Re: Chris Pirillo: Vista vs Mac OS X Leopard.

In article <13djmiv4vbt121@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Daniel Johnson" <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"ZnU" <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:znu-3B1884.13510501092007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[snip]

Your general problem when discussing this issue is that you seem to be
acutely aware fo the costs of rapid transitions, but completely
oblivious to the costs of the sort of long and tedious transitions that
Microsoft prefers.

What, in your view, are those costs? It doesn't seem to me
that Apple makes technical progress faster than MS, in
the long run.

Talking about making technical progress "in the long run" is somewhat
meaningless on the desktop, because various factors influence how much
progress companies *try* to make. There are operating system features
which some people might find desirable which neither Apple or Microsoft
appears to have any interest in implementing. For instance, neither
company appears to be working toward document-centric computing. In
fact, the general future direction of desktop operating systems seems a
little vague now that everyone has implemented the "modern operating
system" buzzwords, so it's unclear what one should even be measuring
progress against, "in the long run".

It makes more sense to look at the way in which the Apple and Microsoft
approaches apply to similar problems. For instance, Apple's transition
to a fully modern operating system, vs. Microsoft's. This case provides
a very clear example of the costs of Microsoft's approach.

Apple's transition from OS 9 to OS X took maybe two years. Microsoft's
transition of its consumer platform to a fully-modern base took around
six years. Now, Apple and Microsoft got there at about the same time,
but that's because Apple was a basket case for the better part of the
90s. Had Apple had proper management, the company probably would have
started its transition to a fully modern OS about the same time
Microsoft did -- 1995, say -- and finished in 1997 or so, four years
ahead of Microsoft.

To look at this another way... consider that if Apple had adopted
Microsoft's approach to OS transitions, and had shipped its first
transitional OS (the Mac equivalent of the Windows 9x systems) in 2001
(when, in our world, they shipped the fully-modern OS X), Mac users
would only be getting their first fully modern consumer OS this year!
Would it really have been worth it to avoid running apps in Classic for
a year or two?

But there are other costs too. Consider that today you must still
run Office in emulation. Soon a new version of Office for Mac will
be out, and it will be Universal. But it has been delayed.

Consider that the only noticeable consequence of running Office in
emulation is that it takes about three seconds longer to launch.

I simply do not believe this is so; there is a performance
impact from running in emulation at least.

Yes, but the Office apps are not particularly demanding by the standards
of modern hardware. Word will still keep up with people's typing....

And even when it come sout, it will not include VBA compatibility,
because it would have been too difficult to port that part.

I've never, in my entire life (which has included a fair bit of Mac
consulting work), actually seen anyone use VBA on a Mac.

It's used a lot in business, but for the Mac it is really important
for compatibility only.

It does mean that the Mac is becoming less compatible
with Windows Office.

Isn't the 64-bit Windows version of Office losing VBA anyway? My
understanding is the technology is practically impossible to port.

--
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
- George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006
.

Relevant Pages

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