Microsoft gives Mac users cold shoulder with Office 365 deals
Microsoft yesterday clarified that Mac users will not be able to download and install a copy of Office for Mac 2011 as one of the five licenses allowed by the new Office 365 subscription plans.
The news may make the subscription deals, including Office 365 Home Premium, less attractive to consumers and businesses that have both Macs and Windows PCs.
While Office for Mac 2011 will integrate with Office 365 plans to some extent, users will not be given licenses to the OS X software.
"To clarify, those that have Office for Mac 2011 licenses and install the update, once it's available, will be able to use their Office for Mac 2011 license as one of the 5 devices in the Office Home Premium subscription," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email reply to questions Tuesday.
Computerworld had posed two possible interpretations of earlier comments by Microsoft about how Mac users fit into the plans for the Office 365 subscription deals, which will give consumers five licenses to the new Office 2013 on Windows. Read more...
Half of all Macs will lack access to security updates by summer
Unless Apple changes its security update practice, nearly half of all Mac users will be adrift without patches sometime this summer.
Apple will launch OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, in the next few months, and then will -- baring a change in a decade-old habit -- stop serving patches to OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard.
Although Apple has never spelled out its support policy for older operating systems, it has always dropped an edition around the time it has two newer versions in play. If the current OS X is dubbed "n," then "n-2" support ends at the debut of "n." Read more...
Mac owners 3X more likely to preview next OS than Windows users
Mac users are nearly three times more likely to be running an early version of the OS X Mountain Lion operating system than PC owners testing Microsoft's Windows 8, the Chitika online ad network said today.
During a week following Mountain Lion's release, its share of the Macs that accessed Chitika's network was a puny 0.06%, or six out of every 10,000 Macs.
But that was nearly three times the percentage of Windows users running Windows 8 who were served an ad in the early days of that operating system's availability. In the same period following the release last September of Windows 8 Developer Preview, just 0.021% of all Windows PCs were powered by that sneak peek. (The number represented 2.1 PCs out of every 10,000 running one Windows flavor or another.) Read more...
Cyber-crooks eye Apple Macs with fake anti-malware
The days when Mac users need not worry about their computers getting infected with malicious software may be coming to an end.
Internet security experts say that cyber-criminals have begun targeting users of the increasingly popular computers from Apple Inc with one of the most pernicious types of malware: fake anti-virus programs.
To date, hackers have focused on writing malicious software for machines running Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system, which inhabits more than nine of every 10 PCs.
But Macs grow in number, they are becoming more attractive targets. Read more...