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Mon, 05 Mar 2007 Mac Office users were Microsoft 'guinea pigs'

New document emerges that shows Mac users are Office testing ground

Jonny Evans

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Yet more criticism of Microsoft's business practices has emerged in the wake of the recent Iowa anti-trust trial.

Documentary evidence that Microsoft considered abandoning Office for Mac in order to cause "a great deal of harm" to Apple has emerged.

An emailed memo from Microsoft-founder Bill Gates to then Mac Business Unit chief Ben Waldman dated June 1997 talks about morale in the Mac Office development camp.

At that time Microsoft's senior management were considering dumping Mac support.

The email complains at poor sales of Office, which it attributes to a lack of focus on making such sales among reps at that time.

It describes dumping development of the product as: "The strongest bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately."

The document also confirms that Microsoft at the time saw Office for the Mac as a chance to test new features in the product before they appeared in Windows, "because it is so much less critical to our business than Windows."

The full document — in PDF format — is available here.

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