04-07-2006, 01:01 AM
Ok, I've quickly read through Mr. Gruber's piece and there is only one area that sticks out to me:
"The fear that Windows-on-Mac-hardware implies the eventual death or marginalization of Mac OS X is baseless. Sure, third party developers could start using “Just boot into Windows” as their answer to questions regarding Mac support, but this is no more likely to be popular or successful than it was for developers whose OS X strategy was “Just use Classic”. "
My response:
The strategy of "Just use Classic" didn't work because developers had no viable choice. They couldn't develop for a rapidly shrinking and, in the end, ultimately doomed marketspace because Apple was going to eliminate that space in the drive to establish OS X.
Now, a developer can say "Just boot into Windows" because not only will there be a possibility that the end-user will have a copy of Windows lying around and be able to install it on their Intel Mac (btw, note that Mr. Gruber says "And for many of these people (i.e. the enthusiast/nerd/”into computers” market) using Boot Camp is free because they already have Windows XP installation discs sitting around.") but the app can also be marketed to a much bigger market than just the Mac market. So, what if they tick off a few Mac OS X-only holdouts? There's a big juicy market that's about 23-24 times bigger in the Windows' realm! (Macs now have 4%...versus 90%+ which is how much bigger? You got it..22.5 times almost.) Even gaining the same percentage marketshare of that space that they have in the Mac market will give them an automatic doubling of sales. That's no small change!
"The fear that Windows-on-Mac-hardware implies the eventual death or marginalization of Mac OS X is baseless. Sure, third party developers could start using “Just boot into Windows” as their answer to questions regarding Mac support, but this is no more likely to be popular or successful than it was for developers whose OS X strategy was “Just use Classic”. "
My response:
The strategy of "Just use Classic" didn't work because developers had no viable choice. They couldn't develop for a rapidly shrinking and, in the end, ultimately doomed marketspace because Apple was going to eliminate that space in the drive to establish OS X.
Now, a developer can say "Just boot into Windows" because not only will there be a possibility that the end-user will have a copy of Windows lying around and be able to install it on their Intel Mac (btw, note that Mr. Gruber says "And for many of these people (i.e. the enthusiast/nerd/”into computers” market) using Boot Camp is free because they already have Windows XP installation discs sitting around.") but the app can also be marketed to a much bigger market than just the Mac market. So, what if they tick off a few Mac OS X-only holdouts? There's a big juicy market that's about 23-24 times bigger in the Windows' realm! (Macs now have 4%...versus 90%+ which is how much bigger? You got it..22.5 times almost.) Even gaining the same percentage marketshare of that space that they have in the Mac market will give them an automatic doubling of sales. That's no small change!