Is Microsoft Feeling the Heat of Competition from iWork ‘08?

Thursday, August 30th, 2007 | Mac vs Windows, Opinion

Recently Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (MacBU) launched a new community site called, “Art of Office.” The site is intended to showcase Microsoft Office for Mac through artistic creations using Word, Excel and PowerPoint. This site is specifically for MS Office for Mac.

The combination of Art and Office, makes me wonder why Microsoft would pursue such an online community and a method to showcase its Office software suite for the Mac. I suspect that MacBU at Microsoft is responding to the newly released iWork ‘08. By including a spreadsheet program in the iWork ‘08 suite, Apple has brought it to a level where it can be considered a viable alternative to Office as a productivity suite. Notice that this Art of Office web site targets only the Mac version of Office. iWork ‘08 is not a threat to MS Office on Windows, since it runs only on a Mac.

Microsoft’s MacBU could have chosen to showcase Office in a different way. However, they decided to emphasize the creative aspect of Office. Art of Office is not promoting the number crunching superiority of Office, but rather its ability to be used for creative, artistic projects. Apple has always been associated with creativity and art and continues to be heavily used by the creative professionals. I would argue that this group of Mac consumers will be the first to consider moving away from Office in favor of iWork.

I believe that the launch of Art of Office is clearly in response to the increasing threat of competition from iWork to Microsoft Office for Mac.

What do you think about the launch of Art of Office? Share your opinion in the comments.