The
Sensible Development Platform
Neil Ticktin has his finger on the pulse of
developers. As CEO of Xplain Corporation (which publishes
MacTech Magazine and operates DevDepot), Ticktin
creates magazines and makes tools, books and utilities
available for people who develop for the Mac OS. He spoke in
early February about the recent changes at Apple and the Mac
OS developer community.
A New Beginning
"There's no question that Apple and its developer community
have gone through a difficult year. Many developers have
done well and prospered during this time. And there's no
question that some have gotten shaken out and others have
not survived. I hate to say it, but these are natural
processes in the life cycle of any business, community or
product. There's always a need to analyze and adjust course,
especially in an industry that defines 'Internet years' as
one to two calendar months.
"From the developer point of view, I think that we've
probably seen the worst of the Apple situation. I'm not
talking about financial results or anything like that, I'm
talking about the big decisions that needed to be made.
Years of no direction or too many directions were the worst
thing possible for the developer community. Now, there's a
direction -- and Amelio is starting to make it clear. And,
I'm really pleased about the advisory roles of Jobs and
Wozniak. Steve Jobs -- he's visionary and one should always
carefully consider what he says. And Steve Wozniak, talk
about someone who cares about the quality of the product! He
epitomizes that. He is an engineer, driven to do the best
things. What more could you ask for?
Ready To Go
"While the world is waiting for Rhapsody, it's the perfect
time for Mac developers to make sure that they are in a good
place, cleaned up and ready to go. This not only means their
business, but their software. Think of it as 'spring
cleaning' time. It's also time to learn Objective-C, and do
background reading on OPENSTEP. If all goes well, and I'm
confident it will for the Mac, developers will use this
opportunity to capture the benefits that Rhapsody, a
streamlined Apple and a broader Mac OS distribution base
will bring.
Play, Not Pray
"I'm only interested in working with quality products and I
consider the Mac to be a quality product. Even though the
number of improvements on the Windows side have outpaced the
number on the Mac side, Windows is still plug and pray as
opposed to plug and play. That's one big reason why I don't
consider Windows to be a quality product.
"What really makes sense on the Mac is the intuitiveness of
the OS. You plug something in and it works. You set up a web
server and you can be serving pages 10 minutes later. Or you
set up an Internet connection and instead of the couple
hours it would take for an experienced Windows user, it
takes 10 minutes on the Mac -- this is not an exaggeration,
it's from real-life situations, not test cases. That's what
the Mac is all about. Now, when you combine that with a
modern OS, stability, and great developer tools -- you have
a winner.
Developer Proposition
"The return on investment when developing on the Mac is
competitive with developing for Windows despite the market
share differences. In my experience, Mac-based development
has taken about one third less time than comparable Windows
development. Add to that all of the extreme cost differences
of QA, marketing, testing, support and smaller market share,
and you can see why the Mac's ROI is strong compared to
Windows development. And people I've talked to who have done
development on OPENSTEP are telling me that they have been
able to develop 5 to 10 times faster than on System 7 in the
average programming task -- that's 7.5 to 15 times faster
than on Windows.
"So, if the developer proposition is that you have
incredible tools for faster developing, you have a real OS
under the hood and there is a strategic path for moving from
System 7 into Rhapsody, then Mac increases its benefit over
Windows for the developer in the next 6 to 18 months. Next
stop: expand the user base, which can happen with
hard-hitting marketing, a quality product and the tons more
software that will be produced when it's easy to produce
it.
"If you look at people who develop for the Mac, many of them
have a real love for what the Mac is about -- for what it
represents and how it brings computing power to more people.
That's their motivation. Add to it a good business
proposition -- and it makes sense to do Mac development.
"With a user base of 50-60 million nearly religious Mac
users, what do you think, they are going to switch to
Windows? Try again. The Mac is here to stay."
March 6, 1997
Greg Galanos talks about the ultimate development
platform
Heidi Roizen Tells Why Developers Love
Macintosh
Hancock assures customers the Mac OS will be viable
in the future
Jim Barksdale, president and CEO of Netscape,
believes in Apple
Apple is fostering on-line communities of Apple
enthusiasts
Apple's websites help customers with new on-line
support programs
20th Anniversary Mac launches 3rd decade of design
excellence
Sales are strong and people seem
optimistic at the January Macworld
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