Microsoft VP for Windows Live, Chris Jones, in an interview Tuesday with Ina Fried at C|Net, said that the Mac is a great platform and pondered ways to get the right balance of support for the Mac.
The discussion started with whether Microsoft plans to participate in Googlesi OpenSocial platform. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Jones had some comments to make about Apple and the Macintosh platform:
"Weive always been real supporters of the Macintosh platform in our applications business. In the case of Office and Messenger we have great Macintosh experiences of both of those things.
"I think moving forward weire going to look at the Mac like any other platform and just say where is the demand for customers to go and use and consume our services, and where is there an opportunity for us to do work....
"We think the Mac is a great platform, and weire just going to try to figure out the right balance of investment to put on that platform.... So, experience by experience there will be a question of is a browser-based solution enough, should we hook in with an existing application, or do we put new software on the Macintosh. I think there is no blanket statement I can make about the Mac, except to say we think the Macintosh is a great platform, and we think that customers should be able to get to their Windows Live stuff on the Mac, and weill continue to evaluate ways to do that," Mr. Jones said.
TMO notes that MS Office for the Macintosh has always been a good money maker for Microsoft. The tenor of this interview suggests that Mr. Jones views the Mac in a broader light as a business opportunity for Microsoft.