This is just a follow-up to our previous story about Apple designing the new Sherlock 3 to be very similar to Watson. We raised the question if this policy (the OS company competing with its own third party developers in the application space) was a good thing or not in the long run. Now the company behind Watson, Karelia, openly speak against Apple’s policy and they are planning to port their (great) application to Windows. On a similar note, did anyone got even close to start working on this? Update: Stardock’s CEO, Brad Wardell, wrote an editorial related to the question above.
Karelia Speaks Out Against Apple; Plans Port To Windows
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
His comments were a month ago.
I predict a lot of posts following this one will also speak out against Apple.
Predictable thread generation.
Dear Developer of Cool Software,
Thanks for porting your application to the Windows platform.
As our Macintosh efforts are in a separate business unit, sometimes we miss a good application that comes out for the Mac platform.
However, we want to let you know that we finally noticed your Watson application.
Thank you for porting this application to the Windows platform. It will be much easier for our developers to download it and take a look at it.
After talking to the Mac guys, I’m enthused. Expect to see something similar in the next version of Windows.
I am pleased that you picked Windows, the world’s most popular trusted computing platform, versus that anti-capitalist pinko product Linux. We see that you value making the greatest amount of money over doing something good for people. Welcome aboard.
And remember, always defend your “right to innovate”.
With love,
Bill
They think they’re going to have an easier time of it in Microsoft-space? Heh heh. Yeah I can see that. I mean, Microsoft has *never* shown any inclination towards competing with 3rd party developers in the “application space”.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
Good luck dudes, you’re gonna need it.
I don’t see what the problem is. Theoretically, Karelia will do better on the Windows platform, since they’ll be able to target millions of potential customers they couldn’t before. Of course, the reality is that it’s harder for good shareware to stand out in such a huge crowd — it’s easier to gain notoriety in the Mac community. On the other hand, many Mac users also use/are forced to use Windows machines, so they’re perfect candidates for Watson “XP”.
Honestly, though, I can’t quite figure out why Karelia just doesn’t add some new tools to Watson and continue selling it to Mac users. Make it do things even Sherlock 3 can’t do, and then people *will* buy it. Business 101: what do you do when a competitor steals your product idea? Release a better product. What did Apple do after Microsoft released Windows 2000 and then XP? Create Mac OS X and then Jaguar.
Regards,
Jared
Why are “official” Mac OS X screenshots always shown as thumbnails?? I think this is quite annoying as it makes it hard to get what they are really talking about. I noticed the same at the official Apple site, all screenshots are thumbnail, no fullsize version! Why?
Oh and btw, this is just another example why proprietory software just won’t work in the long run.
Why are “official” Mac OS X screenshots always shown as thumbnails??
Maybe because that way the page fits on smaller screens? Those that are provided by many popular Mac machines? Reminds me of my former employer whose customer wanted all web pages programmed for 800×600 because some boneheads use that resolution…
Oh and btw, this is just another example why proprietory software just won’t work in the long run.
How is that gonna help Karelia? Open-source Watson and don’t make any money? It worked so well for many other companies…
Apple may say they were headed that way with Sherlock, but Sherlock 3 is such a blatant rip off Watson its sad. I use Watson daily; it’s much faster than Sherlock 3.
Windows users are lucky to get such a fine app as Watson.
“What did Apple do after Microsoft released Windows 2000 and then XP? Create Mac OS X and then Jaguar.”
You can’t compare that at all. You can either buy Windows 2000 or Mac OS X so it’s a real competition. But you can’t buy Watson without Mac OS X so the fact that Mac OS X already includes something like this becomes a problem. Why should people pay for something slightly better. Same reasons why Windows users do not switch to Mozilla or whatever. There is no reason for it, IE works fine. And Mozilla doesn’t even cost money. If it would, nobody wouldn’t even think of buying it.
“How is that gonna help Karelia? Open-source Watson and don’t make any money? It worked so well for many other companies…”
They could make money with plugins. They could even do customized plugins, etc. The Open-Sourced Watson (if it’s really usefull) would get them enough attention and advertising so that this could pay off.
Hmm, does Watson work with simple HTML code over http?
Lets give all the dues to the Watson creators for doing such a great service to the entire world for developing such a great new web interface concept. However, to expect that everyone won’t be borrowing this idea is silly. Come on – look at the browsers. Webcontent with buttons on top for navigation. I don’t see everyone crying about NSCA’s research projects and researchers when new versions of any web browser are released.
Soon every OS will have simular app(s) and just as no new user of the internet knows what Mosaic is, no one will know what Watson is either. That is the trouble with developing a simple application that has such big possibilities – it is easy to clone.
i think it was official that MS dropped win 2000 and started creating XP with luna after seeing OS X. hmm xp is not much different from 98, its only skin deap and cartoonish looking. ms should of bought BeOS. I’m sure they could of and have the resources to do so easily.
Sorry Watson,,,,,but ive never used you once in my experience with the mac OS. Sherlock worx fine. Flipside to this whole story is that Watson is a product that competed with Apples own Sherlock. Plus you don’t think Apples going to stop developing thier own product? Sure Watson, go to the Wintel side,,,,,,,hmm let MS deal with you. I’m sure you might have great success dealing with them. MS might squeeze the competitive edge right out of you…
…I have to say Chris is probably right. The central concept here is an application that queries HTTP servers without being a traditional web browser. The first program like this that I saw was a “meta-search” tool for Windows 3.1. (I believe it was called Quarterdeck Magellan.) It only dealt with text responses, but it could query not only typical search engines but online shopping sites, dictionaries, and the IMDB. And there’s currently a set of Unix command line tools called ‘SURFRAW’ that operate on similar principles.
The bigger problem is that Sherlock 3 and Watson have nearly identical interfaces. The problem beyond that problem is… well, if you’ve been in computers long enough, you know that spell-checkers and grammar-checkers weren’t always integrated with word processors. In 1990 or so, I worked part-time at a company called RightSoft, which made a brilliant grammar checker called RightWriter. (And I really mean brilliant–the current versions of Word still haven’t caught up.) These add-ons were a thriving market, and they did their best to appear as “integrated” as possible with various programs.
But, eventually, word processor companies decided they could really integrate it. They developed their own grammar and spelling checkers or licensed them from other companies. There were three major competitors in the add-on grammar checker category–RightWriter, Correct Grammar and Grammatik. Microsoft licensed Grammatik and WordPerfect licensed Correct Grammar, and Que–the company that owned RightWriter at that point–pulled the plug.
Now, these companies–and the spelling checker companies–were unquestionably knifed by the companies they depended on, just like Watson and Apple. And Microsoft and WordPerfect unquestionably knew they’d be killing that market and potentially killing those companies.
Obviously they had no fiduciary obligation not to do that–it’s not Microsoft’s job to take care of RightSoft (and likewise it’s not Apple’s job to take care of Karelia). Did they really have an ethical one? Once that add-on market had been established, should that really have been enough for word processing companies to just say, “Well, our customers can buy these add-ons if they want to get spell checking” rather than say, “Hey, if we integrate this feature into our word processor and our competitors don’t, we have an advantage?”
N.B.: Are Sherlock 3’s yellow pages tools as broken for others are they are for me? Putting in a few test places around my neighborhood, it can’t map half the businesses it finds, maps some of the other ones in the wrong places, and the few times it’s given me driving directions it’s started me 300 miles south of where I live. For the time being Watson could adapt the new slogan, “We know how to read maps, dammit!”
When OSes are getting better quickly they often begin to incorporate products that compete with sold commercial products and they often end up wiping the company out. In general this is good for consummers. Does anyone think that Windows would be a better product today if they hadn’t started to bundle:
memory management
task switching
a menu api
disk defragers
disk cacheing software
a dos compatabile filesystem which could support for hardrives larger than 32 megs
A scripting language for windows
media players
an internet browser
an ftp and telnet client
Karelia is in the OS utilities business. The business model there is that you find utilities that should have been part of the OS but aren’t, write them and make money until the OS maker develops an app that fills the void for free. If they didn’t know the rules they shold have.
15 years ago Norton made terrific apps:
4DOS — a great replacement for command.com
a diskcache
a diskeditor (which they should still include IMHO)
The norton editor (a full screen powerful text editor that was about 20k, could be booted as a shell….)
disk defrager
etc…
Not one of those utilities is worth spit today; yet they were all great for their time and made Norton a lot of money.
Desqview offered:
1 – better task switching
2 – better memory management
During the days of Win 3.0, they were kings during the days of Win 3.1 they had a slightly better product by Win 95 they were gone (as far as new sales their old customers still used them every now and then).
Does any one think the world would be better if Desqview was still needed to multitask within windows?
Karelia should port their app and continue to fill the utilties void on Apple. They should also except many of their utilities to only last 3 years or so.
Yes, I’ve started work on a Watson clone, but not one within Eugenia’s parameters. I’ve begun work on something like Watson for the Dynapad PDA OS/environment (http://dynapad.swiki.net/1) and plan to have a preliminary version released in a the release after the one that’ll be out in the next week or so. It won’t be restricted to PDAs- it’ll run anywhere that Squeak does, which is a lot more platforms than C++ and Qt runs.
If others are eager to help, I certainly won’t turn anyone away, but I expect that I’ll be doing it alone.
In addition to the usual idea/features provided by Watson, it’ll have some others that make it particularily nice to use on a PDA or other mobile computer, such as:
1. Outgoing queue of requests, so you can enter the info you’d like to know whenever, and actually retrieve it when you’re connected to a network. For instance, while taking the bus home, it occurs to me that it’d be fun to see a movie with some friends. So, I can enter in the movie name and the approx. time into my PDA now, so when I get home, it’ll grab the info, and we can be on our way; and
2. Having the ability to retrieve a set of data out of which you may want info in advance. Let’s say that I’ll want to go to a movie sometime today, but I’m not sure which one or at what time. With a couple taps of the stylus, I can download the information for the movie schedule today and have it cached on my PDA- so that whenever my friends and I get around to deciding, we don’t have to worry about finding a network again to do a look up. I think this could be a pretty handy feature, especially when on vacation.
I think that this kind of app is especially relevant on a PDA, and I can’t wait to have something to help streamline the getting of data in my own life.
Aaron
They think they’re going to have an easier time of it in Microsoft-space? Heh heh. Yeah I can see that. I mean, Microsoft has *never* shown any inclination towards competing with 3rd party developers in the “application space”.
Then probably this is why there are much more third party developers on Windows than any other platform. Plus, it was the third party developers that made Windows a monopoly…. Besides, wasn’t all their “anti-competitive” moves influenced by third party developers? Like when they bundled IE and made its DLLs available to developers, and now notice more and more apps are having “Require Internet Explorer 4.0 and above”….
In short, if you run XP odds are you’ll move to MS IM. And why not? It gets loaded into memory whether you want it or not.
Actually, no. You could disable it without much fuss. That’s what I did. I use ICQ because ALL my friends are on ICQ, not on MSN or AIM.
Same for movie editing. Movie Maker seems particularly excessive because it is such a niche thing. Yet we’re all paying for this.
Notice most people who do consumer videa editing DON’T use Movie Maker. For example, Sony bundles Movie Shaker (name?), Dell bundles a third party app (name again?). Simple because Movie Maker sucks (well, XP improved it a lot, but it still sucks).
1) It causes the price of the base OS to unnecesarily increase
The cost of production are absorbed by Microsoft. If Microsoft stop bundling stuff, it would spend less and less money on Windows, and the price would go down, instead of staying at where it is now.
Also, the OEM price of Windows rarely changed significantly, only the retail version, I don’t understand.
Excessive bundling is bad for the consumer in the long term.
This I agree. There is no use bundling something only a minority of users (e.g. a niche) uses, like Movie Maker.
Although the idea sounds great, what Watson tries to do is basically compete with a browser. Microsoft will never compete with Watson, because what Microsoft does will sooner or later make Watson obsolote. The web services, the .net is all about using browsers to do things like Watson does and more of course.
I don’t think that Watson will stay as a successfull business on the long term.
>>This is just a follow-up to our previous story about Apple designing the new Sherlock 3 to be very similar to Watson. We raised the question if this policy (the OS company competing with its own third party developers in the application space) was a good thing or not in the long run.<<
This is something Microsoft has been doing for years, so why hold it against just Apple?! I don’t like anymore than you do, but makes Microsoft so different from Apple?
Can you say Internet Explorer verses Netscape? Same storyline all over again!
I know you US guys don’t take really care about that, but:
Sherlock 3 is, if it is used outside the USA, simply spoke,
forgetable. Because it is not customized for foreign countries.
Here in Germany Sherlock is useless. All queries deliver US specific content.
– the eBay search searchs only die US eBay site
– the stock quotes are US stock quotes
– the route planning founds only routes in USA
– the cinema program is only about US cinemas
-…. etc….
I think they (Karelia) gave up too fast. If the could deliver a better Sherlock than Sherlock or customized und internationalized plug-ins they can get a huge market for there produkts.
I read a lot of european mac-forums and everyone is frustrated that Sherlock isn’t usable outside the USA.
…Karelia should think about that….
Ralf.
That is true… and even .Mac is not yet supported here in good ole Europe as I was told the day I ordered Jaguar. This is something that does make Apple look like an arsehole, or clueless better put!
The web services, the .net is all about using browsers to do things like Watson does and more of course.
I’m assuming you mean My Services. It is nothing like Watson, end of story.
This is something Microsoft has been doing for years, so why hold it against just Apple?! I don’t like anymore than you do, but makes Microsoft so different from Apple?
Because this site, and many others have been holding it against Microsoft.
Can you say Internet Explorer verses Netscape? Same storyline all over again!
Internet Explorer vs. Netscape is very different from this case. Internet Explorer’s main objective is to extend Win32 for third party developers. Netscape previously allowed third party developers to use its libraries, but at a very very expensive price. Not only that, Netscape would only license it only if the software developer assures Netscape that it would sell a certain amount of their products.
many shareware apps couldn’t afford that. But as for Sherlock 3, i don’t see how it in any way help third party developers.
That is true… and even .Mac is not yet supported here in good ole Europe as I was told the day I ordered Jaguar. This is something that does make Apple look like an arsehole, or clueless better put!
It takes a lot of money to support European customers, and frankly speaking, the amount of users there isn’t enough to justify making .Mac and Sherlock 3 available there.
Apple is after all an business orientated company, sorry to say.
>>The web services, the .net is all about using browsers to do things like Watson does and more of course.
I’m assuming you mean My Services. It is nothing like Watson, end of story.<<
You have me confused with someone else!@#$%^&*?
>>Internet Explorer vs. Netscape is very different from this case.<<
How is the 2 different, should of figured a lame excuse followed behind the slogan! I am sorry try again!
The whole reason behind IE was to gain marketshare in the internet space and to pull the rug out from under Netscape! What’s your logic concerning REAL Networks? I am interested to hear this…
As for Sherlock… it was originally intended to extend web searching capabilities with different categories when it was delivered with Mac OS 8! I do not agree that Apple decided to make a clone of what Watson had to offer, the same as I do not agree of Microsoft making a clone of Netscape (IE anyone?!)!
…If the OS vendor were to bundle every major category of software with the OS and that that software worked adequately to satisfy the basic needs of today’s users, it would create a disincentive for third parties to keep developing competing programs… + examples.
That’s simply NOT true. Active desktop and push technology was suspended because it was crap, an no one wanted that. It was made obsolete by big WWW portals, journals sent by e-mail, mailing lists, forums, interactive www sites, etc, etc… this is the way people want the information served.
Grammar checking… well. Simply, the effort put into developing such software wouldn’t pay. And it would be an enormous effort just to develop an english grammar, not to mention other languages. And frankly – I don’t miss grammar checking. I hardly know any people using it, and I can hardly imagine anyone buying a seperate product – “a perfect grammat checking for MS office”. And I literally CAN’T imagine such product really working and dealing with all the complex aspects and tweaks of the langugage.
…I have a 40GB HD and I generally use comopression to store my older graphics files which I have many gigs of. More HD’s are a waste of time when you can turn 15 gigs of graphics into 3 gigs of graphics…
I don’t know what you’re trying to sell here, but it looks funny. The last time I did some hdd compression was in the DOS days, on a 540MB HD. 3 gigs… isn’t it simplier, to go to a local shop, buy 5 CD’s, ZIP the graphics, and burn them?
HDD compression was abbandoned because the storage space became extremely cheap. 90% of the people buying a modern off-shelf computer don’t ever need to add new drive.
And another thing… I would NEVER EVER trust my *important data* being stored on a compressed HDD running windows.
…Third party email and news readers were improving at a serious rate in the mid 90s. Then Microsoft bundles Outlook Express. Unlike previous versions of the email programs included, Outlook Express was “good enough” (I’m using it now) to discourage third party innovation…
Again I’m wondering – what’s so funny and exciting about dealing with all those mail viruses? There must be some kind of self-masochistic pleasure in that, I don’t see any other reason.
I seriously think you should go to Tucows and check the “mail clients” category. I you think Outlook is best… well… maybe you didn’t try anything else? There are lots of software better than Outlook, just to mention a few – Eudora, The Bat, Allegro Mail or simply Mozilla Mail.
Pop3 clients lost some popularity in general because of webmail. Actually, this is what most “joe” users are using.
Michael Dominic K.
>>It takes a lot of money to support European customers, and
>>frankly speaking, the amount of users there isn’t enough to
>>justify making .Mac and Sherlock 3 available there.
How do you know this? It’s simply not true. There are localized Web-Sites(every large company have this and its expansive to mantain), localized applications (OS X, all iApps, MS Office, etc..etc…). Could you explain what is expensive to customise the Sherlock plug-ins to use http://www.ebay.de instead of http://www.ebay.com and do a litte modifications to the html filter to extract the search result? For me, if the current plug-ins are developed well, it looks like only customizing the filter rules. I would put some students to that work.
Ralf.
All these requires contracts, and they cost money. Europe isn’t Apple’s biggest market, but trust me, if the US version succeeds, the European version would follow suite.
For services like cinema listings and directions etc., it would cost even more money, BTW.
Europe isn’t Apple’s biggest market, but trust me, if the US version succeeds, the European version would follow suite…
With such an approach, Apple won’t go far. If the Mac guys were smart, they would seriously invest in Europe. MS here is a symbol of a *big, bad, fat* corporate America, and if at any point the MS monopoly is to be lowered, it’s going to happen here first. People are already looking for different solutions – ie. staroffice on linux is a big corporate hit. Apple could take the initiative.
no risk, no money.
Michael Dominic K.
>>For services like cinema listings and directions etc., it would cost
>>even more money, BTW.
Have you ever thought about that for a cinema company it is a good promotion being listed in Sherlock? I don’t think they really have to pay that much to use it. All they need are partners to deliver the content. They just have to ask. And in case of eBay – I am sure they don’t even have to ask. Every auction that is successfull with the help of Sherlock brings eBay money. What sould they have against that? By the way, I am shure Microsoft haven’t asked eBay as the integrated the auction-manager in the mac-ie. They (Apple) even care about a printing service for iPhoto here in europe. All the have to do is team-up with Kodac for example. Kodac has already such a service via internet here.
>>Europe isn’t Apple’s biggest market, but trust me, if the US
>>version succeeds, the European version would follow suite.
How do you know this? Are you an Apple employee and involved in Apples business decissions?
>>Europe isn’t Apple’s biggest market…
You may be right, but it’s not that small. It’s the same as the case with the chicken and the egg. What was first? If they don’t deliver their full content outside the US how can they hope to get a bigger market share?? It’s not a good promotion to new users if many of the features don’t work well.
Ralf.
Dear Brad,
Thanks for the plug and your defense of OS-bundling. As you know, it is a key part of the “right to innovate”.
We’re still busy copying your ideas for Longhorn. So far, Object Desktop has proved to be very useful. Good work, pal.
I’m so happy that you are still working away and coming up with new stuff.
It keeps my developers motivated having something new to copy every day.
If you can send a note to those guys over at Karelia and help them understand why their features are being copied and how this is the way their good work can reach the users in the best possible manner, I’d appreciate it. Maybe you can find some consulting work for them too, eh? There’s probably some other good Mac stuff that needs to be ported to Windows.
It’s not so much “crushing our competition” as it is “delivering the highest quality experience to our customer”.
As the world’s leader of trusted computer platform software, we appreciate your support.
Lots of love,
Bill
what is it that is so useful about watson? it provides a simpler front-end to buying stuff on the web, eg: cinema and plane tickets. it allows you to search the web and stuff like that.
but surely it can only interface with systems it knows? there is no standard API for buying stuff over the web, so watson must be at least as bloated and klunky as the sum of all these interfaces, surely?
I am really unhappy that both MacOS X and Windows XP force users to install a bunch of bundled software with no option of not doing so. Bundled software is software such as:
Web Browsers
Email clients
Media Players
Picture Viewers
Instant Messengers
Games
Both of these OSes need to allow the user to customize installation; if not as the default behavior of their installers, then at least as an option.
rajan r said: “It was the third party developers that made Windows a monopoly….
Itwas Microsoft’s illegal business practices that made it a monopoly. The developers gradually came as Microsoft received market share from those illegal activities.
“Wasn’t all their “anti-competitive” moves influenced by third party developers?
Nope, not entirely. Their anti-competitive (notice no quotes) were occurring far before their monopoly was entirely secured.
“Like when they bundled IE”
Ya, and also like when they stole code from the Mac OS. (No not just UI elements, but actual code)
Ya, and also like when they stole code from the Mac OS. (No not just UI elements, but actual code)
And Quicktime, DCI, PDP-10…..
I received an email about my article that objects to Microsoft’s bundling practices that basically concluded “Microsoft gives you your livelyhood by letting you develop for it…”
Ha. We were doing great on OS/2 before Microsoft got themselves pre-loaded on every system and gradually drove OS/2, which was far superior at the time, into the margins forcing ISVs to switch or die.
At the time OS/2 was advertised by IBM Win95 wasn’t out yet. With the start of Win95 IBM removed OS/2 from the market. Microsoft was’t that powerful that time than it is today. And IBM is also very big monster in the business. They had enough money to survive OS/2 against Microsoft but they droped OS/2 for whatever reason.
They nuked OS/2.
Ralf.
This just in: MicroSoft will be bundling a “Old World” Macintosh with every copy of XP sold. Said a spokesman for MicroSoft, “I think that is good enough for most people.”
Asked what impact this would have on Apple, his response was “We have a right to inovate!”
Apple, however, may still have the last laugh. “We thought of this a while ago”, said a spokesman for Apple, “and decided one a leading PC manufacturer and [MicroSoft] team up to produce a computer that is good enough for most people, we would ship it”. In his oppinion “we may be waiting a long time.”
Brad Wardell said, “Microsoft isn’t ‘evil’. They are a company trying to do what is in their best interests. Nothing more, nothing less.”
MS has gone beyond ethics and legality in protecting its interest.
Exhibit A: Windows 3.1 vs. DR-DOS
The error message that Windows 3.1 produced when it detected that it was being installed on a non-MS DOS was deceptive. It read:
“Non-fatal error detected: Error #4D53. (Please contact Windows 3.1 Beta Support.)”
Turns out this was intentional. Microsoft Senior VP Brad Silverberg said in an e-mail,
“What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable and, when he has bugs, suspect the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS, or decide not to take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office.”
Exhibit B: Stac Technologies
MS enters into negotiations with Stac Technologies to include its STACKER product with MS-DOS. Negotiations fall through. MS-DOS comes out with its own product DoubleSpace, that turns out to be based on Stac’s technology (which was patented).
Exhibit C: Netscape and Java
I put Netscape and Java together because MS seemed to see Netscape as a threat mainly because it was a vehicle for distributing Java. MS felt that if users got used to using Java apps run in a browser, then its Windows monopoly would become irrelevant. If all MS wanted to do was bundle a Web browser, fine, but it is worth noting 1) that IE was not originally a bundled product, and 2) that its executives distributed e-mails indicating that MS wanted to choke off Netscape’s “air-supply,” which was why IE became a bundled product. On the Java side of things, MS sold J++ as if it were a compliant Java implementation, while introducing incompatibilities that could make J++ code run only on Windows, reducing Java’s usefulness as a cross-platform language.
MS is most definitely a company “trying to do what is in [its] best interests.” It has, however, crossed the line in doing so.
See you always have a negitive person in the bunch. Everytime someone wants to get ahead, and this time its Apple going forward with Jaguar. Hmm David’s brothers hated the idea of him taking on Goliath. He ended up being king after that…… Everytime you want to get a head there are friends,etc or in this case developer’s complaining. Watson,,,,invent a better product. Its not like Apple is playing dirty like MS did with Netscape, Apple, and all the other anti-trust companies. With Apples OS you can take off what you want and add what you want. Unlike windows was with Explorier. I’ve been using mac for 2 yrs and have never used watson. I hardly use Sherlock, but sherlock 2 had web features also. So whats really the complaint,,,,,sherlock just getting better. Shouldnt that be the case in all software.
I know that my opinion will not be popular here, but hey – what’s all the fuss about Watson?
I found something about “irony” on their website. The real irony, however, is the fact, that something like Watson exists at all. Hmm, maybe world starts to understand, what the X-Internet is all about? 😉
Well, Eugenia – you don’t need C++ and QT, to make it portable – just use X-Internet tools available – FlashMX, or Rebol, or even Python?
I have 8 kb script wrapping 3 translator engines here, as well as SlashdotViewer providing 6 different looks to SlashDot.
And that’s it – using right tools, you can relatively easily adapt certain web areas to your needs …
Cheers,
-pekr-
http://slashview.sourceforge.net/
Well, I’m happy that Karelia wised up. They apparently didn’t know Apple’s history of knifing developers. Now they can share their innovations with the Windows world.
http://davenet.userland.com/1997/08/23/AppleAvoidsCompetition
You know that Apple would never let others rip off their own software. But Karelia has less lawyers. So I’m glad Karelia is striking back hard, and “sharing” their innovation with the Windows world.
but then again i have never used it. what is the difference between this and using a full browser and a bookmark? i like revaarons idea. being able to load it to a pda would seem more useful but there are programs like that already i think?
i guess the hook is content with no fluff.
…would people be as pissed off if someone came up with an open source version of Watson (for Mac)?
or even make it on Linux and port it over to the mac. Look at all the code that MS has stolen, and look they’ve gotten alway with it with billions of users. Talk about Apple knifing there developer’s, its called a free market and the advancement of Sherlock. Look how similar Gimp is to Photoshop. I’ve never used Gimp or X windows, but GIMP looks a lot like an Adobe product. Most of these folks that have commented on this never use Apple and Watson. Basically you hate Apple and prefer a company like MS who has had evil business practices that are finally catching up to them. Making money made by bad business practices can’t be everything.
>>Well, I’m happy that Karelia wised up. They apparently didn’t know Apple’s history of knifing developers.<<
Now they can come over to Microsoft’s world and get the other knife in the back!
J. J. Ramsey: The error message that Windows 3.1 produced when it detected that it was being installed on a non-MS DOS was deceptive.
Windows 3.1 was made for MS-DOS and in fact, it is one of its requirements. Would you be angry at Adobe if Photoshop doesn’t run on Linux? No! Same case here. Windows 3.1 was built for MS-DOS, not DR-DOS.
J. J. Ramsey: MS enters into negotiations with Stac Technologies to include its STACKER product with MS-DOS. Negotiations fall through. MS-DOS comes out with its own product DoubleSpace, that turns out to be based on Stac’s technology (which was patented).
Stac has the right to sue, it is after all patented technology.
J. J. Ramsey: I put Netscape and Java together because MS seemed to see Netscape as a threat mainly because it was a vehicle for distributing Java.
LOL, you have got to be kidding. Microsoft brought on Internet Explorer because it was getting all the middleware money (money from third party developers wanting to use Netscape’s APIs). At that time, Java was distributed with Windows unpoluted, and Sun never complained. It was only later when Microsoft placed in extras so that Java developers could access Win32 via its VM.
J. J. Ramsey: 1) that IE was not originally a bundled product
Standard printer drivers was once not bundled in Windows, should it be pulled out? You have no idea how much the IE integration had help cut down production costs for third party developer.
J. J. Ramsey: 2) that its executives distributed e-mails indicating that MS wanted to choke off Netscape’s “air-supply,” which was why IE became a bundled product.
Real survived Microsoft bundling of NetShow into Windows. Why can’t Netscape? Well, the reason: Netscape’s codebase was so terrible, it was hard to extend it future. By time they came to a decission to rewrite, they already lot of customers by either a terrible slow bloated product or the inactivity. Then it embarked on a 4 year rewrite. Tell me, what company wouldn’t loose all its market share to any competitor if that company’s main product was like Netscape?
If it wasn’t Microsoft, it would be someone else.
J. J. Ramsey: On the Java side of things, MS sold J++ as if it were a compliant Java implementation, while introducing incompatibilities that could make J++ code run only on Windows, reducing Java’s usefulness as a cross-platform language.
Using Win32 APIs in J++ was optional to developers. Being an option was enough for Sun to get really angry, after all they created Java to be binary compatible accross platforms.
spaceboy29: or even make it on Linux and port it over to the mac. Look at all the code that MS has stolen, and look they’ve gotten alway with it with billions of users.
They normally pay millions and millions of dollars in fines for stealing code. For a company the size of Microsoft, it is hard to keep its programmers from stealing code to cut down development time, and stealing code for these programmers is very easy.
But if you are scared of Microsoft stealing your code, don’t send in your code to get the “Made for Windows XP” sticker…
spaceboy29: Talk about Apple knifing there developer’s, its called a free market and the advancement of Sherlock.
Why is it okay for Apple and not for Microsoft?
Besides, people here are whining not because it is “illegal” but because utility app makers are no longer sure Apple won’t rip off their ideas and give it for free. The least Apple could do is buy Karelia off, like they did to get iTunes, iMovie etc…
spaceboy29: Look how similar Gimp is to Photoshop. I’ve never used Gimp or X windows, but GIMP looks a lot like an Adobe product.
I used both before, their UIs are sooooo different. Sure, the toolbar idea is the same…
CattBeMac: Now they can come over to Microsoft’s world and get the other knife in the back!
Microsoft have something similar, but it is more expensive than Watson: MSN Explorer. But MSN Explorer is at least quite different from Watson, different enough :-P. It is unlikely microsoft would make a Watson clone and get rid of millions of dollars in investment.
I was not talking about “My Services” regarding the .net technology which I believe will eliminate such Watson type of programs. What I was talking about is that, if .net and web services become a mainstream technology which is employed by many companies, then there will be products to use those services, which are basically Watson type of applications. As a matter of fact, a browser will be able to do many more things than simply viewing a web page. In this case, I don’t know why watson will survive.
Querying services will be a very commong thing. Even today, I can do easily without Watson in Windows, and I don’t know why I have to use it.
rajan wrote:
…It is unlikely microsoft would make a Watson clone and get rid of millions of dollars in investment…
Do you really thing Karelia invested “mililions of dollars” to develop Watson? After all, it’s not a very complicated app. I suppose a bunch of open source developers could do that with zero money in a few months. It’s only about extracting information.
But who needs that? As somebody already wrote, the bookmark + browser works just fine.
Michael Dominic K.
Visual J++ was the finest Java implementation of its time. For years, the Microsoft VM was the fastest and most reliable technology you could get.
Our implementation of native OS support took into account the needs of our ISV’s and was far superior to Sun’s complete lack of concern for the ISV.
To this day, Sun still does not have a good interface to a native GUI. And does not support the clean events model we created for JFC.
If Sun hadn’t sued us over Visual J++, they would have succeeded in making Java a real standard. Microsoft extended Java to work better on our OS, something we’re sure Sun would have done in our place.
Sun has an opportunity to clean up the mess they made with Java in the upcoming Java 3. Our J# team is tracking Sun’s efforts.
Microsoft. Supporting all the world’s programming languages on the world’s most popular trusted computing platform.
Bill
Should we make laws that a company could not make something that third party manufacturers make a living on? This is happening all the time, and the 3rd party people understand that they have to move with the times and they can’t expect the world to stand still.
Microsoft and Apple does the same thing, they seek out what software appeals to the majority of the users and they include it to give their OS offerings more appeal. It is good for the consumers as they get the software without any hassle or additional charges.
If the piece of software is strong enough it can stand on its own legs, for example high performace DBs and the likes. Small utility tools does not have this luxory, and it won’t take many developers to develop something similar.
Of course the applications will look similar if both follow the MacOS X design guidelines. It is the same kind of application doing the same thing. Stop screaming about company X stealing company Ys stuff, and at the same time start to speak about software patents being a bad idea (I don’t like the patents, and I don’t see a problem with the good ideas getting spread).
So, if you plan to make a utility that many people will find very useful, consider selling the whole idea (with source) off to Microsoft or Apple, and make sure you document everything nice and well, because that will make it easier to sell and raise the price. This is probably a better business idea than shareware, and you get enough money to set up your new company, hire a few guys, and start on your new kick ass taking the world with a storm software instead. There are tons of software that has yet to be written, and it is if the type that won’t be included with the next version of <insert OS name here>.
(Besides, if I would make my own desktop system for linux, would I get a ton of people getting pissed at me for competing with Gnome/KDE? Would a lot of people get pissed of at Red hat if they did?)
> Now they can come over to Microsoft’s world and get the other
> knife in the back!
Ahh.. but the point is that they’ll make a lot more money doing so before MSFT stabs them. In fact, Microsoft will be much slower, since it’s less of a given for their strategic purposes.
And again, it hurts Apple too. That’s the main thing. If everyone did that, Apple would have less incentive to knife.
By Ralf. (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net) – Posted on 2002-08-25 17:22:39
At the time OS/2 was advertised by IBM Win95 wasn’t out yet. With the start of Win95 IBM removed OS/2 from the market. Microsoft was’t that powerful that time than it is today. And IBM is also very big monster in the business. They had enough money to survive OS/2 against Microsoft but they droped OS/2 for whatever reason.
They nuked OS/2.
Ralf,
Yes, IBM is a huge company. That is one explanation for why parts of the company (e.g., the PC business) could seem to do everything possible to stymie another (i.e., the OS/2 group). But IBM never removed OS/2 from the market (I’m assuming yoiu were speaking figuratively).
And the fact that Win95 came out so long after OS 2.X does not mean MS’ typical tactics did not come into play. It’s called FUD. Win95 was long-delayed (that was not it’s original name, IIRC) and MS was very vocal about promoting it in the market and press years before its release. MS used the same tactic to sabotage Views (by Ashton Tate, I think) and similar environments by pre-announcing Windows 1.0 before there was even a project to create it (it was a direct response to View’s debut at a trade show). Ashton-Tate didn’t help itself, either; Views was over-priced. But MS was MS.
I was an OS/2 user back then. I was baffled by how people accepted not being able to use their system while formating a floppy, while OS/2 was a viable alternative. I bought Object Desktop for OS/2 as well as Describe (just before they dropped the price from about $250 to $50), Performance Plus, and some smaller programs. I used OS/2 for several years until I wanted to do some work from home, which required high-end, 32-bit Windows CAD programs. Until then, I enjoyed better stability and performance than my contemporaries on Win9X, so at least the investment wasn’t wasted.
The latest version had to be in development at least 6 months before Watson came out. While Watson is innovative; it was based on Sherlock to begin with in many ways. It also followed some nice Macintosh interface conventions–again, any similarly functioning app would look very similar.
And tracking stocks, local movies and weather and such is kind of an obvious thing. It was done way back when with Pointcast. You could minimize the thing and just have some small icon/text updates displayed. Not to mention the million+ stocktickers out there.
While I think that Apple made some PR blunders in not explaining the similarities earlier (they resently mentioned that they were developing Sherlock III before they ever saw Watson), Watson is sort of an inevitable evolution of Sherlock’s web scraping. I’m kind of glad about the outrage, because Mac users show they support real innovators over exploiters. And I don’t think Apple is 100% altruistic. But I think that the anger over Watson is misplaced. Apple just can’t come out and be more apologetic, because it may open them up for litigation. It’s just that there isn’t a lot of difference between following legal council, and looking like a class 1 A-hole. 😉
> > “J. J. Ramsey: The error message that Windows 3.1 produced when it detected that it was being installed on a non-MS DOS was deceptive.”
> “Windows 3.1 was made for MS-DOS and in fact, it is one of its requirements. Would you be angry at Adobe if Photoshop doesn’t run on Linux? No! Same case here. Windows 3.1 was built for MS-DOS, not DR-DOS.”
You missed my point. The point is that rather than display a warning saying outright “Windows 3.1 only officially supports MS-DOS”, MS had Win3.1 display a cryptic error message that implied that the problem was technical. That isn’t hardball; that’s dirty pool.
I don’t think you can assume you have a “right” to a particular product and that by offering enhancments to Apple’s OS, it won’t eventually fill that gap which were once “third party opportunities”.
I think it would be bad of Apple if they deliberately duped Watson’s creators into thinking they weren’t going to do their own version, but this story reminds me of Robin Williams who wrote the “Little Mac Book” some years ago, and then was in distress to find that a bigger publisher QUE was going to publish their own version of the same name. Accusations went flying but QUE already had a string of “Big xxx Books” so it was only “natural” they also had a string of “Little xxx Books”. You might be able to find this story on the net somewhere.
Anyway, that ended amicably, but while you may have a right to feel pissed off, it’s always a risk any developer has to take. Look at some of the shareware or freeware apps that got included with System 7.5 such as the menubar clock and the suped up Find. If you really are doing good stuff that Apple can use, they’ll buy it off you. I think Watson’s creators were too busy believing their product was the bees knees and that Apple trumped them with a look-alike, and not bothered to instead buy their version.
I had a look at Watson, and I believe some people will swear by it. There also used to be a Sherlock Helper under OS 8/9, but at the end of the day, as a Mac user, I would prefer certain things come as part of the OS, not an add-on they I may or may not have to pay for, without any assurances for future support (you know, blame Apple for incompatible or undocumented APIs etc).
I wish Watson’s developers all the best anyway. At the end of the day, if your product is good enough, it will get the rewards it deserves.
Don’t these people have any respect at all? Ruthless criminals. Stealing Watson
J. J. Ramsey: You missed my point. The point is that rather than display a warning saying outright “Windows 3.1 only officially supports MS-DOS”, MS had Win3.1 display a cryptic error message that implied that the problem was technical. That isn’t hardball; that’s dirty pool.
Oh please. Microsoft was always full of cryptic messages even inside Windows XP. So if I get a crytic message because of a bad graphics driver, Microsoft is playing dirty pool?
Also, it is a well known fact that DR-DOS practically clone every MS-DOS API and function made public. And it is also known that Microsoft have secret APIs up its sleave. Now, if I understand the situation back then properly, Win3.1 couldn’t differciate between the two DOS, but couldn’t use one of the secret APIs.
Besides, complaining that Windows 3.1 doesn’t work on DR DOS is as sane as complaining Internet Explorer doesn’t work on OS/2.
> >J. J. Ramsey: You missed my point. The point is that rather than display a warning saying outright “Windows 3.1 only officially supports MS-DOS”, MS had Win3.1 display a cryptic error message that implied that the problem was technical. That isn’t hardball; that’s dirty pool.
> Oh please. Microsoft was always full of cryptic messages even inside Windows XP. So if I get a crytic message because of a bad graphics driver, Microsoft is playing dirty pool?
No, but if you got a cryptic error message because Windows detected that you were installing Mozilla, *that* would be dirty pool, especially if the error messages made it appear that it was a problem with Mozilla rather than Windows.
Let me lay it out for you on what MS did with DR-DOS:
1) Windows 3.1 installer runs a routine that checks whether it is being installed on MS-DOS.
2) If Windows has detected that it is being installed on DR-DOS, it displays an error message that makes it appear as if there is a technical problem, rather than a result of a detection routine. Interestingly enough, *other* MS products (NOT Win3.1) produced the following error message:
“WARNING: This Microsoft product has been tested and certified for use only with the MS-DOS and PC-DOS operating systems. Your use of this product with another operating system may void valuable warranty protection provided by Microsoft on this product.”
There was no good reason to replace this clear error message, which MS has used before, with the far more cryptic “Non-fatal error detected: Error #4D53. (Please contact Windows 3.1 Beta Support.)”
3) MS internal e-mails indicated that the error message was *intended* to make it appear as if the problem was a bug or incompatibility with DR-DOS.
4) In short, rather than inform the customer that the Win3.1 beta did not officially support DR-DOS, MS went out of its way to mislead the customer by making it appear as if DR-DOS were the problem.
>>Also, it is a well known fact that DR-DOS practically clone every MS-DOS API and function made public. And it is also known that Microsoft have secret APIs up its sleave. Now, if I understand the situation back then properly, Win3.1 couldn’t differciate between the two DOS, but couldn’t use one of the secret APIs.<<
I think calling the victim the robber and the robber the victim is a little harsh! Everyone knows that MS-DOS (originally Q-DOS) was hackers copy of CP/M, which was DR’s little baby. DR sued MS for that and then DR-DOS was born after, not sure what happened to CP/M-86, but Microsoft was the robber (though I don’t think they knew it when they bought Q-DOS)!