Mac Mojo : Other

Ship It, Ship It Good

Pat Fox — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:10:00 GMT

Hello everyone, I thought this would be good time to jump in and introduce myself. I’m the Director of Marketing and Planning for MacBU – a longtime ‘softie and closing in on my first anniversary in the Macintosh Business Unit. Like most of us in MacBU, I’m a long time Mac user – and this will date me – I set up and staffed the original Mac lab in college, finally saving enough to buy a “Fat Mac” of my own. As they say, the rest is history.

Speaking of history, we announced earlier this week RTM of the English version of Office 2008, with additional languages following right on schedule. What does that mean for my team? Well, we helped the dev teams celebrate (yes, that was me cranking the air raid siren Geoff was hearing.) Beyond that, there’s a lot more cranking to do before we launch January 15th – advertising, PR, launch events, and of course, getting ready for Macworld!

Ah, Macworld. It’s going to be a great show and we’re planning a big presence. First, A Day at the Office – a day-long conference at the Moscone on Monday, January 14th, dedicated to extensive user training on the new Office 2008 for Mac. Tickets are close to sold out, but if you’re quick you might still be able to grab one. We also have conference sessions and hands-on labs where attendees can get great training on the new Office 2008 for Mac.

You won’t miss our big booth on the show floor where we’ll have demo stations set up for you to test drive the new product and theatre presentations every half hour highlighting the most popular new features. Even better, most of MacBU and some of our most knowledgeable MVPs will be on hand to answer your questions. We’ll be hanging out again with the community in our new and improved Blogger Lounge (wireless access this year!) Best of all, the product will be available at retail (and online) starting January 15th in North America (including at that swanky Apple Store close to the Moscone.)

And since this is a year to celebrate - we’re the exclusive sponsors of the Macworld Blast at the Warfield Theatre this year, where we’ll have our blow-out launch party Tuesday, January 15th.

This will be a fun night. Long before Office 2008 was on the drawing board, before Mark Mothersbaugh contributed to Art of Office and way before Craig published his “Ship It” lyrics. I was a big fan of our surprise musical guests for the evening…DEVO! (Well, not such a surprise anymore. Sherjo couldn’t keep it from Shawn King on Your Mac Life during an interview with Paul Kent from IDG Wednesday night.)

Now we’re all excited, but I’m not your casual spudboy; there’s ample evidence of my devotion even back in college, as one look at my senior yearbook photo will prove. If you don’t know the band or have never seen DEVO live, do yourself a favor and get one of the few tickets left. The first 300 attendees will get a special gift bag with some limited edition goodies cooked up by Mark Mothersbaugh and my team, so get there early!

This will be a party to remember – and I hope to see you there! Look for the guy wearing the energy dome...

Pat O

Office 2008 for Mac: BFD!

sherjo — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:24:00 GMT

BFD! Big Friday Deals. Best Friday Destinations. The mall, online - wherever I can find them, I love a bargain. And there is no better bargain-hunting day than Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. En masse, we will drag our L-tryptophan dosed selves off of our couches and into the crowds in search of the ultimate deal. This year, in the giddy frenzy that is the road to Macworld and the worldwide launch of Office 2008 for Mac, we wanted to do something BIG. Bigger than big. The BFD-biggest deal out there.

So, for ONE DAY – if you purchase this coming Friday November 23rd – you can get an additional $100 mail-in rebate from us on any qualifying Office 2004 for Mac product (Standard Edition, Standard Edition Upgrade, EVEN Student & Teacher Edition!) AND, you can combine it with our Super Suite Deal, which means you can get Office 2008 Special Media Edition (about $500 street price) for under sixty bucks, if you include the $6.99 shipping and handling fee for Office 2008 (which we’ll send to you after it launches in January.)

Whoa. That is our BFD – Best. Friday. Deal. EVER. Never seen before. Unlikely to be repeated. Hope you like it. Get the full details and download the rebate coupon here.

Welcome to London!

eric.paquin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:00:00 GMT

Another city, another expo! I’ve been travelling on and off since Apple Expo in Paris giving some Office 2008 training to Apple Store staff and key partners and resellers! It feels good to finally be able to show our new offering (well, part of it at least!). So far, the reception has been great and I can’t wait to start getting your reaction once you can get your hands on it!

This time, it’s London for Mac Live Expo! It feels a bit quiet without Apple but there is still a steady flow of people coming to see us! It is the first time we are flying the Office 2008 colours in public! The stand looks great and we are starting to feel the release getting closer! We’ve had a lot of people so far with good questions, good suggestions and yes, we are on track to launch in January!

Crona, Donna, Stephen, Ursula and I all took time off our busy schedule to travel from MacBU Ireland and meet with the customers and give you a small taste of Office 2008! We do regular demos and Microsoft Expression media is also featured at the stand. We’ve even been nominated for a Macworld "Best of Show" award! I have put 2 pictures of the stand here, I'll post more tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the last day so if you are around come say “Hello!” to Office 2008 and talk to us!

And, by the way, welcome to Leopard!!!

UPDATE: As promised... More pictures of the stand have been posted!

Microsoft at Apple Expo: It’s not all about Office!

eric.paquin — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:12:00 GMT

So, my last post was in French... If you are wondering here's what it was all about!

One thing different about the Microsoft stand at Apple Expo is that it is not all about Office! We look at what the Mac community is interested in and organize some presentations around these.

For example, this year we have some people from the Expression Media team demoing their products. We even invited Jean-François Vibert, a famous French photographer (http://www.actionreporter.com), to come and talk about how he uses Expression Media on his Mac.

We also have some presentation on Silverlight for Developers, collaboration between Mac OS and Vista, Antidote Rx – advanced French proofing and dictionaries available for Office and other applications.

Yves Cornil, one of our MVP, is presenting on creating a blog with Windows Live Space on your Mac, Apple User Groups, and connecting Mac and Vista together.

We also have space at the stand dedicated to Vista (integration with the Mac), Expression products, Xbox 360 (hey, Mac users also like to play - Halo 3 anyone?) and Mac Office of course!

Warning: We are listening to you!

That’s right, we are listening to YOU! Last year, when I was at Apple Expo, a customer came to me with a great idea! As promised, I escalated it back to our development team and you can find it now in Office 2008. It is small and simple and it makes me proud to be at Apple Expo, listening to your ideas for the next BIG thing for Office (but I can’t reveal what it is yet – I’ll keep you posted)! So please, don’t hesitate to drop by and make a suggestion ;)

À bientôt!

Microsoft à Apple Expo: Pas seulement à propos d’Office

eric.paquin — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:44:00 GMT

Ce que j’aime bien sur le stand de Microsoft à Apple Expo, c’est que ce n’est pas seulement à propos d’Office! Nous invitons différents intervenants pour montrer comment ils utilisent les différentes technologies de Microsoft ou encore pour discuter de sujets intéressant les utilisateurs Mac.

À l’affiche cette année sur le stand:
-   Xbox 360 (les utilisateurs Mac aiment aussi jouer) – Forza sur 3 écrans géant et cockpit
-   Section Vista et integration dans l’univers Mac
-   Les produits Expression

Et nos conférences:

Jean-François Vibert, photographe français (http://www.actionreporter.com), nous a montré comment il utilise Expression Media
Silverlight pour les développeurs
Yves Cornil, un MVP Mac nous présente une série de présentation:création d’un blog sur Mac avec Windows Live Spaces, connexion MacOS-Vista, les associations d’utilisateurs (AUG, MS-UG et Communautés numériques).
Druide Informatique présente Antidote Rx , un outil de correction français très avancé qui s’intègre très bien avec Office (et aussi d’autres applications)
Et, évidemment, Office 2008 (par moi-même)!

Attention: On vous écoute!

Non, non, sans blague, on VOUS écoute! L’an dernier, lors de mon passage annuel à Apple Expo, quelqu’un m’a approché avec une suggestion pour une nouvelle fonctionnalité! Comme promis, nous avons fait la suggestion à notre équipe de développement et cette fonctionnalité se retrouve dans Office 2008. C’est petit, simple et j’en suis fier (mais je dois garder le silence)... Je lance l’appel à nouveau: venez nous rencontrer et nous faire vos suggestions et, qui sait, la prochaine version verra peut-être votre touche personnelle!

Hello from Paris Expo!

sherjo — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:44:00 GMT

Amanda Lefebvre and I are here at Paris Expo - we're just ready to go over to the show floor now for the first time,and today we'll be talking to folks from Macworld UK, MacUser, MacFormat, ZDNet France and some other French outlets too, not to mention lots of customers.! Nous ne parlons pas beaucoup de Francais, so we'll probably stick to mostly English :-), and we finally get to talk about our new product line-ups (we've added a Special Media Edition, which includes Microsoft Expression Media digital asset management system) as well as the addition of three new languages - Danish, Finnish & Norwegian (the "Nordic Pack".) We're also announcing for many countries our Technology Guarantee: starting today (September 25th), if you buy Office 2004 for Mac, you will get Office 2008 for Mac after it launches in January for the cost of shipping and handling, so no risk if you're upgrading your Mac this week and want to make sure you're getting the latest!

We've already gotten some coverage from some of the pre-briefings that Amanda and Craig Eisler did last week, and Eric Pacquin from our Dublin subsidiary will be blogging live from the floor today in between presentations. Viva la France - today the Expo, tonight a stroll on the Champs-élysées tonight - I can't wait to meet up with all of our friends from our subsidiaries and other folks we haven't seen for ages. Watch for Eric's post later today!

Bonjour! Sheridan

Associated Press - Microsoft sets Office 2008 prices for Macs

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2007-09-25-microsoft-office2008-mac_N.htm

CNET - Microsoft sets pricing on Office 2008 for Mac

http://www.news.com/Microsoft-sets-pricing-on-Office-2008-for-Mac/2100-1012_3-6209269.html

Seattle PI - Mac Office 2008 prices, packages announced / Prices set for Mac '08 editions

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/122399.asp?from=blog_last3

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/332962_macoffice25.html

TUAW - Office 2008 for Mav versions and pricing announced

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/25/office-2008-for-mac-versions-and-pricing-announced/

Macworld - Microsoft details Office 2008 for Mac pricing

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/24/officemac/index.php

ArsTechnica - Microsoft announces Mac Office 2008 pricing, upgrade details

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/09/24/microsoft-announces-mac-office-2008-pricing-upgrade-details

Hello from the new General Manager of the Macintosh Business Unit - Craig Eisler

CraigE — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 19:08:00 GMT

Hi folks,

Wow! I can’t believe I’m actually here - General Manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit. I would not have guessed this is where I would’ve landed when I rejoined Microsoft. But after looking at several great options over the course of the past couple months, I jumped at the Mac BU opportunity when I heard about it.

Why Mac BU? What first got my attention was the fact that it was a fantastic business focused on delivering great technology. As an Office for Mac user, I already knew we had a terrific set of products, and as I dug in, I discovered there was a terrific team of passionate people dedicated to innovation and excellence. Furthermore, Apple and Microsoft are great partners (have been for over 20 years), and there is still more we and Apple can do together. When I put all of that stuff together, it presented a very compelling opportunity. But the icing on the cake - the thing that I love - is the chance to work on Mac products and to get to work with Apple. I have been an Apple fan and Mac user for years – check out my recent blog posting: top ten things from Apple I love.

Microsoft and Apple are both great companies in their own right, and working in Mac BU, I get to experience the best of both worlds.

I am super excited to help Mac BU continue to rock the house with Office 2008 for Mac and beyond.

Craig

Silverlight Excitement

blairn — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:24:00 GMT

Are you excited about Silverlight? I am.

In case you haven't heard, Silverlight is a new rich internet application platform developed by Microsoft with support on both Windows and Macintosh systems. It's pretty awesome. The Silverlight demos presented during the Mix 07 conference keynote were simply out of this world, and featured the cross-platform experience on Mac (or, depending on your perspective, the cross-platform experience on Windows) quite nicely.

Developers can use XAML (a subset of the same XML-based vector graphics markup language used by Windows Presentation Foundation on Vista) in the browser, and bind XAML controls through the DOM to either Javascript or the .NET Framework core components, the latter of which was brought over to Mac to help make this happen. That's right; I said .NET Framework on Mac. Exciting? You bet.

Too geeky for you? How about streaming Windows Media audio and video, supported by Microsoft, including HD video up to 720p? Check out these Mix 07 demos (I'm personally a major fan of Top Banana) and you'll start to get a sense of the kinds of exciting rich internet experiences that Silverlight helps to enable.

Not geeky enough for you? What about dynamic language runtime support, so you can implement all your code-behind in Ruby, Python, or what have you? How about designers and developers working together with seamlessly integrated workflows to help each other deliver striking content with killer functionality behind the scenes? How about the power and performance of the core .NET Framework helping to deliver both software and services online, across browsers, and across platforms? How about 4 GB of free Microsoft-hosted video? How cool is that?

Did I mention that Silverlight is supported in both Safari and Firefox browsers on the Mac? Okay, I admit, I'm feeling just a little bit of Silverlight excitement.

So, that's all good and exciting, but what does Silverlight have to do with MacBU anyways? Well, in a sense, not much: Silverlight is not a MacBU effort. Why not, you ask? Well, as you probably know, MacBU has never been the only source within Microsoft for software on the Mac. We certainly are the center of gravity for exciting Mac-specific experiences at Microsoft, but Silverlight (which is really about exciting cross-platform experiences) doesn't really fit that "Mac-specific" charter. But we're certainly excited to have Silverlight join us here on this exciting platform that we call the Mac.

Check out Silverlight for yourself.

Spring cleaning

eric.paquin — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:44:00 GMT

Spring is here and I don't know where the time has gone... So apologies for not posting earlier! A short post today to tackle some questions I have heard and hopefully get your thoughts on these issues.

To localize or not to localize

Will Mac Office 2008 be available in <insert language here>? A question I have heard many times!

What do we look at to decide if we are going to add a language? There are many parameters that comes into play. MacBU's marketing department constantly sifts through a lot of data to take this kind of decision. To name a few areas - we have to look into Apple investments in various markets, Microsoft investments and strategies and information coming from our various subsidiaries. The process is very close to the one we use when we face some feature decisions (see Mary's post on Messenger decision for more complete information). I know I am over simplifying! There is more considered but it's close to this. If Apple sales in a market do not perform well, chances are that Mac Office sales will also not do well!

Look at Office 2004. When we started the process, we decided to include Italian which had been dropped after Office 98. Italian sales were looking good and so did the outlook for Apple... And it does indeed; they are opening an Apple Store in Rome at the end of this month! Then, after a few months, we added a Dutch version. 2 new languages for Office 2004. Who knows what the future may bring?

To switch or not to switch...

... languages not OS, that is! Ever since OS X has been released, we occasionally get the question whether Office will become multi-language. For the moment, it is not. We always try to offer the best to our international customers through localization, templates, proofing tools - OS language switching is something we haven't done. Don't take me wrong, I think it would be a really cool (and useful) thing to offer to people like me who share their Mac with people speaking a different language. I'd love to use Office in French while my wife can keep using it in English. Again, we always face tough decisions when comes the time to select what feature to add or remove. Which one will prove the most useful for most of our users (again, see Mary's post for the details)...

Although I think this would be very cool - along with many other features; at this stage, as Nadyne explained so well, we need to Ship It!

To correct or not to correct

Talking about switching and adding languages to Office, we do provide a good set of proofing tools in all our languages. To proof a Word document in your favorite language, simply select your text and go to Tools/Language. Did you know that a Word document can contain one than more language? You have a paragraph written in English followed by one in French? That's no problem just follow the above instructions for each paragraph and "Voilà!"... You can proof both at the same time!

So what languages can you correct? All our versions of Office 2004 come with the following tools:
Brazilian-Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

***

So what do you think? You would like to see a <cool international feature> in Office (ok... maybe not in Office 2008), do send your suggestions and feedback to us! The official way is this way: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=feedback or you can leave us a comment!

Confessions of a Mac Switcher at Microsoft

blairn — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:30:00 GMT

Hi. My name is Blair and I'm a switcher.

I guess it all started around OS X. I'd been working in a Linux shop for a little while. On DOS and Windows before that. I was already hooked on the command line, but couldn't find a windowing environment that kept me satisfied. That's when a friend of mine first turned me on to OS X. All the power of the command line that I was used to from Linux but with the tastiest UI I'd ever seen! I was hooked after trying OS X just once. I've been using Macs and OS X ever since.

I knew I'd need to get my own Mac if I was going to use OS X the way I wanted to. A friend sold me his used 500 MHz G4 TiBook for $500. The thing was all beat up: Cracked hinge, broken latch (replaced with Velcro), missing command key, combo drive that made a lot of scratching noise (not to mention scratched up discs), and a downgraded 2Gb hard drive. I was sold. I upgraded the hard drive and bought an external CD-RW drive. I had to install OS X from another Mac with my PowerBook in Firewire mode, but that's all the work I had to do and that first PowerBook is running great even today.

My roommate and I used to joke about what a perfect Switcher ad our house would make. We counted the retired PCs in our attic: 14 in various configurations, but every last one of the powered down. We were doing all our work on one PowerBook each. We didn't need the recognition or the fame of an Ellen Feiss. Running OS X was all we really needed, and one PowerBook each to keep us happy.

I ended up being recruited to Microsoft for the pizza. True story. I'd gone back to college and wouldn't normally have attended the recruiting event, but I was hungry and, hey - free pizza. I told everybody at Microsoft that I use Mac OS X. It was cool. Nobody judged. Everybody seemed to think it was all right. I even met a few other Microsoft people that use OS X the way I do. I went ahead with a 3-month internship and by the time I was done with that internship I was hooked on Microsoft as well. It's just an amazing company to work for. Whenever I'd talk about OS X, or Apple, or my PowerBook, people would just be interested in hearing another opinion. Microsoft's been super cool.

I worked on Visual Studio for a few years. My old roommate kept sending me Microsoft job postings for MacBU. "If you're going to work at Microsoft, at least work for these guys," he'd say. "No way, man. I'm happy where I'm at," or, "It's cool here," I'd say. But my situation changed after a few years and I decided to give the MacBU a shot. Now I'm a Program Manager working on Mac PowerPoint. It's been great! MacBooks, Mac Pros and PowerPCs everywhere you look, and all the OS X I can handle. I'm hooked.

Introducing a “certain je-ne-sais-quoi”

eric.paquin — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:29:00 GMT

A new year, a new blogger! Today’s post is all about me! I’m taking the plunge in the Mojo so let me introduce myself! I’m Eric Paquin, International Project Manager and totally new to the art of blogging (please be patient)! So, what can I bring to the Mojo? I’ll focus on the international perspective. Being a French Canadian (aka Québécois) living in Ireland (I’ll spare you the long story ;) ) it gives me an interesting viewpoint on all things international (well… most)!

Mac head since 1989 (but also a PC user)… I’ve been working in localization for over 10 years. I was a tester in Corel – they had their localization centre in Dublin then. And I have been in the Ireland branch of MacBU for the last 7 years, first in test and now as a project manager.

In the past, one thing I was never good at was using French products (on Mac or PC) as historically (many moons ago), it used to take near 6 months after the release of the English product - not only for Microsoft products - to have the privilege to install it in French in Canada… Then once I started to install French products, I was really confused being used to the English terminology.

Things have change and for the last 3 years, my primary Mac at work is fully French! Talk about putting my software where my mouth is ;) It helps me understanding issues that our international users might run into. It also made me realize that most software I use have issues when you run them in another language. Especially highlighted when you have a configuration like this (in System preferences/International):

French Canadian CSA keyboard
Ireland (French) international format
GMT / 24 hour clock

About localization in Dublin… (I won’t cover the whole process - Schwieb has already given a good overview). Who are we? We are a team responsible for 6 languages (namely French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch). For Office 2004, each of these languages contained an average of 100000 new and updated words (translation we could not recycle from previous versions) in the software. To add a new language like we did for Dutch and Italian, it means 300000 words and another 750000 for the help. We released the software in various flavours – Standard Edition, Student and Teacher, Volume Licensing, Word and Excel Standalone in some languages, Entourage standalone for Volume Licensing, Test Drive. Altogether, for Office 2004, we were responsible for signing off on 23 CDs for Office and 15 for VPC (Virtual PC). We also localize Messenger, RDC (Remote Desktop Client) and all the various software updates…

That’s a lot… We couldn’t do it without automation and working with vendors on the translation part and some of the testing… In a future post, I’ll give an overview of the problems this causes, how we work around these and a quick overview of some of the tools we use.

I have a few more ideas for future posts but I would also like to hear from you if there are any particular international topics you’d like me to get into a little more… These include:

Differences between European markets and the US – is it day and night or more like 13h and 1PM?
International Features I’d like to see (and hopefully you do to!)
Communications with our European customers
And, pourquoi pas, “Le Mojo” – an occasional post in French?

Until the next time…

Au revoir!

MacBOO to you! Happy Halloween and TidBITs Treats!

sherjo — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:00:00 GMT

Today kicks off our official sponsorship of TidBITS, and it's a real Halloween treat for us to work with this legendary online newsletter (sixteen years and counting) and the amazing Adam and Tonya Engst. We've been talking to them a bunch since Macworld last year about how we should do something together - ever since another good friend of MacBU, Neil Ticktin of MacTech Magazine, insisted that it should be so. :-)

Adam gave us a most gracious welcome in yesterday's issue of TidBITs, and though we weren't able to get the MacBOO t-shirts designed (sorry Adam!), we are offering some treats for TidBITS readers, which hopefully you all are or will be soon. Check out the DealBITS drawing here.

So, who's on the bus for Macworld '07? Maybe we can do MacBUs t-shirts instead? And speaking of Macworld, we've got some fun community stuff in store including sponsoring the Your Mac Life party again this year - watch this space for more details!

Closet space, the final frontier

Office for Mac — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:27:00 GMT

The last event of C4 was a visit to Chicago's Adler Planetarium, with a special behind the scenes (and beneath the stairs) tour of the computer room that runs the video conferencing room and the CyberSpace classroom. Well, "room" is charitable. "Closet" would be better. "Crawlspace", "pit" or "graduate student living arrangement" would also work.

Contrary to the skeptical whisperings of some of the Planetarium staff ("Why are you showing them closets?"), the highlight was easily the rack of more than two dozen G4 cubes wired up as the brains of the classroom workstations.

I find great irony in the fact that a machine which was originally designed more as an objet d'art than a computer turns out to be a very useful computer for a museum, and a group of programmers come to appreciate the techno-beauty of the installation, even if it is in a closet.

I'll leave you with a few classic quotes from C4, as best I can remember them. It's been great being your weekend guest-blogger. Thanks for reading.

- Olof

"It was like an unwritten rule, except that it was written."

- John Gruber on the Human Interface Guidelines

"Who'd have thought I'd be up here saying how wonderful NavServices is?"

- Brent Simmons

"It was like making apples from applesauce."

- Brian Fitzpatrick on writing cvs2svn

"Before MySpace, we had friendships.

Before NBA Live, we had basketball.

Before Second Life, we had life.

Before Delicious Library, we had shelves."

- Aaron Hillegass on the importance of solving real problems

"Subversion is not a big truck."

- Brian Fitzpatrick

Checking out and checking in

Office for Mac — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:56:00 GMT

C4 is over and I'm back in Seattle, which means these last two posts will be Almost Live-blogging C4.

I get about 60 emails every day from a robot. Well, not a robot that moves around, but our version control system -- the server that manages our project's source code. Every time someone checks in a change to the source code, the system sends out email to everyone that includes information about what got changed, who changed it, and their comments about that change.

MacBU is somewhat schitzophrenic in that roughly half of our development team is in Redmond, and half in Silicon Valley. I'm in Redmond, so when I started at MacBU, I got to know the SIlicon Valley part of the team primarily via email, a good deal of which was from the source control system. And there are also smaller parts of our team in Ireland and Japan and China where the email communication is even more important.

Our system is set up this way so as to encourage good collaboration. For example, knowing that everyone will get email that contains the checkin comments, most people try to write decent checkin comments. This good for team communication in the present, but it is also crucial for helping our future selves, when we'll look back on our checkin comments from today and try to answer the crucial question "What were we thinking?".

But 60 emails a day is overload. I usually scan them but often don't have the time to follow closely what people have been working on. They are still helpful, of course, but the lessons are clear -- our software systems help us communicate within the team, and thereby build team cohesiveness and awareness, but there are obvious limitations.

So what got me thinking about this? Brian Fitzpatrick, one of the people behind Subversion, the latest and greatest open-source source control project, spoke at C4 on Saturday. Brian had a number of examples of how the features available in a version control system affect the community that uses it, and he talked about trying to make decisions about the design of Subversion with the community dynamics in mind.

Interestingly, its not always obvious what the 'right' choice is, and indeed, there are cases where one project might want a certain feature done one way, and another community might want a completely different implementation. For example, the very meaning of 'checking in' might be very different. At MacBU, checking in means taking responsibility that the code works and doesn't break the existing build. But in another setting (think Wikipedia), checking in could mean "here's my ideas for what this file should be -- what do the rest of you think?".

The trend of thinking about software not just as a set of features, but instead as a foundation for community building isn't a new one, but it still surprising how far reaching and subtle the influences can be. Working on the Mac Office products, we use the phrase 'personal productivity' quite a bit, and most people know really well what makes themselves productive.

We also care about 'team productivity' and 'collaboration', but those things can mean different things to different people, and they are much harder features to deliver, especially when 'personal productivity' can be at odds with 'team productivity'. It's more evidence that there's plenty of innovation still needed in our market segment, and why there's a future for Mac Office well beyond the horizon we can see today.

Film at Eleven

Office for Mac — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 20:14:00 GMT

It's Olof again, liveblogging from C4.

John Gruber took us on a tour of Apple User Interface last night, and talked about consistency and uniformity. But he really got the thought provokage started with the observation

"Designing an app is like directing a movie."

There is a building wave of people thinking of software in cinematic terms. Do you remember seeing the genie effect for the first time? Functionally, a window gets collapsed into the dock. But if you were like me, you played with the genie effect a few times just to see it.

Whether or not the genie's swoosh motion into the dock really does help the user by, it was a defining part of the user experience. For Mac developers in 2006, the idea of 'software as movie' is taking hold. If you haven't heard the phrase 'cinematic experience' enough this year, you haven't been drinking enough Kool-Aid.

And increasingly, application developers have more and more tools available to make animation and high quality sound a part of applications. We've got compositing windows and serious CoreImage graphics processing, and computing power to spare to waste on pixel candy. There are more subtle hints, too. 'Spotlight', 'Sherlock' or 'Time Machine' as names for technologies feel very Hollywood. But at what point does building an application turn into directing a movie? And is that a bad thing?

Gruber offers Delicious Library as an example of an application where a big part of the Wow factor was an only marginally useful but stunningly gorgeous library display shelf:

"If I was a competitor to Delicious Library, I'd be demoralized looking at it. Here I thought I was writing software and I got beat by a movie."

Continuing in that direction, its easy (but perhaps scary) to imagine a world where applications are differentiated like movies are. Easy because Apple ships examples like GarageBand and iTunes that are moving in that direction. Scary because there are examples like Kai's Power Tools.

Scary, too, because it means software developers need to think more and more like filmmakers. Maybe MacBU needs to hire some people with movie industry experience. What's that? We already do? Cool!