Sometimes you just got to laugh at some of the posturing that goes on the corporate world. Take the war of words between Steve Jobs and Kevin Browne of M$. Kevin, who is head of M$ Mac Business Unit is one of the good guys overall in the Mac software world. Recently, he stated that it was Apple’s fault that Office X is selling at roughly 50% of M$ expectations. Apple wasn’t promoting OSX, so therefore, Office X wasn’t selling. Kevin is correct in the fact that Apple hasn’t promoted OSX. It has let the Apple media do the work both online and in print. Apple, I expect would reason, people who already have an OSX ready machine don’t need to be pounded with TV ads. As for new machine buyers, selling hardware is much sexier and easier than software. Afterall, people know that Apple hardware is well ahead of the Wintel world in design.
What Kevin doesn’t control with Office X I expect is pricing. $499 for the non-education user is an incredibly steep price even if it is the defacto standard for office productivity suites. In addition, many OSX upgraders probably already had Office 2001. Why would most users plunk down another five hundred just to avoid having to run in Classic OS mode. The question is whether Steve is serious in encouraging OpenOfice (a freeware version of StarOffice), or is it just leverage to keep M$ honest? A few merger enthusiasts would renew the Sun/Apple combination as a way of keeping the M$ monopoly in check. Granted, each company’s core business is complimentary with the goal of the other. However, in light of the shady bookeeping among recently merged companies (see Worldcom and Qwest), I don’t see a tremendously favorable reaction from the investment community.
However, OpenOffice for OSX does create some interesting speculation. Apple encourages the porting to OSX by the volunteer Unix developers. Then, in an effort to promote the shareware/freeware developer community it installs or provides a CD with OpenOffice in all new Macs. Without any financial effort Apple has an answer to M$ office suite dominance. Apple has used the freeware approach before, after all OSX is based on the Unix platform.
Apple would not be the only winner in this approach. Schools would save massive amounts of funding by not having to pay M$ licensing. This should be a red flag to Bill Gates that schools need to receive even better deals (M$ Office licenses to schools run approximately $55 each). Just yesterday, the Portland, OR public schools announced that they will be switching over Linux with all new equipment purchases.
M$ needs to rethink their pricing strategy, flat out. The suite should immediately be priced at $250. Secondly, M$ and Apple should offer a combo deal; OSX.2 (Jaguar) and Office X for $300. Both sides would benefit from this deal, Apple gets more converts to X.2 with its built-in software applications and potential converts to .mac service. M$ finally has the carrot to sell vast copies of Office X before Sun comes out with StarOfficeX.
Pie in the Sky
Apple continues to swallow small, but effective software companies. Is Apple thinking of a third possibility in the office suite business? If Cupertino is looking to replace Appleworks with a program that the business community would take seriously, ThinkFree Office comes to mind as a nice match. With its online storage system, it would fit nicely into Apple’s .mac business model. Secondly, like StarOffice/OpenOffice, it saves into M$ file format, making it cross compatible. Third, it could be bought and implemented immediately versus modernizing AppleWorks and then rebranding it as a true office suite. Just a thought……………
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