the company’s efforts in entertainment and related devices and services. Accordingly, the senior vice president of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Pieter Knook, will report to (Robbie) Bach.

Anyone care to take a guess as to who is going to be the begging orphan of this division? Even worse, once again, communications between the Windows and Mac Office units are going to have to cross major division boundaries. Anyone who's lived in corporate America knows how difficult that is on a good day when you don't have to do it a lot. When you are talking about the level of communications required between the Mac Office and Win Office teams, the...wrongness of this decision jumps out at you.

But the truth of it is, Microsoft doesn't take the Mac BU's work seriously. It's a throwaway division. In its 2004 annual report, the Mac BU is only mentioned in passing, in the sense that its profit acted as an offset to the Xbox losses of that year, and that revenue from Office 2004 was expected to increase in 2005. It creates a business product, Mac Office, yet it lives in, and competes for budget dollars and resources in the same division as the Xbox and joysticks, and now, Windows Mobile.

If you want another example of how little respect the Mac BU has from the senior leadership at Microsoft, read this transcript from an internal Microsoft meeting talking about Apple as a competitor, and in theory, the Mac BU. Did they take any time at all to talk up the Mac BU and all the work they do? No. Not a single damned word. They took a lot of time to slam on Apple, but the Mac BU means so little to them, that they weren't even worthy of some form of faint praise. Even Ballmer makes sure to quickly push the Mac BU to the end of the line behind “Let's rag on Apple”:

Steve Ballmer: We'll let Jim talk about Apple in general as a competitor, and then we'll go from there.

They had a great chance to talk about their fellow Microsoft employees first, (or at all for that matter). They had the chance to talk about how, in spite of competing with Apple, the Mac BU does great work, and will continue to do great work. Heck, one of the harshest critics of Apple in that article is Robbie Bach, and he is now running the division that the Mac BU is a part of. He's their boss. Did he say a damned thing about them? No. Instead, they slagged the iPod, and ignored the Mac BU. That happens a lot when you talk to senior Microsoft leadership about the Mac BU. Nervous laughter and “oh look, a shiny new change of subject!” Maybe if you're lucky, some mumbled stuff about how they're the largest set of Mac developers outside of Apple, (although the number of times you hear Microsoft management outside of the Mac BU say that probably only take 3 bits to count), and the Mac BU is an important division for Mac users. That's not the attitude I want from the company providing critical software for me and my company. It speaks of a lack of real commitment to the product from the people making the decisions. It shows the lack of confidence and support the rest of the company has for the Mac BU. It also has to make the Mac BU feel really good when Microsoft senior management won't ever talk nice about them in public. Kind of like being pretty enough to sleep with, but not pretty enough to be taken anywhere that someone might see you together.

Which now, with Office 12 coming up creates the question:

With Microsoft senior management almost ignoring the Mac BU, why should I upgrade to Office 12?

This has nothing to do with what the Mac BU will turn out. I know they'll do quality work with the resources they have available. They always do. I still have yet to find anything that makes me want to give up Entourage, and that's before I started using it with Exchange. I know how hard they worked on Service Pack 2. I admire that group, I respect that group, every one of them. Some of the smartest people ever to write Mac software work there, or have worked there.

But outside of Entourage, why do I use Office? It's not because it's easy to use. It's really not. Not even close. Word has a clunky UI, especially for Styles, but I despise how Cocoa applications deal with certain text features I use, and nothing for me comes close to Word's “Track Changes” feature. Keynote is a really nice product, but has a lame AppleScript dictionary, and gets boggy to use as your presentation gets bigger. It also creates massive files, and I'm really happier with how PowerPoint does things. I still don't use Excel more than maybe twice a year, so that's a non-issue.

But the primary reason is that you just can't reliably round trip Office files through non-Office applications and not have them fall to hell. However, thanks to the rather cavalier treatment of the Mac BU and Mac Office by Microsoft, you can't reliably round trip files between Mac Office and Win Office either. It's better than say, through Open Office, but it's not as effortless as it should be. I mean, they're both Microsoft Office, right? This stuff should just work. But it doesn't. As well, did you save that Word 2003 file as XML? Good luck round tripping that through Office Mac. In Office 2004, only the Mac version of Excel supports XML right now.

Now, a lot of this is due to that nasty OLE - thing that is the current Office file format. Microsoft has never made it easy to handle that format, and it shows in the problems that non-Microsoft software has in dealing with it. But in Office 12, we get XML on the Mac and Windows, right? So the round tripping will be no problem between Mac and Windows Office, right? In fact, it should be easier than ever to round trip through things like Open Office too, right?

Well, that should be right, however, that creates its own problem. Let's take a look at the primary reason for using Mac Office: File Format Compatibility and Entourage. Well, if everyone can read and write those file formats correctly, why are we using Mac Office? Entourage. Eventually, someone's going to make a decent Entourage competitor. Then why should you spend hundreds of dollars on Mac Office?

Well, if you're talking about Win Office, it's easy. There's a plethora of Windows server functions that make Office more attractive. IRM, (as distasteful as it is, there are cases where IRM is useful), Live Meeting, OneNote, Enterprise Project Management Solution, SharePoint, Content Management Server, and others. These things all work with Office Win to add value to Office far beyond any individual application within Office.

Out of all of those, how many can Office Mac integrate with?

Zero. None. The closest you get are the ones like SharePoint that happen to partially work with a web client that isn't IE 6 on Windows. Most of them don't.

So we come back to the question...other than file format compatibility, what does Mac Office do for me or my business? Entourage?

(Note, if it seems like I'm ignoring Microsoft's other Mac products, I am. Messenger is, with version 5, no longer quite as crippled as it once was, but it's still a weak, wavering shadow of its Windows counterparts, and the Mac version of Windows Media Player isn't done, as far as I know, by the Mac BU. That's a good thing, because WiMP Mac is the biggest embarrassment for Microsoft since Bill Gates tried to get a court to believe he only pretended to be a genius, and was in fact, a blithering idiot. That worked about as well as WiMP Mac does. Virtual PC is a bright spot in this, but I'm waiting to see what they do with VPC on the Mac next. Besides, you use VPC because you have to run Windows applications and Remote Desktop Connection won't cut it. You don't run VPC because it's fast or convenient.)

The fact is, that if Office 12 Mac is just a new version of Office 2004, but doesn't do anything more on the back end, if it doesn't provide better integration with Microsoft's server backend products, then why do I, or anyone else need to buy or recommend it? We won't need it for the new file formats, heck, they're XML, and reasonably open, so everyone will be able to deal with them. If someone comes out with a good Entourage competitor, like a version of Evolution that runs as a native OS X application in the Aqua environment, then all we need Office for is legacy documents. We already have that solution: Microsoft Office 2004.

If Microsoft wants people to buy Office 12 in any quantity it has to become, as much as technically possible, the equal of Office 12 on Windows. It cannot be this thing with the same name, yet none of the enterprise features, otherwise why lay out the money? I know I'm going to need a lot more than an update to Office 2004 to get me to recommend that my company, or anyone I'm working for or with to lay out the cash on this update.

Now, some folks won't have the option of running an Office competitor on the Mac. They'll need Office because they need that integration. So they'll go with Windows, probably via Remote Desktop Connection, until it's time for hardware upgrades. Then they'll just buy a Windows box and run Office 12 natively. Now, in that scenario, Microsoft ends up winning more. Okay, so eventually, under this scenario, they'd kill the Mac BU because no one's upgrading to Office 12 Mac, but they'll have more Windows and Windows Office sales. But they'd eventually lose, because these won't be happy, willing users. They'll be using Windows and Office because they were forced to. They're captives, not volunteers. Eventually captives escape. They'll dump Microsoft the first chance they get, and they'll never look back. Customers that hate you are bad customers. Really. For exhibit one, I give you the State of Massachusetts.

Please note that I'm just echoing what has been said for years by folks doing Mac IT work. From a post on the MacEnterprise list:

I've been doing some thinking at work and I might have some problems keeping the Mac user group on Macs in the coming years. Why? A lack of feature parity in MS Office.

I just wanted to share these concerns and to get everyone thinking about things like the rights management. This is exactly the sort of feature that management loves to make manditory. If they do that, then say , “Bye
bye Mac!”. I've expresed my concerns to our MS rep. I suggest you do the same.

In either case, without something more than “It's Office, it opens Office files and talks to Exchange”, there's not a lot of reason to to lay out the cash for another version of Mac Office, and if that doesn't happen, kiss the Mac BU and any non-windows software from Microsoft goodbye.

If this sounds a bit Cassandra-ish, well, maybe it does. But that doesn't change the reality of the situation. However, I'm not alone in this. Even various Mac Office MVPs say the same thing. That the Mac BU doesn't matter to Microsoft, and that some folks in senior or close to senior management at Microsoft have the attitude of “Stop complaining, you're lucky we make software for you at all you Mac losers”. (Yes, they do. Don't even try to tell me otherwise, I have far too many people telling me the same story, and none of them like telling it.) Microsoft's attitude towards the Mac BU is so bad that I've had to tell software VARs that yes, Microsoft in fact does make Mac software. These are the same people who can practically quote me every MS Windows SKU from memory. But I have to give them the URL on Microsoft.com to prove to them that Office 2004 for the Mac exists, because Microsoft doesn't push Office Mac at all outside of the Mac press and Mac events. They don't even license Mac Office the same way as Win Office, and that includes good and bad.

If Microsoft wants the Mac BU and Office 12 for the Mac to thrive, the have to get over the attitudes that Mac users don't need enterprise software, and that they're lucky that Microsoft writes software for them at all. The Mac BU's customers are Microsoft customers, just as much as the people who are Win Office customers. They pay good money for what the Mac BU puts out, and they deserve Office on the Mac. A real version of Office that plays perfectly with Win Office, and works correctly with the Office Server back ends. They need this. They have told Microsoft this for years, and for years, been ignored on this. That has to stop.

The Mac BU isn't writing games. They write business software. They should be in the same division as Win Office. The attitude that the rest of Microsoft has towards them has to stop. Now. It should have never been allowed to flourish, and the fact that it has is directly Gates and Ballmer's fault. (Those are the two running the show for the Mac BU's existence, they get the blame for how Microsoft treats the Mac BU. Yes I know Gates had a hand in creating the Mac BU, but it's been abandoned ever since.) They aren't some group of losers that Microsoft is being charitable in employing. When they leave the Mac BU, they go to other places in Microsoft. MSN in particular, but also the team that did Microsoft Max. That's right. One of the folks that wrote Max is one of the smartest people to ever write Mac software, and probably one of the smartest people in any room anywhere. Think about what they do. A team that has less people, (probably including the janitors) than just the Windows Outlook team does Office. With comparatively no manpower, no money, and no resources, and they put out far more product than the Outlook team does. They're probably one of the only teams at Microsoft doing such amazing work in such comparative poverty of money, resources and support from senior management. They should be held up and admired, not shoved to the back of the bus and ignored.

They need to be taken seriously. Not ignored, not relegated to being a way to mitigate some other division's losses. They aren't a throwaway group that is just there to show the DOJ that Microsoft isn't focused on putting everyone in the software business who isn't them, out of business. Microsoft senior management needs to not look surprised when the Mac BU is mentioned or change the subject as quickly as possible. They need to talk about the Mac BU with the same enthusiasm as they talk about the Win Office team. For the love of god, move the Mac BU out of the games and home division and move them into the business unit. Give them the same kind of care that the Win Office team gets. The Mac BU has come up with some original stuff and Win Office has benefitted from that. They deserve better than what they currently get from Microsoft senior management.

The rules have changed. With XML, the old reasons for Mac Office are gone. Microsoft has to allow the Mac BU to write a version of Office that plays at the same level as Win Office. Otherwise, there's not going to be a need for the Mac BU much longer, and that would be a real shame.

Note that if anyone from Microsoft wants to talk to me to show me I'm wrong here, I am at your disposal for an open, honest chat. (jwelch@bynkii.com)

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