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Apple
Revisited:
Apple
Revisited: Ancient History I
first took a bite out of the Apple in the late 1970’s, wending
my way through the Hilton Anaheim’s parking garage, where the
NCC (the late and unlamented National Computer Conference) had
exiled those unruly, juvenile PC’s. The garage ramps and
parking spaces were filled with youthful energy, wisps of illicit
smoke, strangely named little computers, and their (scarce)
software. None of us took them very seriously, not realizing
that in less than ten years they would come to BE the computer
industry, viewing the powerful vendors on the main exhibit floors
as pathetic dinosaurs. In
corporate America, early Apple PC’s didn’t count very much.
Just an occasional renegade desktop in some financial analyst’s
office, running that funny new VisiCalc software. One
client, a large New York bank, had a dozen Apples, hidden from the
IT department (and from most users) in a kind of computing
laboratory labeled “The Apple Orchard.” In
1984, Apple had its first big, commercial hit. The Macintosh
computer didn’t look like anything a computer user had ever seen
before. That was intentional. It didn’t have most of
the features business users demanded, either; that wasn’t
planned and it took a year or two to correct, given its closed box
design. In
1985, Apple discovered desktop publishing and the world was never
exactly the same. It was a perfect technology sell.
Every business already had a budget for printing and an
Apple-based desktop publishing system gave you more control,
faster production, and much lower costs. Instantly, Apple
and its partners (Adobe for the PostScript print description
language, Aldus for its PageMaker desktop publishing software, and
Canon for its laser printers) had a home run. In
some sense, Apple has spent the last 15 years looking for another
desktop publishing win. We will pass over the uncertainty of
inappropriate management (remember Gil Amelio?) and unworthy
products (even the daily comics mocked Apple’s Newton). Apple
Resurrectus By
the time Steve Jobs triumphantly returned to Apple as Interim CEO
in mid-1997, the company was in sorry shape. Jobs
accomplished miracles, negotiating with Microsoft for an infusion
of cash and a new version of Office for the Mac. He inspired
dazzling new desktops and portables that recreated Apple as an
alternative PC platform. What
it didn’t do was lure developers into creating new applications
for the Mac (which is what helped create the desktop publishing
market) or even, in many cases, to porting important business
applications from Windows. Apple and the Mac are now viewed
as a niche market, focused on consumers, the graphics market, and
a dwindling education market. Many developers consider
them too small and specialized a platform for their products,
looking at Apple’s annual sales and forgetting their impressive
(and loyal) installed base. Turn
Over A New (Apple) Leaf Nevertheless,
Apple is doing something very interesting now and we would be
wrong not to bring it to your attention. With its move to
offer new Macs with the OS X 10.1 operating system, a version of
UNIX, Apple is entering a new era. First,
OSX (all of these remarks refer to the new release 10.1, which
corrected some of the bugs and performance problems noted in the
initial release) provides Apple Macintosh users, perhaps for the
first time, with a reliable, robust computing environment. I
might never have left the Apple platform (we used Macs almost
exclusively from 1985 through 1995) if we hadn’t lost one too
many important documents to the Mac’s infamous non-recoverable
memory loss problems. Secondly,
if ISVs can conveniently write software for the UNIX/Linux market
and then get to the Mac as just one more Unix port, more software
may be in the Macintosh’s future. It’s too soon to see
just how well that might work, but we can report on what we’ve
seen, tried, and heard about. Some of it is very impressive. What’s
New: Software For OSX10.1 Microsoft
Office V.X For
many PC users, the most important question is does is run
Microsoft office? In fact, when we departed from the Apple
platform in 1995, it was because Office on Windows was finally
about as good as Office on the Mac. The new version of
Office for the Macintosh, Microsoft Office V.X is both compatible
with the new Apple operating system and its Aqua interface and
also compatible with previous versions of Office for the
Macintosh, making this an easy transition. The new version
includes Mac-only features like a Formatting Palette, Microsoft
Word Data Merge Manager, an Excel List Manager and PowerPoint
Movies. Within the program, the new Entourage X interfaces
enhances navigation and offers a redesigned calendar window and
enhanced address book. Each segment of the Office program offers
its own enhancements. We particularly liked the 2-D Quartz
technology that upgrades the Office drawing tools. Not
everyone agrees. For instance, Charlie Haddad, writing in
The Byte of the Apple in the November 7, 2001 issue of Business
Week, says that OSX is definitely worth the $130 for its
robust stability and the access it gives you to new (UNIX) free
software and inexpensive shareware. He’s not so sure
he’d buy Microsoft Office V.X. It is a bit pricey at $499
($299 for upgrades). We’d
guess this will be a clear new segmentation for Macintosh users.
There have always been some who bought Microsoft Office and some
who didn’t (some developers, casual users, value buyers, and
special markets). Add now users who come to the platform not
because they shrink from using a computer but find a Mac
friendlier, but rather because this is a cool new UNIX platform.
Afraid of nothing, such users will bring their own software
preferences with them to the Mac and they, of course, are not
Microsoft users (since Microsoft has not been a player in the UNIX
market). Other
Productivity Software For OS X In
the meantime, we can’t resist mentioning that a previously
Internet-based office software offering, ThinkFree,
is now becoming available in a shrink-wrapped package. Think
of it as Office-like function (word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation software), with a very Microsoft Office like
interface. ThinkFree wants you to think of it as a value
proposition since it’s priced at $70, including free CyberDrive
(Internet-based) storage for two years. The product is both
Windows and Mac compatible (the good news). The bad news is
that it’s only Mac Classic right now (which means I shouldn’t
write about it here at all, but, as I said, I can’t resist).
On the other hand, they expect to have it in native OS X mode by
mid-2002, so you might want to check it out. Before someone
points out to me that Sun’s StarOffice is better in that it’s
free I’ll need to remind you that it doesn’t have a Mac
version. Power
On Software has a Mac OS X version
of Now Up-to-Date & Contact®. Version 4.1 of this Macintosh
organizer provides unequalled ease of use in contact management
and scheduling software. Now Up-to-Date & Contact is equally
at home in settings ranging from a single user to very large
multi-site installations. Infrastructure
Software And Tools We
are sure there is a lot more software for OSX in this sector than
we could find. But finding it is another matter. On the
other hand, here is what some enthusiastic vendors showed us. Tenon
Intersystems is offering its Xtools
integrated X desktop for OS X, seamlessly integrated X Windows
display environment and Macintosh applications, integrated with
the Apple Aqua desktop. The X Window System is an open source,
industry standard for displaying remote graphical applications.
More than 100 X applications are already able to run on OS X with
Xtools, including popular open source applications, such as GIMP
and Tk. Intego
will offer its entire product line of security programs for Mac OS
X. These include NetBarrier for Firewall, Antivandal, and
Internet Filter, an all-in-one solution for complete personal
Internet security. ContentBarrier monitors Internet usage to avoid
contact with dangerous web sites, VirusBarrier provides protection
against all known viruses on the Macintosh, and also protects
against Word and Excel macro viruses., DiskGuard, FileGuard and
Personal Backup, recently acquired by Intego, will also be ported
to Mac OS X. Zeus
Web server software, provides solutions for content providers, ISP
hosting, intranets and secure e-commerce, with comprehensive
commercial support. Manila
is UserLand's full featured, low-cost content management system
that makes building and managing dynamic Websites easy. Manila
runs on Windows or Macintosh computers and includes everything you
need to build a site that can serve the needs of hundreds of site
editors, all for a low price of $899. Manila is easy to
set-up and bundled with discussion groups, site membership, email
bulletins and many other features. Most Manila users can get a
site up in less than an hour without the help of expensive
consultants. I
(who use Manila at Weblogger to power my weblog
site) consider Manila to be Dave Winer’s gift to users like
me who want to use the web but lack the significant technical
skills it might take to set up such a site on our own. In my
case, I also got lots of coaching and prodding from many members
of the Weblogging community, especially Doc
Searls and Craig Burton. CodeWarrior
for Mac OS, Version 6.0, allows developers to target Apple’s
Carbon Application Programming Interface (API). This
functionality allows developers to write their applications in
Classic Mac and target the application for Mac OS X. With
the new CodeWarrior for Mac OS, Version 7, developers will be able
to write fully native Mac OS X applications. Support for the
Classic Mac OS continues as well as support for Mach-O compilers.
Metrowerks will support its products with free instruction for
development on Mac OS X at its CodeWarriorU.com
site. Other tools
for developers for Mac OS X include Apple’s Project Builder and
Borland’s JBuilder. Netopia
is providing new versions of its Timbuktu Pro, the leading Remote
Control and File Transfer software for Macintosh for over ten
years and also netOctopus, smart systems management for the
cross-platform enterprise. Dartware
is offering InterMapper 3.5, its network monitoring and alerting
program in a carbonized version, running natively on OS X.
InterMapper monitors network web, mail, DNS, and other servers,
routers and other switching equipment, LAN and WAN links to detect
troubles in the network and alert the network manager to the
problems. It creates maps of the network that serve as
documentation and troubleshooting aid. The built-in web server
also allows a network manager to see the health of the network
remotely using a standard web browser. A demonstration
version of available http://www.intermapper.com/getdemo.html Tenon
Intersystems is bringing Openwave's
Post.Office to Apple's Mac OS X, a scalable SMTP/POP3/IMAP
messaging server designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized
ISPs. Post.Office can support 10 users or a hundred thousand
users on a single platform with appropriately configured hardware.
Post.Office will be available on Mac OS X from Open Technologies
in the fourth quarter and will be solely distributed by Tenon.
Tenon offers a variety of Mac-related products, including its
iTools offering for OS X. Graphics
Market Applications As
you might expect, Macintosh software continues to be drawn to the
graphics market where Mac users remain loyal and the product
continues to sell well. Corel
had made a major effort to create an entire line of products for
the Macintosh and too make them available on OS X. They now
include the Corel Graphics Suite 10 for the Macintosh, CorelDRAW
10, Corel PHOTO-PAINT 10 and the Procreate product line of
creative enhancement tools, including Painter 7, KPT Effects, and
Knockout. A special set of Corel’s design tools is
available to Apple customers purchasing hardware from the online
Apple store, at a special price. Adobe
is a major supplier of Macintosh graphics software, but they’ve
been slower to move it to OS X. They are committed to
offering native OS X support for the entire product line, but so
far only Acrobat Reader, GoLive, Illustrator, and InDesign are OS
X native. Others will generally go OS X with their next
major releases. You
will also find Apple Software on the Apple
sites and an extensive selection of software for Macintoshes of
many vintages at ZDNet
where my search for OS X software got me 52 possibilities. References Our
friends at O’Reilly
provide a number of books in support of Apple, the Macintosh, and
OS X. You’ll find books on Learning Carbon, Learning
Cocoa, AppleScript in a Nutshell, OS X the Missing Manual (in
December) and a book for those of us who have figured out that
learning OS X means learning Unix, Learning the Unix Operating
System, Fifth Edition. In addition to supporting Mac OS X
with books in the highly acclaimed Nutshell and O'Reilly Animal
series, the O'Reilly Network has opened a Mac DevCenter
to provide news and articles for Mac Developers. Now the $64 question is who will decide to write NEW software for the Macintosh and what directions will that take the products to. No one really knows, but we could see some beautiful surprises if clever developers realize that there is a very large and devoted market here that is being largely neglected.
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