From: "David Illig" <usenet@davidillig.com>

Date: November 21, 2006 12:56:00 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: new firewire Italian camera


Milton Aupperle wrote:


In fact, Astro IIDC should never have been built - it simply makes no  

sense economically to do it or even continue with it as there simply  

are not enough Mac users to buy software. Other than video or audio  

and maybe some PhotoShop usage, there are no other perceived uses for  

a Mac. And With BootCamp and MacIntel, basically Mac specialty  

software is going to "poof" and disappear off the market as people  

just switch over to Windows software.


So it is not a great picture going forward.


That's on the one hand. Your viewpoint is no doubt valid for you, because your software 

serves a tiny niche (FireWire webcam planetary imaging and -- I assume -- microscopy) 

within other small niches (astrophotography and medical imaging.)


On the other hand, Software Bisque is bringing their software -- all of it they say -- to the 

Mac. It won't happen soon, as they are doing a complete re-write of everything for 

Windows as well, and that's a lot of code. They showed an early version of TheSky on a 

Mac at NEAF this year, and let all comers have a hands-on with it. Bisque's upcoming 

program GrandTour, for which I was an alpha tester, is being developed on Macs for 

Mactel and Windows.


Then there's Garmin -- another bit of specialty software. Garmin has promised full Mactel 

support. Delayed from the original projection, for sure, but Garmin are sticking to their 

story.


And Nebulosity, a very nice image processing app, is now available for the Mac as a 

Universal Binary.


One Mac-based developer put it to me this way: "I develop for Windows but I won't use 

Windows myself. I hate it for just as practically every Mac user who *knows* Windows 

hates it. I'm bringing ***** to Intel Macs because a) it's easier to port now that the Mac 

uses Intel processors and b) I think that other Mac users are like me -- they don't want to 

run Windows." That certainly describes me.


In short, I'm not as pessimistic as you are. Gartner reported in October that the Mac has 

over 6% of the U.S. market, a significant increase. Other independent reporting says that 

the MacBook and MacBook Pro now have about a 16% share of the U.S. laptop market. That 

is not insignificant, given the growing popularity of laptops in general, and people -- 

including developers -- are taking note of the MacBook/Pro's increased share. If they have 

any brains at all, and most of them do, they know that people are buying Macs because 

they're fed up with Windows, not because they want a new way to run Windows.


David