Akshit

http://ohioblogging.com

Creativity and Innovation that brings about the best (and cool) in terms of user experience... and Responsibility, maturity and broader audience engagement that allows a person to continue to have an older version of the OS with the latest development tools...

MoiN

http://www.anewmorning.com

I've worked for Apple and now work for MSFT. I love my Apple gadgets, but in the end it's MSFT that makes the world work (and money).

Anyway you slice it, without the hundreds of business apps that my new employer creates it would be a less productive business environment.

It's just the way things are...

By the way - the truly evil company is Google... Not Apple, Not Oracle, Not SAP and not MSFT...

We can't allow old people to develop for the Mac. We'll lose our cache of cool.

Put a sock in it will you guys - you're giving the rest of us a very bad name. Sheesh.

Sure MS have their major problems and issues, but this development can only be a good thing as MS helps to reinforce the corporate credentials of the iPhone.

Please spare us the invective - it only gives the anti-Mac crowd like gibbs more ammunition.

Oh and about the $150 million investment MS made in non-voting Apple stock - Apple actually had $4 billion in the bank at the time so it was a gesture of support not a bail-out. -hh has it right that MS's commitment with Office was the important issue at the time.

-Mart

Also, MS only bought about $150 million of non-voting Apple stock way back when. That money was quite irrelevant as Apple still had billions in the bank and Jobs was back at the helm.

What was more important, was that MS promised to keep developing Office for Mac for at least 5 more years. That gave Apple a huge credibility boost in places where they were considering dumping Apple after their 12 years of unbelievable mismanagement by Scully, Amelio, et al.

Now, thankfully, the iPhone and the Mac can do quite well with or without MS, but if they happen to create a wonderful new version of Solitaire or something, Apple will benefit as well.

Regardless of the reasons, Apple only exists today because of Microsoft. And for the record, I think that both companies are evil. Read this month's issue of Wired for a great look into Apple. Just as evil as Microsoft.

OK, let's remember Mac Fan-boys that the only reason that there is an Apple today is because of the cash infusion that Microsoft pumped into Apple in the late 90s. How soon we forget...

The $150M that MS got (in non-voting stock) was important to Apple, but not for what it represented as cash, for Apple had over $1B in the bank in 1997.

What the MS-Apple agreement obstensively was to settle infringements, what the real key of the agreement was was the promise by MS to continue to develop MS-Office for another 5 years, which provided confidence that the Mac platform would not be 'orphaned' due to a lack of Application software. Considering that Mac Office 98 shipped a mere 7 months later, its development was already underway at Microsoft, so the only reason to withhold shipping it was as a tool for leverage over Apple for a more favorable (to MS) settlement on the infringments. Afterall, given how much money MS has squandered away on various projects (IE, Zune, XBox, etc), it is clear that there's factors other than merely profit that motivate MS to keep the Mac Business Unit operating, and given how lousy of a product Mac Office 2008 is, they shouldn't be particularly proud, even if they are turning a profit.

-hh

Vista is far from crap and is by far the best operating system MS has ever shipped (with less problems than the ship version on leopard, that's right, when you have a specific platform to develop for and can't get it right, there is a problem. MS develops for ALL platforms)

I don't see where the outrage comes from because MS wants to develop software. The initial development of Office on MAC (lest we forget $150 mil in non voting stock) saved Apple. That deal also made money for MS though, so win-win. MS will develop for iPhone/iTouch and we'll all be happy. Another thing, why is it anti-competitive to bundle basic applications with an OS with Windows, but OSX comes with Safari, no? Quicktime? iCal? And Apple pushes the H.264 format far more than MS does with .wmv/.wma

It's 2008, not 1998. Bill Gates is retired and the iPhone is doing quite well without needing to license all it's patents to Microsoft to survive.

@Realist

Spot on, brother. If you work in a corporate environment, this is good news. If you don't need to use MS apps, move on.

@Asher Pat

What's the weather like in Fantasyland?

Of what value can be a machine like mac on which you cant even upgrade hdd or memory.

There are no "Mac haters", this is an invention of Apple supporters (yes, like supporters of a football club, that think that a commercial entity such as Manchester United is like some tribal honour of theirs or that it has some higher virtues). Apple supporters promote this bogey of "MSFT fan-boys" in order to justify they own urge to pad the pockets of Apple shareholders. But hey it's a free world, you can do whatever you want!

BTW, a true definition of a "fan-boy": "a person keen to promote the success of a commercial entity for no direct tangible benefit to himself". Think about it a bit and will make sense.

So, will anybody in their right mind try to promote MSFT? It is a boring capitlalist company, so there are NO MSFT "fan-boys". But AAPL? A shiny example of hippie anti-capitalinst underdog chick that any poseur wants to be assoviated with.