[Ti] What a moron

[Henry Kalir]

On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Michael Bigley wrote:

> >If Apple's
> >market share and flexibility doesn't change - the temptation to write for
> >the PC market only will be a strong economic determinant.
> >The grave danger then would be that at a miniscule market share - Apple
> >would become a non-viable entity.
> 
> Can't speak for the others, but this is the point I am arguing... I 
> am a Mac loyalist, but I do not think that we can "ignore" the rest 
> of the world as you suggest.  The war is over; Microsoft is not our 
> enemy, but neither to we have to cower in fear... Apple has carved 
> out a venerable niche.

Um...I actually am emphasizing that very point - that we CANNOT ignore the
rest of the world, and that we need to ensure that a greater share of it
will belong to the Mac. I never suggested otherwise...
 
> Your point about market share is flawed in that Apple's share IS 
> growing (and it is a share of a market that is growing too) and with 
> OSX, developers in the Unix/Linux world are often only a re-compile 
> away from having a Mac version of their software... and to those 
> folks that is a HUGE slice of pie.

5% (the "top estimate") is NOT "a HUGE slice of the pie". 
> 
> Combine that with the fact that Apple is GIVING AWAY its developer 
> tools with every purchase of OSX and/or a new Mac, and you have what 
> is happening today:  a dynamic movement to develop on the Macintosh.
> 
> Big companies that are not porting their software to Mac are finding 
> applications, haxies or drivers being written by the open source 
> community or Mac developers.  An excellent example of this is 
> VueScan; it is a $40 piece of shareware that will allow most popular 
> scanners to work with OSX, something the scanner manufacturers are 
> far behind in.
> 

> An interesting litmus test of our theories will be Safari... based on 
> Open Source, and getting lots of support in that community, let's 
> look at this topic a year from now.  See what kind of web browsing 
> experience will only be available in Mac or Linux (Apple is sharing 
> all of it's development with the KDE community).
> 
> Even TechTV (owned by Microsoftian Paul Allen) was all abuzz with 
> MacWorld news. Why? Once reporter said it best: Everyone looks to 
> these events because Apple is the innovator, and what you see here is 
> usually what you will see on your PC in a year or two. (paraphrased).

What I want is for the PC crowd to say" HEY! I can get the NEXT PC N O W,
and it'll run all my programs and then some, so that I lose NOTHING".
The true litmus test will be - how many NEW, NON-Mac users will buy the
Mac. How many companies will switch to using the Mac as the "better value
computer - one that can do ALL that a PC does, run everything it can...and
THEN SOME!!". Why is that being "chicken little"? 


Best,

Henry