Q&A: are you going to stop making Mac apps?

Inspired by the open question thread, someone emailed me this one:

your 5-year agreement with apple expires soon, and ive heard that you'll stop making mac apps when it expires, is this true?

This rumour, like so many others in Apple circles, is a perennial favourite. It pops up pretty frequently, and I can't imagine that it's going away any time soon.

Let's step back and look at the history of Microsoft creating apps for Apple platforms. We're the oldest developer here, other than Apple themselves. We started off with Applesoft BASIC. Both PowerPoint and Excel were originally Mac applications, and Office was released as a suite on the Mac first. One of our PowerPoint developers has been here for over 20 years, and all of that time he's been working on PowerPoint:Mac. We've got a few other old-timers on our hallways as well, including my fellow MacBU bloggers Rick and Schwieb. There's a huge amount of experience and expertise on our hallways, and I'm not sure where else other than Apple where you could find someone who's been developing for the platform since the very beginning.

The MacBU was formed in 1997, with the specific goal of creating world-class productivity apps for the Mac. When we were created, we put a five-year agreement in place with Apple to continue to create our apps. We renewed that pledge at Macworld Expo 2006. One has to note that after the first five-year agreement expired in 2002, we put out service packs to Office:Mac 2001 and Office:Mac X. We also released Office:Mac 2004, Virtual PC 7, Remote Desktop Connection, and a couple of releases of Messenger.

Here in MacBU, the technical team is hard at work finishing up the next version of Office:Mac, which will hit store shelves in time for holiday 2010. A few of us are starting to transition from working on it to working on the version after that. We start figuring out what the version after it should look like: defining our goals, working with our partners (both within and without Microsoft) to learn about their goals, and brainstorming ideas.

The early phase of development of the next-next version of Office:Mac is one of my favourite parts of the job. It comes just when I've been doing deep dives into specific pieces of my applications. This early phase is when I get to step back and think about the forest instead of focusing on a few leaves on a specific tree. I get to think about big problems and big goals. For the next-next version, the canvas is blank, and I get to help to start figuring out what will go on it.

The 220+ of us here in MacBU are moving full steam ahead with the next versions of Office:Mac and Messenger, and we're working on lots of things beyond that as well. I doubt that anyone here on the technical team will take any notice when that five-year agreement expires because it's not going to affect how we do our job. We're still going to be working on Office:Mac.