JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques General Technical Forum Apple buys Emagic

Jean,

Actually, you are making my points.

Why buy a software company that IS multi platform, and then shut off the support of the other platform? Apple is doing that.

I agree that when they liscensed to Power Computing and others, the Mac platform started to grow and that is when I was still buying (in fact, I both 4 top of the line Mac computers and a laptop in that era) their products and felt like my investments were going to be protected. But shortly after that, they shut it all off and went back to being elitist.

I am no fan of Microsoft, but the thing that they DID do for computers is bring the costs/prices WAY WAY WAY down. It also allowed for leaps and bounds improvements because comapanies could invest in one primary platform. So technology dramatically advanced and costs dramatically descreased. The 200 dollar Sony playstation II we have is a dramatically more powereful computer than my $3600 MAC SE was.

I also agree that MAC's interface is what forwarded windows to become more user friendly. But remember, Mac got their interface from Xerox. They started the whole icon based operating system ideas but had no clue what they had created and let it go.

Also remember that as evil as most mac people think microsoft it, microsoft actually bailed out Mac with a big financial investment to keep them going when they were tetering on extinction. There are many reasons for this (protection from anti trust monopoly lawsuits among them), but the reality is that having a small crafty competitor DOES keep microsoft on their toes and improving. An unchallenged monopoly is always at greater risk of getting fat and happy and then crushed by an upstart from nowhere than a duopoly that keeps them inching forward all the time.

You can say Apple isn't trying to be elitist, but with higher prices and a "play my way or I will take my football home" mentality, their actions sure indicate otherwise.

Our whole family were Mac fantatics for a long time. We spent way more money. Had far less software options and are sitting on machines that were obsolete well before their time. If at least software companies were motivated to make cross platform version of their software, there would be some attractive reason to go back. But Emagic, one of the most successful cross platform audio programs gets bought and cut off, it means that you'll have to be happy being cloistered in the little mac happy cult family again, or you can make your life simpler and go with mainstream. If starving artists can't afford a mac, but Mac's are made supposedly to support artists as a big contingent, who is being served? The elite artists?

Converting someone from mac or windows either way is not a realistic goal. It's like converting people from their religion. (I think I have had more arguments pro-mac or pro-windows than I have had pro-religion in my life.) So why doesn't mac simply focus on advertising what they actually DO that is better? If they ARE better, people will seek them out in droves. Otherwise, it's just a smokescreen. Advertising that someone else sucks, and therefore you should do business with our company instead is the worst ad strategy ever. It's what companies do that don't have the goods to back it up.

Brian