Eww, Is Apple Web Site Offering Commentary On Windows XP?

by , 8:00 AM EDT, July 25th, 2001

A version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X was demonstrated during Steve Jobs' keynote speech at MACWORLD Expo in New York on July 18. The upcoming Office 10 for Mac OS X is great news for people who depend on the Office suite for their day-to-day work.

In the Hot News section of Apple's Web site, there is a showcase for Office for OS X. Trevor Harrison of MacWrite pointed out to this author something rather interesting about the page. Looking at the icons that are displayed along the top of the page, you can see they are positioned in this order: Entourage, Word, Excel, Powerpoint. If we take a bit of creative license, add some punctuation and custom spacing to the letters in the icons, and note that the Word icon has two "W's" in it, it would seem that there might be a message in there somewhere. Perhaps something like "Eww, XP" even.

A screen shot of the Web page:

The parade of icons seen on
Apple's page about Office for Mac OS X.

A coincidence? Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)

The Mac Observer Spin:

Seriously folks, this piece was meant entirely in fun, and we have nothing but respect for the Mac Business Unit of Microsoft. That said, is someone at Apple taking a crack at Microsoft's upcoming Windows XP operating system, which many people claim is "inspired" by Mac OS X? We will likely never know for sure, but it's always fun to speculate. One thing is certain, the layout of the icons on the Office 2001 install CD and the default installation made from that CD is not in the same order as seen above.

Apple's Office X Web Page