Say, remember when we recently noted that Microsoft reps had revealed that apparently "Redmond Justice" was all a dream somebody had on "Dallas" and the company was therefore dropping development of all standalone versions of Internet Explorer in favor of tying it completely into Windows? At the time we said that it wouldn't be an aneurysm-inducing surprise to discover that Microsoft wasn't just talking about the Windows version of the browser, and that Mac users might never see another upgrade to Internet Explorer again. (Well, unless you consider Safari to be an upgrade to IE-- and you should. Then again, we consider a stick of gum to be an upgrade to IE, too...)

Well, Mac OS Rumors, at least, seems to agree-- and then some. Get this: not only is Microsoft unpsyched to sink any more development time into IE for the Mac, the company is reportedly "no longer interested in actively developing any products for Mac OS X for some time." What?! No more Microsoft products for our Macs? Now where are we supposed to go for crappy bloatware?

But seriously, folks, while we personally would consider news of all Microsoft software vaporizing overnight as irrefutable proof of the existence of a just and loving God, this development is potentially devastating to our little platform, here. Like it or not, thanks to the self-perpetuating magic of monopoly power, Word and Excel drive the planet, and in business, Exchange clients are pretty much mandatory these days. Note, also, Microsoft's recent Borglike assimilation of VirtualPC from Connectix; oh, sure, they say they plan to keep selling the software, but you don't need to be clinically paranoid to suspect a conspiracy to destroy the Mac's increasing viability in business settings by 1) getting rid of all Mac-native Microsoft products, and 2) buying and then eliminating the most widespread means by which Macs can run the Windows-native versions instead. (Good thing there are other emulators in the works.)

Now, granted, MOSR claims that Microsoft will still deign to squirt out "a few new versions of Office and MSN" for our Macs ("targeted at bringing users into the Windows fold"-- yeah, that should work) before it vacates the premises completely, which, if true, means that the situation isn't necessarily as dire as all that. Still, unless Apple (or someone else) is capable of producing software applications that can completely replace Office and Internet Explorer and provide 100% transparent read-and-write compatibility with Microsoft's ever-mutating and byzantine file formats, a Microsoft Mac exodus still might sting a little. Safari and Keynote aren't bad starts. What's next?