From: Joel M. Sciamma (joel_at_inventors-emporium.co.uk)
Date: Fri Apr 23 2004 - 10:36:05 PDT
David,
The horse is wheezing but still active :-)
> Here is an article where Adobe is interviewed by PC Mag about Apple and
> Macintosh, Adobe says around 25% of their income is from Mac sales and
> that a lot of their customers are planning to move to G5s this year.
Well, that 25% is down from 70% or so 5 years ago. And my prediction is that
it will continue going down if Apple remain on the course they are on. In 5
years from now, Adobe may only supply a handful of their titles for the Mac.
Recent comments from Apple indicate they are disappointed with the
penetration of new hardware and especially Mac OS X into the DTP market.
While Adobe might talk up the Mac as a platform because of its significance
in the past and to future sales, it wouldn't surprise me if they are
contemplating a Macless future.
Apple seem to be pushing very hard for the video editing market with some
strong offerings (in direct competition with Adobe products incidentally)
but that's even smaller than DTP as a niche. Where will they retreat to
next?
Please understand when I say that this is all very upsetting for me
personally because not only do I see a shaky future for Apple but I end up
having to choose between an OS from a company I despise and another whose
product I don't respect.
Here I sit with my 2 PowerBooks, flanked by an eMate on one side and an
MP2K1 on the other, a LW Pro 630 and Color OneScanner 600/27 behind me and a
PowerCD next to the drum kit. I have sold or reccommended 200+ Apple cpus
and SW in my time but I cannot in all honesty continue to do so while this
2nd Job's-era company continues to turn out products that are well below
what I would expect from Apple. Mac OS X particularly is not worthy of a
company that spearheaded the industry for so long.
It is well known that Jobs is hostile to user interaction design (one of his
first actions was to sack the Human Interface Group) and frankly, it shows.
All they are doing is inexpertly tinkering with a 20 year old UI concept
instead of doing the sort of proper R&D they used to do.
Apple have enough of a good name to recover but they are showing no real
willingness to either innovate or compete. They are trading on work that was
mostly done as much as 10 years ago (like FireWire) and little is coming
along to replace it.
The declining value of DTP to Apple is, quite honestly, shameful. They can
and should absolutely dominate that sector but Mac OS X in its current state
is just not the tool to do it and the reluctance of the DTP market to
embrace Apple as it once did should send an enormous rocket up the backsides
of the Apple board. If they don't want to end up as makers of bijou
computers for enthusiasts they had better get their act together.
The more I look at what has happened to the values that Apple once stood
for, the more I regret that Newton was not allowed to develop independently
and establish itself as a leading player - as it richly deserved.
Regards,
Joel.
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