Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Fighting Back for the Mac™

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:1/9/2000; 8:06:14 AM
Topic:Now it makes more sense
Msg #:14253 (In response to 14252)
Prev/Next:14252 / 14254

Manila taught us that the key to empowering web writers is in cutting down the number of task switches between steps in the editing process. Go back and review the slide show for Manila, and remember how strange it seemed when you first read it.

We know what the next step is, it involves taking advantage of the CPU, disk and user interface capabilities of the machine you're using, to make the server even more efficient, and (much more important) making the writer and designer even more efficient. We have another breakthrough in in the pipe. If you think Manila is high leverage, it's actually just a step in the evolution of our web writing system, a very significant step, but certainly not the last one, and I don't think it's even the biggest one.

The breakthrough will run on the Mac, of course, but we are now getting ready to develop important features that will only be available on Windows.

BTW, we have competition that doesn't even make a Mac version. Allaire is barking up the same tree. They have a great workstation HTML editor. Windows only.

I don't think I'm giving Allaire any ideas they don't already have! What I am hoping is that we can have open interfaces so that users get choice, that people can use HomeSite to write for a Manila site, as they could use our "Pike" product to write for a Spectra site.

In the meantime, Apple is declaring victory, yet they aren't even supporting their developers. They're making the Mac a very unattractive platform for developers such as ourselves that view the Internet as our platform.

Thanks for listening, this is the most concise statement I've been able to come up with so far. This is not an immature rant of a child, it's a heads-up from an engineer and an executive doing the honorable thing for his customers and platform vendor. I could just stay quiet and let the Mac fade out. Like the PowerComputing guy from the last century, I actually am Fighting Back for the Mac™.

Apple is not our competitor, at least not at this point. Their authoring system is not even remotely in the ballpark of Manila, and as far as I know they don't have a content management system that they could build a Manila-like software product out of.

We feel safe investing in the Internet. If Apple has the same support for the Internet in their OS as Microsoft does, then we can invest safely in both platforms. When Apple blazes their own trail, independent of the web, then we have to make a call.

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