Microsoft's reputation as thieves is only going to get worse over the coming years.
Did you read today's news about MSFT ?wanting? to settle with Eolas? Like my pa always said, ?Want in one hand and $#!@ in the other and see which one fills up first.?

It's all beginning to make sense now. Nod nod wink wink. Say no more.

------------
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5173287....

The next round in Microsoft's Web browser patent fight will unfold in an obscure bureaucratic proceeding that offers the company and its allies few, if any, chances to argue their side.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last month issued a preliminary finding that appeared to tip the closely watched case in Microsoft's favor: A patent... may have been wrongly granted, the agency acknowledged.

------------
Sound like a familiar play? You see, it's always very important to examine the words. EVERY word. And repeat it to yourself (you can even move your lips, if that makes you feel more sure) until you know you understand what the word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter, book says.

See, if you had just stopped reading you would think we're talking about today's MSFT strategy against the VCSY patents. "wrongly granted" is what MSFT wants us to believe about 744. That there was error in application criteria adherence and EVEN, heavens me, personal malfeasance on the part of the inventor. Oh my, that do stinketh.

But, no, the above news article and blurb was about their battle with Eolas v Microsoft for (what else?) patent infringement.

Read the article. It will make you feel good.

"Eolas Technologies at the heart of a $521 million infringement verdict against the software giant may have been wrongly granted, the agency acknowledged."

Note the date on the Eolas v Microsoft article that shows us MSFT had the patent office IN THEIR HANDS ready to admit the patent was wrongly granted. Where are we with the VCSY patent 744, Mister Patent Commissioner? Paper plug? Run a pig through it and clean out the lines. You guys have poop in your pipes.

Ask Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 16, 2004, 4:00 AM PST

Fortunately for Eolas, there was some good news later: On September 27, 2005, the USPTO upheld the validity of the patent. (Fortunately the patent system has its own checks and balances for making things happen correctly in the examine/grant process. It's not some whacked out college student thumbing through a patent summary with a stamp and a sticky pad.)

Now. Read today's news:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
Microsoft, Eolas seek to settle patent rift out of court
Microsoft is working to settle its long-running patent suit over IE with Eolas Technologies rather than heading back to court.

Elizabeth Montalbano
PC World
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; 10:19 AM

Microsoft Corp. is seeking to settle its long-running patent suit with Eolas Technologies Inc. through negotiations rather than heading back to the courtroom.
----------

Now, isn't that a sign of good behaviour? I wonder which judge MSFT is trying to impress. The Eolas case holder or someone else?

Joe;

You're right about the "pinkslip" bit. Most of us would be getting this. You remember my post earlier on betting on black?

I knew that MS would again would drop another deadline quicker than a prom dress on prom night!

When you make billions, I guess you can afford it now and then, but MS does it more often than not.

Something to ponder, do you think that some idiot at Redmond thinks it some twisted way of promoting a product sales frenzy -- "Yeah, yeah, lets tell all the MAC Users out there that we will release Office 2008 on such and such, and of course we won't -- We'll sell it months after the deadline, this will drive up expectations and demand!" Sales and Marketting people at MS then continue to pass the "crack pipe" to one another...

Or...

Microsft is really becoming thoroughly "screwing the Pooch" Safe bet maybe a combination of these things and more so.

Anyway Joe, you guys keep an eye on Microsoft and I'll continue to come here and get a laugh (at times) from the kingpins at Redmond.

Joe, you know the whole Yahoo Messenger for vista thing was strictly a microsoft project, right? They paid the devs and the designers, not Yahoo!

I wrote about this a while back:

http://shebanation.com/2007/05/03/yahoo-messenger-does-flex/

The FX in Spider-Man 3 are crap because Sony rushed to release the first summer blockbuster this year.

quit your everlasting b1tching. jesus man, go back to your shiny mac, and smile for a day or two and let the world go by. Believe it or not, the world will continue to spin, even without your adept tracking of its minutia.

You should really stop your bitchin and just switch to iWorks. I guess you've never built quality software, so all you can do is bitch. So what they are late, which they said is because quality, would rather they ship it now with bugs?

You'd bitch if they ship with the bugs anyway, so just go back to your iPhone and wait!

"We'll sell it months after the deadline, this will drive up expectations and demand!"

um....see Apple OS X Leopard for details.

"go back to your shiny mac, and smile for a day or two"

silly boo - that's just not possible in the real world. Oh wait, you mean once you toke a couple blunts and turn on your Apple iField® - the new Jobs Inc portable reality distortion field (1000 dimensions of "duh" in your pocket)?

Hey Joe,

Your favorite Apple delayed Leopard because of iPhone. And obviously you are OK with it. Then its OK if Office for Mac delayed. See MS is MUCH BIGGER in scale than Apple. They have plenty of softwares (Visual Studio, Home Server, Sharepoint, Biztalk, Dynamics, Live services, Silver light, Surface and soooooo many of others) to release for ppl who make >90% of OS users. Then its OK if they give them priority over 5% of ppl who use MAC.

Hence your POST is illogical and totally biased.

Next time if you are little bit busy then also DO NOT WRITE. From quality of your posts I dont think anyone will consider you accountable. Rather we will be happy !!! :)

DD wrote: "Your favorite Apple delayed Leopard because of iPhone. And obviously you are OK with it."

No favorites, DD.

I socked Apple for the Leopard delay back in April: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/leopard_is_one_stubborn_cat.html

Thanks,

Joe

I'd rather they ship a quality product instead of releasing 6 updates in the first year of release to deal with problems.

Honestly, I never found myself lacking anything in Office 2004, other than I wish entourage was more Outlook-like.

I'm still one of the ones that believe Apples needs MS Office more than MS needs the Mac. I wouldn't be surprised to see this be the last official Mac release of Office since Parallels and VMWare fusion do such a good job with emulation. Think how much money MS could save by only supporting one version of Windows and recommending that customers with Macs run Parallels and the "real" version of Office.

I just don't see Apple putting out a competing Office suite that would really give MS Office a run for its money other than a very, very small percentage of people that need a light word processor and spreadsheet. Sure there are other free office suites available for the Mac, but MS Office is still the game in town - and MS rarely loses.

Just be thankful they still offer an Office suite at all for us Joe. It could all end tomorrow.

I hope someday steve jobs wakes up with the balls sore and decide to make a shine new application or add more features to Pages, this time those who use ms office will get the respect their money buy, maybe ms has all the experience in the office suite, but if you see Keynote and Pages, apple is not far away to give microsoft a good fight, keynote is much more people appealing, everything I use keynote for a Business Presentation the audience ask me what version of powerpoint is it?, so if apple put some time on these applications and then port them to windows, the cat fight is set... Please people when you put apple and microsoft in the same sentences make the differences, microsoft is richer than apple, but not more creative or ingenious. Let the time tell the rest of the story.... Remember adobe... almost all the good release were first to windows, forgot apple in the video area and you know what happpened: Final Cut Pro, Motion, Shake, DVD Studio Pro.... got it?

Hey Joe,
Then when they rush to get it out with bugs and security flaws you would lambaster them for that. No winning with you a? Still looking for crap and I see your still finding it.
Change the domain name to ifoundmoremscrap.com.
Movies don't have to worry that if something goes wrong one would loose data. Again if they rushed a movie would there be a security flaw allowing your private info to be leaked and become public?
---
Bond was pushed back
---
"Without a director or a lead actor, there's no way the studio can go ahead with plans to start filming the "James Bond 21" movie in January 2005. If the film had stayed on track, then the 21st Bond movie would have been released in November, 2005."
---
Maybe the director and lead actor found other priorities that where more important.
----
You like Jessica Simpson
"Jessica Simpson's latest movie "Blonde Ambition" has been pushed back for the second time. Sources say that Joe Simpson, Jessica's manager and father, has pushed the film back because it's not good and he doesn't want it to compete with other films. A source tells Gatecrasher:"
---
Well this one need no explaining as to why.
----
Got Milk? Got FUD?
---
Funny some of your examples you state that there is an out:
"How about lawyers? The judge sets a deadline and unless a continuance is granted the legal brief is done, ready or not."
---
What is a continuance, humm does that mean I need more time please?
Can MS ask you for a continuance, sorry they offended you and did not ask before making the decision.
---
Writers do it as well
I've come to the conclusion there is no way I'm going to be able to finish the OpenGL book by the end of the year, as I had hoped. I would like to have the book finished in the first quarter of 2007.
---
Just do a google search
movie pushed back
book pushed back
before making FUD
---
But then again we are talking about the MAC the thing that is on time, sells itself, does not break, and if it does it fixes itself. The OS X will never be late, and all other programs by Apple will be on time as well. Why does Apple use version number I thought they got it right the first time and it is alway "ready"? Got it thanx for the info I mean FUD.

Office for Macs is among the most lucrative software for desktops Microsoft sells.

Sales of Office for Macs rose about 72 percent from 2001 to 2006, compared with an increase of about 18 percent for Windows versions. Sales of the Mac versions made up about 20 percent of dollars spent on Office at U.S. retail stores and Web sites in 2006, up from 4 percent in 2001.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/02/ap3979609.html

It hard to imagine how anyone could be so foolish as to think that M$ sells Office for Macs because it is charitable.

The only people this delay will hurt are Microsoft shareholders. No one I know in the Mac community is waiting for this release. At my company we're still using the '01 version of Office/Mac. What's the big deal?

Joe,
With what you are writting, it is evident that you have never developed software and I don't mean trivial programs. Software programs failing to meet the deadlines is the rule rather than the exception and for any company. And no Windows 2008 and SQL2008 is on schedule at the moment.

DD wrote: "Your favorite Apple delayed Leopard because of iPhone. And obviously you are OK with it."

No favorites, DD.

I socked Apple for the Leopard delay back in April: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/leopard_is_one_stubborn_cat.html

Thanks,

Joe

--------------------

Hey you mean to say you write articles on APPLE on microsoft-watch???? And expect us to read them?

Microsoft doesn't NEED the money. In fact, they would happily trade away some lost earnings in order to be "passive aggressive" in delaying the completion of software applications that would boost the interoperability of a competing operating system.

It's way too difficult to tell what MSFT's intent is in trying to keep this quiet and drag along. To me it's a stupid strategy that tells me the lawyers and not the engineers are in charge. Note that roll-on by oz when he came out and juggled the bullet that never made it in the gun. Live? Need mercy?

That simply shows you MSFT is paying lip service to the next gen market while maintaining a "tough negotiating" posture with VCSY. Anyone who thinks something so small as a patent suit by a pebble of a company can't stop a company cold has no ideas how hampered, crippled and scarred a diligent phalanx of your own lawyers can inflict on the corporated body.

They don't know the power of the socialized network of developers these days. They're just speaking lawyer speak and it just goes into thin air on the lawyer culture so nobody "knowing" would know. But, the business is technology and the technology people are insufferably interconnected and at some point somebody's going to read MSFT's defense and VCSY's complaint filed today and they're going to $#!@ a Lady Fatima statuette and an autographed picture of le' popa sitting on his fuzzies on the ethereal throne in his altogethers.

If they keep it up, they're going to negotiate themselves right out on center stage with the red curtain going up. THAT would be disastrous and I think could be the beemer's aims. Buy Microsoft real cheap and then get the stuff (if you don't believe MSFT will ultimately settle, you obviously haven't been reading publicly available papers) and sell into the big pop in a year or so. Meanwhile, you set MSFT up for M&A surgery aka meat market madness.

The engineers will have seen it coming for years and they will have kept their hair combed ever so neat and their politically correct lips so tightly clenched together. Then there's the matter of clenching the fuzzies against a hard plank bench and that can be a traumatic scene in public.

I suspect the real desire among the VCSY-like companies (those who've been "infringing" in the open like IBM and Adobe and others) would be to see MSFT dismantled but the reality is they should all cooperate. The problem is that MSFT won't cooperate and dismantling may actually be the end result anyway. You will be able to thank the lawyers and the MBAs for that and the vaunted Microsoft brain trust will wilt like so much romaine in a microwave.

That's what I would call this current disruption wave: the MicroWave. As in, if they don't straighten up and fly right and act like a technology company should act rather than a fortress of solitude and a legalistic Moosealeany who strangles the city but makes sure the steps and curbs are whitewashed.

I say I think there is a deeper plan and MSFT is powerless to fight being sucked into it because I think VCSY managment are shrewd judges of character and nature (never the same and always opposing) that know how an opponent will act given an input. That's worth all the guessing and attempts to "time" negotiation in the world. You know Muckmuck will flip out if you push "this" button. You push "that" button when it's convenient and useful. And you push it as often as possible. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer and all the time. And your friends go free and their share is paid by the enemy.

I don't know how this will all play out but the inevitable is that Microsoft settles and licenses VCSY technology. If you disagree with that opinion, please say so and state why and how. We would appreciate URL's of reference material as that's how we've operated for years. You can read the VCSY long posting history and see all this play into this act. To us it's been a long play and we're about to see the fat lady get her horns stuck in the sheetrock. That's almost as good as her singing.

I suspect since MSFT made noises about "wanting to settle" with Eolas, the window is closing on this period of "we can say we have anything we want" and a stark realization that the future does not need to include MSFT. It's not a necessary component and oz gave that plumbing to the VCSY technology paradigm. Those RSS nodes are perfect places to post agents for transactional processing and the client will pay VCSy tech license holders to manage, maintain, govern and audit the business that goes on across the "consumer grade" RSS plumbing oz is going to bung his virtual clipboard upon.

What you're concerned with is public psychological inertia. MSFT big. VCSY small. Patent nothing. See how stupid the initial "think by common association" is? All you need do is simply read a bit more thoroughly and you find you learn by accident. That's why a basher can never admit he read and agrees with what the thing says on its face. They then have to battle the psychological tide to drag you back to the shallows before he drowns in the concensus.

I think those who know what's really going on are looking for opportunities to sell high, thus, good news about MSFT "next gen" stuff pops out and people buy, while the larger forces wait for the number to bob up to 29~30 (hallelujah it hit 31 briefly) and they dump it.

I personally think it will go down before it goes up. The market needs to know MSFT can produce next generation web-services to compete with an already advantaged and ahead industry. That is what is holding MSFT at that terminus. Vista is doomed without both 744 and 521 (MSFT have the Burst patents by settlement and almost the Eolas patent if they do settle to control streaming automatically on the web. They need 521 for virtualization and distributed processing resources and they need 744 to fashion that into multi-faceted morphable web operating systems that would make even XP king over the internet. It would make Vista look brilliant. But, I suspect there's a larger plan at work on MSFT's face and I would be amazed if MSFT got anything close to an exclusive or even preferred license. I think Wade knows your enemy needs to feel you right up in the enemy business so much you might as well send your laundries to the same place. Extra starch.)

If they settle with VCSY, they can dominate the web and be genuinely superior in it. If MSFT do not settle with VCSY, MSFT are running a big train down a steep slope with no foreseeable method of success at the bottom of the mountain. That downward slope stays as long as MSFT can not prove to the market they can actually deliver for sale these wizardly technologies they stole... err... "developed" years ago. Years ago.

It tells me the lawyers are driving and the engineers are being forced to ride shotgun for moral support. What a horrible trip that must be in the merry old land of oz.

Surrender Dorothy.

I vote down before up.

NeoOffice already runs pretty well on most Macs. Why would anyone settle for MS Office 2004 when NeoOffice, which is free, works well enough?

I normally like your columns but this one was just dumb.

I'm checking the archives to see if you complained when Apple didn't have itunes ready for Vista's release and if you questioned Apple's commitment to Windows.

What I would like to see, is if Joe Willcox would try OpenOffice for Mac, and compare it to MS Office for Mac. Since Joe is really a power user, his comments would be relevant.

It would be nice to see if it would do all the things Joe needs it to, or enough for the average user. As this package is becoming better and increasingly popular all the time.

http://openoffice-org.en.softonic.com/mac

Microsoft is not accountable because the industry allows is not to be accountable.

Exercise your right to choose a little more and MS might become a company that respects us a little more.

Because there are a lot of comparisons on these sites on how Apple does thing Vs How Microsoft does things and because quite few on this site praise apple heres an excert from Zdnet about Apples latest Monster (as the site says) updates.

LAS VEGAS — Apple has issued a monster update with patches for about 50 security vulnerabilities affecting iPhone, Safari and Mac OS X users.

In a race against the clock, the company rushed out iPhone v1.0 with fixes for four different vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to take full control of the device. The fix comes 24 hours ahead of the expected full disclosure of one of the iPhone vulnerabilities at the Black Hat security conference here.

Full Article here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=412

Again Apple fan boys, the latest update from Apple fixes not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 10 nor 20 vulnerabilites. It's 50 VULNERABITIES .

IMAGINE IF MICROSOFT HAD REALEASED SUCH AN UPDATE !!!!

"IMAGINE IF MICROSOFT HAD REALEASED SUCH AN UPDATE !!!!"

They did Evan. Wasn't it called Windows XP?

Hey, Macs are a small market for MS. They have their priorities. Why worry about the small market when you have other, more important, more profitable things to do? It's the same for a bunch of other companies - many of whom don't evern bother writing programs for Macs anymore.

Imagine if they HAD!!! We'd, and by we'd I mean all the people who use Windows reluctantly, be A LOT more secure! I frequently use Ubuntu 7.04 linux and almost everyday there is an update to one or more packages. It's fantastic to know that people are working to make this stuff better FOR FREE. How many flaws does Vista have that have been around since Windows 98?

To: Evan.
You said:

Joe,
With what you are writting, it is evident that you have never developed software and I don't mean trivial programs. Software programs failing to meet the deadlines is the rule rather than the exception and for any company. And no Windows 2008 and SQL2008 is on schedule at the moment.

Well, Evan, I have been writing software since 1979. And I don't mean trival programs:

A multithreaded operating system with a microkernel architecture for manufacturing test support--as my very first commercial project out of college: Two months late (but the hardware was 6 months late so nobody noticed, and at the time I wasn't allowed to put in any overtime anyway. Reliability: 100% NO downtime at all.
A database written for the PC/Intel assembly and the network drivers to connect it to testing and repair stations: On time (even counting a relocation from Florida to Austin), and 0% downtime.
A written-from-the-ground-up database engine that handles arbitrarily complex searches across 20 million records and a billion indexes in one file and returns results in 10s or 100s of milliseconds while being hammered by 100s of clients. Delivery: On time... no, exceedingly early, beating the rest of the company's developers by 6 months, and continuing to lead on subsequent releases by years. Installed: Around the world. Reliability: 100%. NO DOWN TIME.

OK, Evan, I admit that my results aren't typical. But look at the industry: It rewards shoddy developers and sleazy dealmakers far more than those who produce solid results on time every time. So the industry gets what it pays for, except for some stubborn streak in me that refuses to go along with the rabble.

But.... Joe is 100% right. And I can tell you that my company's recent layoffs hit squarely on several folks who were responsible for the most recent year-long delay in the product release. And not only was I done early, but I used that year to invent, develop, perfect, and release to the world a new programming language. And, maybe the world doesn't really need a new programming language. But with a year delay handed to me, I wasn't going to just twiddle my fingers. And it's integrated smoothly into the database engine for high performance--and also packaged into a standard command-line shell-like executable to allow the writing of scripts. And our company owns it, so there's no GPL or proprietary license issues to get in our way. See? The GPL isn't viral: If I don't like the license for X, then I am, and was, free to avoid X and choose to build something new myself.)

I can already hear the voices from the snide and snotty crowd, "Well, goody for you". (I've gotten it many times before, including from some of the ones who ended up laid off. Karma, indeed!!!) This typical mean-spirited type of remark comes from people who are so used to late and shoddy software that they think on-time and bug-free is impossible. So I will apologize in advance for not going along with the idiot majority. And will offer the advice: "Not all programmers are bad. It's just the 99.9% that give the rest of us a bad name."
To Joe: Thanks for the good work! Sometimes, we need to remind people that it's "Microsoft Watch", not "Microsoft Love Fest". And when watching, each one sees a different view. Some see the savior of the computer industry. Some see a convicted monopolist. Some see good incomes from going along with Microsoft. Some see their livelyhoods destroyed by Microsoft. But one thing I know: Sharing an opinion is just that. Sharing an opinion is NOT ramming anything down anyone's throat.

To Brian:

BRAVO!!!!

Wonderful, I perform the same diligant way. Of course, I can only speak for myself, and of course, Joe's right. Too many folks (here) put up, tolerate and even rationalize about this complacency. Excuses range from "I would rather have delays rather than bugs." I believe they refer to MS in saying this since this is MS Watch.

Anyway, that's ripe bullsh*t and a damned lame excuse from a mindless twit. I have two words for ignorant unrealistic idiots like that, "Shut Up!"

Sorry about my rant folks, but with MS, no matter what, we purchase bugs anyway, I don't care if it takes them 10 years, 10 failures of meeting deadlines, we still get the damned bugs -- Logically that sort of reasoning stinks to high heaven.

Yes, lets talk about Service Packs, one service pack fixes a few things, but as it turns out, breaks a few things. I am being fair to say, perhaps not all of this is MS's fault, there is a metric ton of third party crap out there, bad drivers, faulty software and the like.

Microsoft is falling prey to rationalizing just like the rest, and in General America is too. Look we got a college idiot who got a "C" grade level, a whopping 2.50 grade average and he's our president -- How in the hell did that happen????

One of the great things that drew me to the next level of operating system in the beginning was the new File System Vista was suppose to have and that got axed because Microsoft couldn't figure it out and bailed on it -- Let's face it, they BAILED after realizing they couldn't do it -- It would take too long, fine, it took them too long already for what we got, come on already...

Now they're saying Windows 7 -- Right and what is that going to do, make our PC's thin clients and be forced to use their Live Services -- Something like Citrex???

In my previous line of work, I had to let people go who couldn't make deadlines, they were not skilled enough, talented enough, and those were the tough ones to let go -- They tried in various degrees, but there were others who were rationalizing, showing in leaps and bounds their creative resources in fabricating excuses and these were the easiest to let go -- Proof is in the pudding, isn't it.

Just a sideline issue to ponder and I see that it is rooted deeper than a Rootkit on Crack and that is:

1 The American Blame-Game
2 Catch-Up The greatest of the American Games
3 Complaceny

and with any we should be at version 10.0 by now, right???

When we dummy down America (referring to cut backs in the general education system) this is to be expected -- America isn't number one anymore and hasn't been for some time. When we tolerate this kind of crap, this is what we deserve.

Case in point, in the early 1960's President Kennedy gave the American public a challenge, "We will send a man to the moon in 10 years..." Of course this happened. If you took all the proccessing power that NASA had at the time, the average home PC crushed that.

Today we have a monkey in the oval office that couldn't get a Helecopter to the Dome in New Orleans nearly 40 years later...

And is it really the fricken monkey's fault, I mean who put them there in the first place -- Give him a bannana and send his ass back to Texas!

Brian,
If you look at the statistics of the software industry, about the percentage of software projects worldwide that are released on time according to initial project plan, with all the features that were initially planned, you will see that, what I am saying is right. And yes you are the exception, if the examples you are talking about hold true for all your projects. Please note that I am saying the 'initial' project plan. When Apple comes out and says '...in six months we are going to release the iPhone', that is not an initial project plan. That is what Apple and many others usually do. When they have almost completed the project the come out with a date. They don't release initial plans.In contrast, Microsoft usually announces it's initial plans. For example, it has already released the plan for the next version of Windows due in 2010.

dannyboy.
I am not sure if you are a regular reader of Joe's article. Some Apple supporters claim that Apple's software is more secure. My position is that Microsoft's software is no more vulnerable, than software made by other companies of equal magnitude and complexity. The announcement by Apple, is just another indication that what I am saying is correct.

"January is really disappointing for other another reason: all those students buying back-to-school Macs are going to get the way-outdated Office 2004. Some advice to Microsoft: Throw the kids a bone by offering a Mac Office 2008 upgrade coupon to student purchasers. They're easy enough to identify."

Well, I don't see most college kids needing much more that Office 2004, NeoOffice 2.1 or any of the other available suites for Mac. iWork, while nice, still lacks a spreadhseet and that's a key piece (of course, this may change with a future product upgrade - rumors abound e.g. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2028393,00.asp )

Office 2004 is available for $125 ($150 minus a $25 mail-in rebate). That's decent. And it provides for three legal installs of the full versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Apple retail stores are selling these by the boatload.

I'm no MS fan either and I do think the coupon idea if a good one but saying Office 2004 is way outdated is a bit of a stretch. Heck, I imagine most of us could get by using Office 2001 or X.

Getting to a Universal version of Office will be a very good thing and many millions of copies of the product will immediately sell when it is released. This is more of a MS-failing-to-deliver issue than a crisis for most Mac users.

Just why would anyone want the new Mac MS Office anyway. what new feature in it will be a must have feature?

I suspect its not the ribbon. But rather the lock in that the new "open standard." LOL, format in Office that will be forcing you to upgrade.

Evan,
I certainly agree with your statistics. My point, however, is not that you're wrong (you aren't), but that the software market tolerates, rewards, even worships late and defective software.

If it didn't, the people who make hardened avionics software would be richer than the convicted monopoly that releases late and buggy software.

When I worked for my first company out of college, I was shocked and amazed to see so much money and power handed to people who "couldn't find their rear ends with both hands" (as the expression goes) with respect (or lack thereof) to software, and how little reward and much hatred was directed at the few of us who knew how to deliver on time, on budget, and with high reliability and high customer satisfaction.

But now I work for a company that took over my organization in a merger, and the new CEO has done what legions of overpaid idiots (stupid is as stupid does, as they say) failed to do: Start to clean out the idiots instead of pay them richly, and to give the authority to those who know how to produce results instead of to those sheep whose only skill is the ability to kow-tow.

But just because Microsoft, IBM, or any other company is only one of a trillion companies whose software deliver skills are on par with those of a rotted head of lettuce doesn't mean we should cut them any slack. Indeed, the time is getting nearer to where idiocy should be ruthlessly pointed out. Idiots have had their day... their decades, and it's time root them out!!!

"Again Apple fan boys, the latest update from Apple fixes not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 10 nor 20 vulnerabilites. It's 50 VULNERABITIES .

IMAGINE IF MICROSOFT HAD REALEASED SUCH AN UPDATE !!!!"

You smart Apple guys, interpreted my saying the way that suits you, but you know what I mean. If Microsoft had reseased such an enormous update 3 months after the release of a new Windows OS, only Mr. Joe Wilcox would have released about 50 articles on Microsoft Watch on how insecure and bad Microsoft's software is, not to mention all the stories about how bad and unmanaged Windows code has become.".
Am I Right Joe?

Just a quick note to support this idea: Deadlines should be respected.
It's long been the case that I regularly added 50% to the time for a deadline given by Microsoft. If they say they'll deliver something a year from now, I hear 18 months. I suspect I'm not the only one.
To quote Mr. Burns: "It didn't used to be this way. It didn't used to be this way at all"

evan :

"Again Apple fan boys, the latest update from Apple fixes not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 10 nor 20 vulnerabilites. It's 50 VULNERABITIES .

IMAGINE IF MICROSOFT HAD REALEASED SUCH AN UPDATE !!!!"

M$ will release such an update Evan, only it will probably be several hundred fixes, and they will call it SP1 for Vista.

M$ Work.
We are talking about 50 security flaws exclusively here.

What is hard to swallow, is how comes three developers were able to develop an OOXML-able office suite 6 months before M$ (the file format originator) managed to create a translator?

Yes, I'm talking about NeoOffice (which is available for both PowerPC and Intel Macs).

Oh, silly me: the code base (OpenOffice.org + Novell's OOXML import/export module) is clean, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel for each new version.

That says volume about the quality of Microsoft Office's code.

WITH ALL THE STUPID BRAINS IN MICROSOFT IS A FUKING SHAME. I HAVE AN OLD 1999 IBM PC AND U KEEP POPPING UP THAT STUPID ERROR REPORT FOR NOTHIN THAT IS WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! iN THIS DAY AND AGE SURELY U CAAN FIX THE GODDAM THING BUT OF COURSE U WILL IGNORE IT AS USUAL!!!!!!!