Wired: Since 1984, Microsoft have been Loyal to Apple


Quick. Who's one of Apple's longest-term developers? Give up?

It's Microsoft. Yes, W. Gates & Co.

Without MS, one of Wired's latest columns opines, Apple would never have made it. Even "through the darkest days", Microsoft remained loyal to Cupertino.

Even way back during the System 7 transition in the early '90s, MS was one of the first to port its software to the new OS.

"It's common sense," said Tim McDonough, marketing director at the MacBU, who is quoted in the article. "It's a very good business for us. We have a lot of Mac customers. We have 7 million Office users ... and there's a lot of strategic Microsoft customers ... who want a cross-platform product for their Macs."

Analysis:Darkest days? How long was Office 4.2.1 around in the mid-'90s? (that's the execrable Word 6.0(.1) to you and me). How long did they have Office '98 on ice until Jobs signed the MS-Apple Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty at Macworld Boston in '97? Who cancelled mainstream IE development for Mac in 2003? Who whined about Apple not plugging OS X enough (Kevin Browne, but who remembers him now?). Who was blaming Apple for MS's overpriced Office X? (Browne).

What's Office 2004 got? A...notepad. With ruled lines. Genius. Less time spent on Aqua effects and more on developing less bloatware. Please. Frankly, MS have only ever built one good app and I still use it every day: Word 5.1. And it runs on a Mac Plus or a G5 using as little as 512K of RAM.