my friends to AIM and iChat. This barely qualifies as an update. I suspect I'll be equally let down by Office 2004. I sincerely hope Apple releases a legitimate (i.e. something better than Appleworks) competitor to Word, then I can rid myself of any Microsoft products. I mean, seriously, how hard would it be to add picture support? MS keeps supporting Office for Mac because it helps propagate their proprietary file formats, locking people into their products. Your Windows friends have no reason to use open formats if they know Mac people can open them just fine.

Messenger has no real bottom line for MS; it doesn't lock anyone into closed formats, so they don't keep it updated.