“Resistance is nearly futile. Three years after Apple introduced OS X, smaller newspapers have hard decisions to make: upgrade to Apple’s OS X, stick with software that is becoming more outdated by the day or move over to a Windows environment.” Read the article at NewsAndTech.
Mac OS X: Lost in Migration
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
““We still have some of our legacy products running on incredibly old machines – Classics for example, from original installations 15 years ago,” said Peter Cooper, director of marketing.”
I think thats pretty cool.
I’ve word at 2 newspapers and one publishing company throughout my years as a graphic artists and I can honestly say that there is no threat of the publishing industry transitioning to Windows that I can see.
Macs and PCs cost the same when equipped with the same components… so price is not a factor at all.
Apple’s installed base only continues to grow (don’t believe the misleading “market share statistic which only gauges quarterly sales not the total number of individuals using the systems” so there’s no threat of Apple not being around (despite what you might hear from the peanut gallery)… The issue at hand is whether or not the people that use these systems are more productive (or at least feel more product) using the systems they’ve been using for the last 15 years. The answer to both questions is, “yes most desktop publishers are more productive or at least feel more productive on a Mac”
People have been predicting Apple demise for quite some time. Predicting the demise of Apple’s core markets simply because a few people in the vocal minority happen to get heard. Apple and desktop publishing are and will continue to be synonymous with one another.
hey, if it works, why even bother. I work in the IT field and their are people who are on PII’s doing word processing and don’t even mind using office 97. The only hinderence i foresee using old hardware is lack of new programs and terrible memory management (esp. anything <=os9 or windows 98se/me).
But hey, on with the classics.
hey hey.. i work at the local newspaper in the classified dept. and let me tell you.. our machines SUCK.. they are running OS8 (not even a 8.5 or 8.6.. ) i THINK they are 233’s and there are NO plans to update them anytime soon.. one dies, they just pull up a new one from the back.. there are 3 new PCs and thats in pagination and composing and a single ‘server’ all G5.. but thats all..
I agree that apple isn’t going bankrupt anytime soon, but useing sales figures to examin a growth of a company is the best and only way to do it, saying that the install base for apple is much larger then the sales figures present is true, it doesn’t amout to much the fact that people are still useing old mac performas and such does not help the company much at all, as apple is not reciveing income from people running pre macosx computers. when apple cut off clasic mac os it cut off sales of mac software for clasic macs. the only gain apple gets from having so many people running old systems is that hopefully they will eventualy buy a new mac. The fact that these old systems are still in use says something about the product, but you have to remember there is still many 8086’s in use running msdos and 486-pent 90’s in useing running windows 95. apple has a nice product right now the only thing holding it back is that its simply out numbered by the hunderds of vendors selling cheap x86 computers, but as long as apple doesn’t try to do anything risky (aka spend more money then it has comming in) then the’ll be around for a while
I’ve word at 2 newspapers and one publishing company throughout my years as a graphic artists
Good thing you didn’t work as a proofreader!
Sorry… Couldn’t resist.
They should give special “bundled” offers to desktop publishing firms just to ensure they make the transition.
BTW Adobe and Apple should have merged years ago!
Publishing companies will still have to pay for the new software anyways. OS X offers so much more over OS 9, and interms of multitasking X has an advantage over XP. I have an 2800+ processor in my pc running windows and can tell there is a difference.
I don’t see Apple getting pushed out of the publishing market anytime soon. Not with the current OS under the hood. If anything Apple is gaining in other areas, with the release of the G5, Apple is being used in 29% of broadcasting stations now and 39% in 3d work now. It’s an increase over last year. I got those stats from videography.com a month ago.
Not to start the whole “Macs are too much $$$” debate that inevitably comes up during discussions such as this, but when you think about what drives migration to other platforms, I see it kinda like this:
Q. What drives users from Windows to other platforms?
A. Lots of things… Lack of security, perceived stability problems (this is largely behind them these days, when compared to win98 era problems), Microsoft “Big Brothering” their user base, buggy software interoperation (dll conflicts and such), and so on.
Not to mention that MS has a fairly bad public image right now as far as the threat of future virus’s and vendor lock in and such.
Q. What drives users from Linux (or more pointedly, “What keeps Linux from wider adoption”)?
A. Steep learning curve, lack of hardware support, lack of native programs. (In general terms… There’ of course many other more personal reasons that people don’t like Linux)
Q. What drives users away from Mac/OSX
A. Cost
That’s it. No one really slams a Mac as unmanageable, or buggy. No one says it’s a bad investment. They’re simply too much for most people to actively pursue them.
Steve Jobs is killing his userbase slowly by not going after the average Joe ComputerUser.
Which is sad… I’ve drooled over the G5’s from afar, and recently had the opportunity to ad an old Supermac 450 to my growing managerie(SP?) at work. I’ve got it running OSX w/384mb of memory, and I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun.
The speed’s very impressive for the size of CPU, and I’m not even using the very latest version (ie, Panther), but rather the previous (10.2.8 or something similar – I’m at home right now). The apps are nicely thought out, and after plugging my 3 button mouse in today (simply replacing the USB one-button Apple mouse while working at the desktop), and having everything work but the side buttons without rebooting, I’m VERY impressed (right-button context menu worked. Safari opened new tabs with a click of my middle button, scroll worked. All just by switching mice while in the middle of doing something, and it never had anything other than the sng. button mouse up until then.
Color me impressed!
So yeah… I’m torn. I’m seriously considering adding a Mac to my home collection of PC’s (to sit next to my current fav, a P4 3.2), but the whole “will they be around much longer at their current rate” question bothers me…
Of course if they die out, my investment would probably triple in value due to all as all the Mac zealots out there tried to buy up all they could. 8)=
And of course, it can still run Linux, and presumably MorphOS.
Sigh… Decisions, decisions…
BTW Adobe and Apple should have merged years ago!
Next thing you know Texaco and Ford will merge and possibly bring Firestone in on thedeal. Related industries do not necesserily need to merge nor would they necessarily benefit from it. Mergers costs money and the bonus is in reduce redunancy, if there is not a large overlap then there is no gain. Apple is primarily a hardware company which just makes a really good OS to go with it. Apple merging with IBM or Rhambus or ATI, now that would make more sense.
Actually it would be nice since that would let you buy a G5 with the option of running either Linux, Mac OSX, or AIX!
“We still have some of our legacy products running on incredibly old machines – Classics for example, from original installations 15 years ago,” said Peter Cooper, director of marketing.
And these guys want to move to windows, just because of COST? Try doing that on ANY pc.. try FINDING a stable windows installation older than 3 years old.
These people don’t understand the value of a computer. Stability and useability highly outweigh a few hundred more dollars.
To any newspaper out there who has been using Macs for 15 years and is considering switching to PCs, I say go for it! And once all your staff quit and you find yourself missing deadlines because when you press the print button Windows says “no printers found” even though you’ve installed it 5 times already, you’ll soon be crawling back to the Apple webshop.
“Mergers costs money and the bonus is in reduce redunancy, if there is not a large overlap then there is no gain.”
Another side effect would be that “New-AA” would change their interests. Rather support their own effort (Apple’s MacOSX versions) than those of your competitors (companies behind Linux, Windows). “New-AA” (the Adobe part) as a market leader, together with some marketing, would be easy to bind people to the “Apple” platform. Not that that is bad persee, taking into account from which monopoly they come from. No Windows/x86 version hurts companies which use Adobe software on WINE + Linux too.
Mergers are almost never good for the users and People. One common reason is when they provide a service while the merger doesn’t drive smoothly…
OSX is a very powerful tool for press. I am the lead Pre Pressman at a small print shop. I also maintain the 10 Macs and 1 PC. And the boss before I was hired saw no reason to migrate. I layed out the benefits of OSX( stability future support free apps among them) and he has let me migrate many machines. We currently 5 of the Macs on Panther. That is all of the machines that realisitcally can run them. (all other machines are a mac BEIGE box of some sort.)
the idea in the article that a PC migration would be cheaper is folly. To buy a stable warrentied machine would be nearly the same price. Then the cost of migrating to a totally differentr environment.
And these guys want to move to windows, just because of COST? Try doing that on ANY pc.. try FINDING a stable windows installation older than 3 years old.
Go into any automotive repair shop on the west coast and look at what they run for payroll and repair scheduling.
The software is DOS/Windows 3.11 based and its been running for 10+ years some of it still happily on 486 machines.
Old PCs are heavy metal to the extreme. Its only the newer throw away crap from companies like eMachines that sucks.
Here’s an idea:
How about some enterprising individual makes a installer that enables users to run MacOS X on Pegasos motherboards. It should not be very hard technically, after all both Mac and Pegasos use pretty much the same hardware. In the best scenario, this would make an dramatic increase in the MacOS X userbase…not to mention Genesi would probably be very happy to sold Pegasos boards to those people, who aren’t interested in Linux or MorphOS.
I bet Apple would allow this only over their dead bodies, but when you really think of it, it’s a win-win situation. As said before, Apple has priced their hardware out from average users reach. Even the cheapest iMac tends to cost several hundred euros more than a Pegasos with equal specs. People still want alternatives to Wintel Domination. People want alternative hardware, people want alternative operating systems – but people also want mainstream software, software they are used to running on Windows.
MacOS X licence actually states, that Apple does not allow MacOS X to be run on anything else than Mac hardware. IMHO that’s pretty stupid and would not hold water in most courts (assuming Apple would sue the poor guy who would do a MacOS X installer for Pegasos). Think about it – it’s the same thing as Sony Music would allow their CD’s to be played only on Sony CD-players. I think that I as a consumer have a right to choose which hardware I want to use to run MacOS X if I choose to buy it. I assume people at Apple know they can’t really make such demand, ’cause I haven’t seen them complaining/sueing much about Mac-On-Linux.
My point is: if MacOS X could be run on cheaper hardware, such Pegasos, there would be a larger MacOS X userbase and the Mac software industry would benefit much from that. Apple would still make $$$ on selling the operating system. They might think that this would make them loose money, because people would not buy Mac hardware, but actually it would bring them more money, because people who can’t afford Macs buy a PC. I would like to think that even Apple would be happy to sell the average user even the operating system than nothing at all.
The question is why upgrade? Are their print bureaus requiring newer version of the software? Is the current setup doing more harm than good? Will upgrading significantly increase productivity, because perhaps of new features? Is there new software that they must absolutely run, that there isn’t an equivalent for their current systems? Except for the first, perhaps they should reconsider the cost needing to upgrade as a necesseity, and that they should have planned for this years ago.
The problem with Apple Licensing MacOSX for Pegasos Machines is that;
• The sale of Pegasos Machines running MacOSX will undermine Apples Sales of eMacs and iMacs.
• Hardware incompatibilities with 3rd Party Hardware on Pegasos Machines will increase Support Costs for Apple. and may sully the Macintosh Brand. (“My Computer keeps crashing… It runs MacOSX”)
• Apple already let 3rd Party Hardware Manufacturers Install Darwin. If you want a GUI for Darwin, try OpenStep. If you want Aqua, bad luck.
• Steve Jobs killed all the Macintosh Clones back in 1997 (during OSX’s Gestation). I don’t think he’s gonna let OSX run on more Macintosh Clones.
• Apple is a Hardware Company. They made MacOSX to sell Apple Hardware. Just like the made iTunesStore to sell Apple Hardware.
“Apple already let 3rd Party Hardware Manufacturers Install Darwin. If you want a GUI for Darwin, try OpenStep. If you want Aqua, bad luck.”
The implementation of OpenStep usable on most *nixes is GNUstep (www.gnustep.org). Check it out, it’s easy to port Mac OSX apps to it, and it’s got some stuff of its own which compete well with even Apple’s software (like GNUMail.app over Mail.app).
I’ve seen many comments encouraging an upgrade to OS X, but I have to admit I feel for companies that find themselves in this mess. Upgrading is expensive. Fortunately, using Mac’s keeps the training costs down, but they may still loose out because of the hardware costs. But if their antiquated equipment fails, there probably won’t be a replacement. That means a forced upgrade, and at the worst possible time.
For the record, switching to Windows PC’s would be a foolish thing to do for most companies like this. They might save on hardware, but the extra maintenance they require could destroy a small shop that’s not prepared for it.
I think this article shows how Macintosh computers have a much longer, useful, lifespan than other alternatives… I believe, if they migrated to Mac OS X now they probably wouldn’t have to deal with upgrading for another 5-6 years. I don’t think we can say that with PCs… There workflow transistion would be a snap to go from older mac systems… files and naming convention from legacy Mac OS would not be a problem (finder forks etc.)
And hardware upgrades such as HDs and memory ain’t an issue any longer… Just the initial purchase of said station.
Q. What drives users from Windows to other platforms?
A. Lots of things… Lack of security, perceived stability problems (this is largely behind them these days, when compared to win98 era problems), Microsoft “Big Brothering” their user base, buggy software interoperation (dll conflicts and such), and so on.
Not to mention that MS has a fairly bad public image right now as far as the threat of future virus’s and vendor lock in and such.
Q. What drives users from Linux (or more pointedly, “What keeps Linux from wider adoption”)?
A. Steep learning curve, lack of hardware support, lack of native programs. (In general terms… There’ of course many other more personal reasons that people don’t like Linux)
Q. What drives users away from Mac/OSX
A. Cost
What is really amazing is that people making such decisions do not view the answers for Windows and Linux as costs.
this is cleary a fish of april. pure and simple.
<blockquote>What is really amazing is that people making such decisions do not view the answers for Windows and Linux as costs. </blockquote>
Boy I really wish this respondent had chimed in much earlier with this. This is the true root of the problem — these other things are NOT perceived as ‘costs’ — and should be.
If the smaller firms are in a bind then they should check out the used Mac hardware market. You can find used Mac’s that can run Panther for about the same or less than a new PC would cost.
Used Blue and Whites run Panther just fine and I’ve seen them as low as $199.00 on various used sites. Older G4’s are also available.
For a business in a crunch it might make more sense to “upgrade” to B&W’s or early G4’s, Panther and run your current 9 apps in emulation till you have the time/money to move to the newer versions.
Thoughts?
according to the website,
http://www.pegasosppc.com/operating_systems.php
the pegasoppc will run MacOS9 and MacOSX in “emulation” What you want to bet this machine is functionally an updated “MacClone” like we used to be able to buy with Apple’s blessing.. ie: what is there stopping me from ordering the parts from Genesi’s Canadian Distributer and then calling up my buddy who owns the local Mac dealer and simply installing MacOSX? If I matched specs closely with say an imac, would it work?
Currently Pegasos is able to run MacOS X via Mac-On-Linux system, which is an emulation. Emulation does not necessarily mean slow, let’s not forget that back when both Amigas and Macs both used 680×0 CPU’s, an Amiga with a Mac-emulator run Mac-software faster then a real Mac with the same CPU. The problem is, that I for one would not like to install Linux just to use MacOS X.
As for the hardware, there is not a single reason why Pegasos could not run MacOS X, the problem is just with Apples licencing. I’m also under the impression that MacOS X has some kind of protection that makes MacOS X work only on real Macs. I still dare to claim, that it not would be impossible – or even hard – to make some kind of stand-alone installer to run MacOS X on Pegasos.
to Daniel Woods:
You understood my idea a bit wrong. I didn’t ment that Apple would start supporting Pegasos officially. I just ment that if some brilliant individual would come up with a MacOS X installer for Pegasos, Apple would stay of his/her back, ’cause a larger MacOS userbase would benefit the Mac software industry.
As for the claim that Pegasos would reduce Apples hardware sales – I doubt it very much. Macs and Pegas have totally different philosophy. Macs are ready off-the-box-and-go solutions and Pegas are for people who like to build their machines from scratch. And it when it comes to price, even the cheapest iMac is still pretty expensive when compared to equally speced Pegasos. I’m not even going to talk about eMac, because it sucks and I really hope that nobody in their right minds buys them