Last July in New York, Kevin Browne, General Manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, provided an early glimpse at how the company's overall .NET strategy would affect the Mac.
At that time, Browne told eWEEK that he expects the company to continue selling an "unconnected" version of Mac Office, as opposed to fully adopting .NET's strategy of remote software services. He also said that the company's plan -- which could change, he noted -- was to offer two versions of Office for Mac: One non-.NET version, similar to the one sold in stores today, and another less-expensive version that takes advantage of .NET services to enhance its feature set.
While the "two Offices" approach may indeed still be a plan, sources say that the situation at Microsoft's MacBU has grown murky and uncertain. "The MacBU is not all that thrilled with the Mac doing .NET," one insider observed. As the rest of Microsoft is pressuring the unit into a widespread adoption of .NET, the group is resisting.
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