“I’ve been a Mac user for many years, and like with most Mac users, there are occasions when I have core business apps that require me to run Internet Explorer for a browser, or run Visual Studio for app development work, or even run Microsoft Project and Visio that just aren’t available on a Mac. (They aren’t, but you might think that.) So, here is a quote from a Network World review (emphasis mine): While you may not be able to get the Mac applications you desire, you can get the Windows versions and run them right alongside your Mac applications.Īs the product manager for Parallels Desktop, you might consider my opinions to be a bit biased. In the case of Visio, Microsoft has released a Visio Viewer for iOS, as shown in Figure 1.įigure 5_IE in Windows10 running on a Mac with Parallels Desktop In some cases, a viewer application that faithfully renders a document that you could not otherwise open will suffice. There are a couple of options for a Mac user: You can read more details about DirectX and OpenGL. It would be unlikely to recoup development costs, for the same reasons as the Office applications. The graphics foundations on Mac and Windows diverge sufficiently that porting any hot new Windows game over to the Mac is a major undertaking. Given that there is no new development for IE for Windows (because of the release of Microsoft Edge in 2015), there is no chance at all for a future release of IE for Mac. Microsoft ceased development of IE for Mac in July 2003. There was a version of IE for Mac about 15 years ago. Microsoft AccessĮxactly the same as Visio: very, very unlikely to ever happen, and for exactly the same reason. But in the rarified world of the Microsoft Office team, such a product would be considered a dismal failure.

But in the rarified world of the Microsoft Office team, such a product would be considered a dismal failure.įor any Mac software company, a software product that brought in $50 million per year would be viewed as a fantastic success. I, and many others, believe the development costs to produce a Mac Visio that would faithfully render any existing Visio drawing (and have almost all the functionality of Visio for Windows) would never be recouped by Microsoft.įor any Mac software company, a software product that brought in $50 million per year would be viewed as a fantastic success. It’s unwise to say “never” with regard to future development efforts by a company as large as Microsoft, so I will predict this about Visio for Mac: it’s very, very unlikely to ever happen.

Let me address a few of these in some detail. Most of these requests are for well-known Microsoft applications on Windows, and Mac users want them. When will (insert name of hot new game here ) be available for Mac? Will we ever see a Microsoft Project for Mac? Mac users aren’t at all shy about making their requests for applications known:

Ms visio viewer for mac