Application specific software
I ma writing about the dearth of application specific software for the mac. Bear with me, as I'm sure you've heard this all before. Apple seems to be caught in the middle of a situation it would rather not be in, in that the univwersites and research institutions are having a lot of their software written for unix. Plus in this area, many telecommunications companies have their switches based around Unix, Nortel and Lucent use hundreds of sparc chips in each switch they produce (I'm a cellular engineer, Sun has done well here) and then intel has the other corner of the market covered, specific niche applications like mapinfo, high revenue earners in very narrow fields. Apple has missed out on either end of the spectrum, and now they are trying to fight it out in areas that Intel does best, the home user market. Sure, Apple has things they do better than most any other company - you plug something in a mac, you may rest assured it will work. But for those of us who want cheap grunty machines that we can get our work done on, windows has this now absolutely covered. The two exceptions here are desktop publishing and image manipulation, but intel is catching up fast.
I believe apple needs to again target, along with it's current market, developing niches, in which it can gain a definate foothold, and keep the competition edged out until it has established itself. Apple needs to again court these narrow markets, and develop them. No longer will it ever become a monopoly - anything innovated by apple is soon copied by intel and then apple usually loses out, but Apple here must play chess in this field and play it well. It's survival as a growth platform is becoming dependant on it.
I believe apple needs to again target, along with it's current market, developing niches, in which it can gain a definate foothold, and keep the competition edged out until it has established itself. Apple needs to again court these narrow markets, and develop them. No longer will it ever become a monopoly - anything innovated by apple is soon copied by intel and then apple usually loses out, but Apple here must play chess in this field and play it well. It's survival as a growth platform is becoming dependant on it.
Comments
FC3 - realtime effects in SW
iTunes
imovie
Maya
a rumored sound app
plus rumored raycer chips
etc