Okay, time for a red-hot news flash: the iMac is a big hit in the consumer market. Surprised? Of course you're not freaking surprised; we've all known this for months and months now. Nobody on earth could look at the iMac sales figures and conclude otherwise, and in fact several traditionally Mac-hostile journalists have grudgingly conceded that Apple's cute and cuddly tranlucent little lump is a winner when it comes to the home computer market. So why, you ask, are we passing off this bit of obvious info as news? Simple-- because apparently nobody told Microsoft.

How do we know this? Because during this era of unparalleled interest in developing consumer-oriented software titles to sell to the large and growing iMac user base, Microsoft has announced that it's actually halting development of the Mac version of Encarta, their home- and education-targeted multimedia encyclopedia product. MacWEEK has more on the subject. Apparently that historic "agreement" between Apple and Microsoft only guaranteed new Mac versions of Office for five years, because Encarta 99 for the Mac is nonexistent. While the product hasn't been killed outright, the final decision on what to do with it will be made this summer.

One take on the whole thing is this: Microsoft knows that Apple doesn't stand a chance of eroding Windows market share by much in the business world-- at least, certainly not anytime soon. But maybe they're more than a little worried about the Mac's resurgence in the home market, given the over 800,000 iMacs that have been purchased since the big rollout in August. So while they're perfectly happy to make money on sales of the new version of Office for the Mac, maybe they're willing to sacrifice sales of their home products in hopes of persuading fence-sitting consumers to buy a Wintel instead of an iMac. Paranoid rant? Hey, given all the stuff that's come out during the "Redmond Justice" trial, it's getting increasingly difficult not to be paranoid when Microsoft's involved.