From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>
Date: November 21, 2006 9:27:23 AM MST
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: new firewire Italian camera
David;
On 21-Nov-06, at 12:56 AM, David Illig wrote:
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.)
I guess all the DSO images that I and other have taken don't count?
LOL .. do you think Astronomy is bigger than Medical Imaging or Microscopy?
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.
Many things are promised. Virtual PC was "promised" too. Until it actually ships for the Mac, it doesn't exist.
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.
Again "promised" and Garmin isn't specialty software either. For people on the road it's essential.
And Nebulosity, a very nice image processing app, is now available for the Mac as a
Universal Binary.
Have you seriously used it? It relies on qt for the porting layer which is why the controls are all big and funky.
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.
That simply is not true that Apple has any where near 6% Market share. I've been collecting Gartner and other groups sales number since the early 1990's. The Gartner surveys only include the top 10 PC sellers and ignore the mom and pop or smaller retailers because they have no reliable number for their sales. I can supply multiple references for the PC sales numbers. The Apple Sales numbers come form their SEC reports which you can verify at
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-news
Here is a summary table the units sold around the world. I do not have sales number for PC's for 2006 yet, but the quarterly reports have PC sales up 13.2% over last years numbers so that means they roughly will grow by 31 million PC's, which is why I put E on the PC number.
Year Mac PC Percentage
1999 3.4 106.9 3.2
2000 4.5 124.4 3.6
2001 3.1 142.1 2.2
2002 3.1 159.7 1.9
2003 3.0 168.45 1.8
2004 3.3 177.2 1.9
2005 4.5 213.5 2.1
2006 5.3 242.3E 2.2E
So there is nothing to interpret for these numbers, Apples' percentage share has not grown at all.
Milton J. Aupperle
President
ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting
Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist
#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.
Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5
1-(403)-229-9456
www.outcastsoft.com