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In what general manager of the Mac business unit Craig Eisler says is the “...biggest hiring initiative since the inception of MacBU eleven years ago,” Microsoft’s Mac BU is expanding. In a blog post on the “Mac Mojo” blog, Eisler wrote that the Mac BU is “...hard at work planning for products beyond Office 2008, and we are growing our team to help turn our vision into reality.” Whether he means yet-unannounced products or making Messenger for Mac just a little less of a joke remains to be seen, but they’ve got something up their sleeves.

Microsoft is the Mac’s biggest developer, mostly because of their gargantuan market share with Microsoft Office. Many alternatives that are increasingly viable have sprung up in recent years including Apple’s own iWork (which is much better than Office in terms of compatibility and usability, but has a long way to go in features) and OpenOffice (which became much more viable with the announcement of its native Aqua port). However, for ultimate compatibility with Office on Windows, Microsoft Office for Mac is the way to go. Sure, before Office 2008, iWork ironically supported Office 2007’s new .docx file formats while Word itself did not, but Apple has only included an “Export” option for saving to Office formats. The only way to Save a Pages file is to a .pages file. iWork gets better with every release, but it still has a long way to go.

Even in situations where iWork or OpenOffice would be just fine, people still go for Office for Mac despite the price-tag, shortcomings, and overuse of animations (it almost cries, “Look at me! I’m a Mac app too! Please let me fit in!”) because it’s what they used on Windows.

I do look forward to seeing what the Mac team has up their sleeve outside of Office, but I hope that it is something unique, and not just their own crappy spin on something that already exists. Make me happy, Microsoft.

Read [Mac Mojo]