It seems there is a bit of underlying fear among Apple users that stems from the old days. Many remember how dominant the Macintosh was over the original PC and how that position changed so drastically that by the 90’s, Apple seemed everyone’s favorite candidate for hostile takeover.
For Apple enthusiasts, those memories are never too far from their mind and every Apple move, product, decision, market statistic, and rumor gets passed through that filter. “Is Apple going to crash again?” “Am I going to be forced back into Windows?” Users are so dependent on Apple’s products that they fear losing them in the future. This collective mindset is not unknown. Reporters and pundits often examine Apple moves in light of “what went wrong” back in the 80’s and 90’s and predicting Apple’s next demise is great sport. Joe Wilcox just wrote a much linked piece attempting to apply this to the developing iPhone/Android market. (Gruber responds here.)
The thing is, this fear is irrational. Nobody at Apple is afraid.
Apple has its own, fairly obvious, plan: Dominate the top of the market. They make a high-end product with very few compromises. They are happy to sell 10% of the market with high profits and let the rest of the hardware manufactures race to the bottom for small profits on volumes of junk. I think this is also true for the iPhone. As demonstrated by the the meteoric rise of Apple’s stock combined with the company’s piles of cash reserves, this plan works.
There is a significant portion of the market that wants a controlled, superior interface and is willing to pay for it. Apple simply needs to continue to make superior products. Market percentages are not what will hurt Apple, corporate indifference to making superior products is. I think Apple is aware of this and I don’t think Apple users have anything to be afraid of.

There have been several reports about Microsoft head Steve Ballmer confiscating a Microsoft employee’s iPhone and fake stomping on it. This guy is really in charge of the world’s largest software company? Lately, I don’t understand Microsoft generally and Ballmer specifically.* Microsoft has the operating system market sewn up, the corporate world at its mercy, metric tons of dollars pouring in, and yet they appear obsessed with Apple. It’s not funny. It just seems kind of sad. I know there are some smart people up in Redmond. I’ve met several of them. However, lately their antics just seem juvenile.
* While I’d agree if an employee took a picture Steve Jobs at an Apple event with a Windows Mobile phone, it would be frowned upon but I don’t see Jobs pulling Ballmer’s schoolyard antics under any conditions. Besides, it would never happen anyway. Have you *seen* the Windows Mobile platform lately?

Another Scrivener convert.
I especially like the pie chart showing feature bloat in Word. I already knew, but this visualizes how Microsoft went wrong after Word 95.

This week, John Gruber wrote an excellent piece on the slow decline of Microsoft. Interestingly, just a few days later Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer explained to a group of financial analysts Microsoft’s new strategy, to raise prices.
Balmer explained, “The theory [cutting prices] was wrong …You’ll see us address the theory. We’re going to readjust those prices north [using Windows 7].” I’m not sure this will work for Microsoft. In the last several years, they’ve dropped the ball and people have opened their eyes to other operating systems. Put simply, a significant number of users have moved to OS X and Linnux based platforms. They’ve discovered they can compute just fine without anything from Microsoft.
While Balmer’s comments were made in the context of raising PC prices, it seems the only way Microsoft could do that is by raising the license fee for its operating system to the PC manufacturers. The problem is Microsoft has spent bucket loads of money trying to sell itself and PC’s as the “cheaper” alternative. It seems to me Microsoft’s move to now raise prices will only accelerate people’s interest in Linnux (cheaper) and OS X (better) operating systems. Microsoft has only itself to blame.

There is a lot of news about recent developments on the Microsoft Office front. Microsoft has a beta of Office 2010 in circulation and Fortune Magazine is reporting there will be an online version available for free.
I know a lot of people think Microsoft would be crazy to offer any version of Office free. I think Microsoft would be crazy not to have a free version. While at first glance, Microsoft appears to have a stranglehold on the office productivity suite game, that position may not last forever. There are several reasons why this should change.

1. Cloud Computing and Online Applications.

While Microsoft has been happily filling enterprise orders, Google (and a slew of others) have released free online applications that have all of the functionality most mere mortals require from Microsoft Office. Did I mention it is free and online? That means users can easily access their data from anywhere.

2. Office Has Competition (Sort of).

On the Mac there are a variety of alternatives to Microsoft Office. I think the development of so many alternatives on the Mac is a primal, almost baked into our DNA . Mac users and developers remember the days when Microsoft held the future of the Mac platform in its hand with the decision to keep (or drop) Office support. Microsoft knew it. Apple knew it. Microsoft even flaunted it. Nobody wants to go back there.
This is, of course, an unrealistic fear in this day. Apple has its own iWork suite (superior in my opinion) and the Apple developer community has grown it’s own fantastic alternatives. I’m not familiar with the landscape on the PC side but OpenOffice comes to mind as another multi-platform competitor.

3. The New Workforce.

Kids these days. There is an entirely new generation going through school that is not as sold on Microsoft Office as mine was. Just like my generation displaced WordPerfect with Word, the next generation could very easily displace Word with something like Google Docs.
While I use components of Microsoft Office pretty regularly, it is only when I must. I’ll take Pages over Word any day and when it comes to presentation work, you’ll have to pry Keynote out of my cold, dead hand. Of course, I’m a nerd and think way too much about these things.
For people that have a more balanced set of priorities, they’ll use whatever comes on their machines. That is why it is ultimately Microsoft’s game to lose. There are some very smart people at Microsoft (and some very dedicated Mac geeks in the Mac Business Unit). I’m sure they see the writing on the wall and they will adapt. However, the days of competition crushing dominance are over for Microsoft Office.