Microsoft has officially halted development of its Windows Media Player for the Mac and plans no future Apple versions of its music-playing software, ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com has learned.
"We have no plans to provide future updates or product support for Windows Media Player for Mac," Adam Anderson, Microsoft public relations manager, said in an interview on Thursday.
The company will continue to offer the current version for download. It also has announced a deal to offer for free the Flip4Mac plug-in from Telestream that will allow Mac OS X users to play Windows Media video and audio directly from Apple's QuickTime Player software.
Microsoft has not released a significant update to Windows Media Player for Mac in some time. The current Mac OS X version, Windows Media Player 9, was released in November 2003. Microsoft also offers an even older Mac OS 9 version.
Anderson said the decision to halt work on Windows Media Player for the Mac was a matter of prioritising for Microsoft's Windows Media unit.
"It's basically a business decision for Microsoft," Anderson said. "Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."
The move comes just as Microsoft announced a pact with Apple that guarantees that the software maker will deliver new versions of Office for Mac for the next five years.
Despite the recent pact, Microsoft has scaled back the number of Mac products it offers over the past several years. The company has halted work on its Internet Explorer for Mac Web browser and also shelved an MSN for Mac Internet service.
Microsoft has said it will come out with new versions of Office and MSN Messenger. The company has not announced definitive plans for its other main Mac product, Virtual PC.
Talkback
They're 'scaling back' because they aren't selling any.
The problem for Apple is that they would have to come up with native ways to show WMFs files if enough people bitched about it.
We can live quite well WITHOUT seeing the same crap we have to deal with at the office. The security holes, the late or lackadaisical updates, the exploits and ActiveX divots, we don't really want it.
Then again, the new eMachines XP box I had to buy for my work had QuickTime preinstalled. I downloaded iTunes, FireFox, ThunderBird, OpenOffice and a few other time management programs and I am generally safer than most.
(Only cheap-ass porno sites use .WMF, where the operator is probably using the 'office machine' of their employer. Oh ! And MTV [same thing. Do they even still run music videos?])
i kinda agree with you... but tell me, aren't they in direct competition with safari ?doesn't safari use the same rendering engine as ie .. mozilla,firefox,nepscape,camino(for mac) --> gecko...
ie,safari,netscape(as of version 6 or something offer both) --> ie ...
konqueror (linux) --> khtml ..
i'm not trying to take ms's side .. i don't really like the fkers but have to use their cr*p at school ... i would imagine that safari would have kept some or most of the functionalitty of ie as well as its own..which would be why they aren't selling anything as opposed to the security flaws...