Microsoft's Last Apple Bastion
Two days ago, the word hit the street that Microsoft had acquired RAV antivirus. PC World's first articles talked about the impacts to the PC industry of Microsoft acquiring an antivirus vendor, but the most important articles on PC World about this matter appeared yesterday. The biggest impact of this move will be on the Linux community. RAV Antivirus, a product produced by GeCAD Software Srl in Romania, is the most used antivirus software in Linux.
This not surprising at all. With this one acquisition, Microsoft has continued its Blob-like expansion in the PC World and dealt a blow to the ever-threatening Linux community as well. Though it is a severe blow, it is not likely to be a fatal one, even though Linux is suffering the slings and arrows of its own success. Some industry players (like Microsoft) are threatened by it; others see its success and want to own a piece of it (like SCO). Hang in there, Linux users! This, too, shall pass.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit announced today that there would be no further development of IE 6.0 for the Mac. They're hearing, they said, that Mac users prefer Safari. A lot of folks thought that, even though Safari had been released, Microsoft would not drop IE support because of antitrust concerns. Think again.
It's not a huge loss to me, even though Safari still has a fair number of bugs to get worked out, especially in the area of security. And I still can't really use Safari at Schedulemaster.com where I schedule airplanes with my flying club; the blocks used to display scheduled time never show the user name and are not sized correctly. I use Mozilla to get around those problems. It is as fast as Safari and doesn't seem to have either its display or security problems. I rarely pull out IE anymore.
At least on the Mac, Apple has beaten Microsoft in the browser wars.
The interesting thing will be to see if Microsoft also withdraws support for Office V.X for Mac OS X if Apple releases a complete office suite it is rumored to be working on. Even if they do, it would have to have some compelling features as well as full Word and Excel compatibility for me to drop Office in favor of it. It could happen if I bought a new Mac with a new Mac OS that my current version of Office wouldn't run on, I really liked Apple's version, and it was cheaper than Microsoft's. That's not very likely right now. I've got too much money invested in Office and in my current crop of Macs.
This not surprising at all. With this one acquisition, Microsoft has continued its Blob-like expansion in the PC World and dealt a blow to the ever-threatening Linux community as well. Though it is a severe blow, it is not likely to be a fatal one, even though Linux is suffering the slings and arrows of its own success. Some industry players (like Microsoft) are threatened by it; others see its success and want to own a piece of it (like SCO). Hang in there, Linux users! This, too, shall pass.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit announced today that there would be no further development of IE 6.0 for the Mac. They're hearing, they said, that Mac users prefer Safari. A lot of folks thought that, even though Safari had been released, Microsoft would not drop IE support because of antitrust concerns. Think again.
It's not a huge loss to me, even though Safari still has a fair number of bugs to get worked out, especially in the area of security. And I still can't really use Safari at Schedulemaster.com where I schedule airplanes with my flying club; the blocks used to display scheduled time never show the user name and are not sized correctly. I use Mozilla to get around those problems. It is as fast as Safari and doesn't seem to have either its display or security problems. I rarely pull out IE anymore.
At least on the Mac, Apple has beaten Microsoft in the browser wars.
The interesting thing will be to see if Microsoft also withdraws support for Office V.X for Mac OS X if Apple releases a complete office suite it is rumored to be working on. Even if they do, it would have to have some compelling features as well as full Word and Excel compatibility for me to drop Office in favor of it. It could happen if I bought a new Mac with a new Mac OS that my current version of Office wouldn't run on, I really liked Apple's version, and it was cheaper than Microsoft's. That's not very likely right now. I've got too much money invested in Office and in my current crop of Macs.
posted by Andy Foster at
3:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home