Gizmodo: How do you feel about this rumor going around that Apple's going to launch their own Office competitor? Their own office suite.
Gates: They've always had a Works-type product.
Gizmodo: Yeah, but if they end up coming out with an actual competitor and sort of billing it as that, would that... Since Office for the Mac has always been—well, not a huge revenue generator, but it's always been that one...
Gates: It's been a great business for us. I mean, not as a percentage of Microsoft, but it's a very, very good business. We have a great relationship with Apple.
I don't know what they're thinking, but they've always had the low-end product—It's actually not that low-end. It's pretty good. Not as good as Office, but not bad at all—that they've bundled in with different machines.
Gizmodo: And that's why it seems sort of weird to me, because Office for the Mac is sort of one of the must-have OSX programs.
Gates: Because we've done a good job on it. There are freeware Office-type offerings that run on MacOS. I don't keep up to date on which ones and all that, but it's not like Mac users don't have various alternatives. We've kept the price of Office low enough—Student and Teacher editions, educational pricing—and we're very aggressive. Those are the markets where over 90% of the Macs sell into. I think it's a very good value. So, we hope we keep doing well! It allows us to invest in it. Our Mac Office group has been very, very innovative.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:54 pm Post subject:
Fuzkng sweet If he even says that, then we're definitely on someone's radar over there at M$ since he's obviously heard something from one of his various management minions. Woot!
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If he even says that, then we're definitely on someone's radar over there at M$ since he's obviously heard something from one of his various management minions. Woot!