Mac Support

I’m using Windows Live Mesh for a project right now, which is actually pretty cool except for the fact that it doesn’t offer any Mac support.

I’ll ad this to the list of cool products (see Zune) that don’t offer anything to the Mac user.

I understand that Microsoft wants people to be using their OS, but the future of software is really platform agnostic. In the long run, services like Google Docs and Rhapsody, which work equally well on both platforms, will gather a bigger market share.

Actually, I should rephrase that---new software is not platform agnostic, it is a platform in and of itself, and one that connects everyone.

I remember about eight years ago buying a program at Egghead Software (now Newegg) that let me convert word/text documents from “Mac” format to “PC” format and back. Now that software is called “E-mail.”

For better or worse, the OS is becoming a commodity. Why should you limit your services, the ones that you’re going to build the future of your company on, to only the people who are tied in to your old business model?

You are, by definition, limiting your new market to a subset of your old (shrinking) market. In the long run, Microsoft needs to count on services like Xbox Live, Zune, Live Mesh, and other subscription/freemium products for their real revenue, as shrinkwrap software goes the way of the 12-legged-platypus (the what?).

So Microsoft: build in Mac Support. And Linux, too, because why not.