A read an article recently (I forget where, sorry) which expressed concern about the current Mac situation, not least with MS. On the one hand, Apple is more successful than ever before and the shareware market (for the most part) is more vibrant. But you can count the number of large companies developing for the platform on one hand - MS, Adobe, Quark, Macromedia, no wait! Adone bought Macromedia...you run out pretty quick.
The transition to OSX effectively killed many key players (Norton, Symantec, Alladin, Metrowerks) and by filling the gap with it's own stuff, Apple is not inspiring competition. Audion anyone? No doubt, the Intel transition will put additional pressure on many 3rd parties who may decide it's not worth porting older apps.
As far as developers are concerned, there are less jobs now outside of Apple of than there were 10 years ago. Lot's of one-man ops with intuitive shareware, but is that enough in the long term?
by Dan Price — Jan 17
The transition to OSX effectively killed many key players (Norton, Symantec, Alladin, Metrowerks) and by filling the gap with it's own stuff, Apple is not inspiring competition. Audion anyone? No doubt, the Intel transition will put additional pressure on many 3rd parties who may decide it's not worth porting older apps.
As far as developers are concerned, there are less jobs now outside of Apple of than there were 10 years ago. Lot's of one-man ops with intuitive shareware, but is that enough in the long term?