Windows Catching Up

Woebot

Well-known member
I'm rarely in one of those moods when I think Windows looks good but:

• My main App Maya has just been acquired by the very PC-friendly institution Autodesk, and they've upgraded the Windows and Linux flavours to run on 64-bit memory, and left the Mac version without any support for the intel chip

• Apple has killed off its heavy Video Compositing App Shake (even if they're promising incorporating the technology into into a new video editing/do-it-all app called Phenomenon)

• It looks like Steve Jobs is resigning very soon

• Windows is launching its own version of the iPod (which even though it will be crap will hack its way into Apple's tiny encorachment into the Windows market-share)

Of course there's no way that I would switch, just that right now Apple is looking a bit shakey to me.
 

brrrapadelic

Organ Donor
Linux! Yay! I just switched from Windows two months ago and I feel good to be rid of it, especially with Vista on the way. It's so nice to have the feeling that you actually own your computer. I mean...they're getting to the point where they're designing software to dial home every day to make sure it's okay to carry on using fancy graphics or whatever. I don't want to be that connected.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
brrrapadelic said:
Linux! Yay! I just switched from Windows two months ago and I feel good to be rid of it, especially with Vista on the way. It's so nice to have the feeling that you actually own your computer. I mean...they're getting to the point where they're designing software to dial home every day to make sure it's okay to carry on using fancy graphics or whatever. I don't want to be that connected.

what's vista?
 

brrrapadelic

Organ Donor
What really spooks me about Vista is the whole DRM issue.

Tech Web Article

That seems to be one of the more balanced pieces on the issue. HDTV is of no interest to me, but I find it worrying that Microsoft is willing to take cues from imbeciles in the content industries. Of course, Apple are even worse in that.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
WOEBOT said:
• My main App Maya has just been acquired by the very PC-friendly institution Autodesk, and they've upgraded the Windows and Linux flavours to run on 64-bit memory, and left the Mac version without any support for the intel chip
Bummer. Autodesk is pretty PC-oriented. It's a bit silly to abandon Mac-using customers, but they've done it before.

WOEBOT said:
• Apple has killed off its heavy Video Compositing App Shake (even if they're promising incorporating the technology into into a new video editing/do-it-all app called Phenomenon)
Hmmm. The Shake team had some issues, now they're being fixed. Apple is not getting out of video, quite the reverse.

WOEBOT said:
• It looks like Steve Jobs is resigning very soon
This isn't even a rumour, is it? Just a sunday supplement comment that IF he did it, Apple would have a problem. Jobs isn't going anywhere soon.

WOEBOT said:
• Windows is launching its own version of the iPod (which even though it will be crap will hack its way into Apple's tiny encorachment into the Windows market-share)
I don't really see the logic. Apple's market share of both the mp3 player and the content download markets is 80%. It has long assumed that Microsoft will mount a heavy assault on that share; years after Apple expected it to, that assault is finally coming. The end game for Apple is that it aims to have 30% share of the digital media player market and hopefully a bit more than that in the content market. Both categories will be much, much larger in five years than they are now, subsuming most of the electronics market. It will take Microsoft at least five years to whittle Apple's share down to 30%. Apple already makes more than 50% of its revenue and even more of its profit from the iPod - these sorts of devices are much more profitable in percentage and absolute terms than the Mac business. There is a therefore a likely future of massively expanding top-line revenue driven by entry into product categories whose profit margins are a multiple of its existing business.

Even factoring in competition, I don't share your concern that Apple is looking shakey. I think it looks pretty secure.

Whether or not it's going to be the best platform for you professionally is another issue. That has to be driven by whether your tools are available. If they don't run on OSX, you might have to bite the bullet and get a new Mac Pro, run OSX and XP / Vista side by side, and run Maya in one window and your preferred Mac apps in another.

Wouldn't be so bad, huh? :cool:
 

nomos

Administrator
Apple has just (finally) announced an Intel-based tower to replace the G5s: http://www.apple.com/uk/macpro/. I wonder if that will inspire Adobe et al. to hurry up with their Intel versions. Every time I think I might go ahead and replace my PPC I just look at a list of what the new machines don't support and I forget about it again for another few months.

Jobs is apparently in the clear in the options scandal: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1940

And they've made funny dig at Vista at Macworld: http://static.flickr.com/74/207241438_7c0f89412d_b.jpg
 
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