Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
[Duplicate Post]
Author: Andrew Duncan Posted: 8/31/2000; 3:20:42 PM Topic: Mac OS X and Frontier Msg #: 20621 (In response to 20612) Prev/Next: 20620 / 20622
When I was working for an Apple reseller, much was made of the "fit in, stand out" philosophy. This is the key to playing well with Apple, on several levels.One level is about integration; Frontier on the Mac plays well with any number of other powerful applications, via AppleEvents of course.
I'm not familiar enough with Windows to know for sure, but I suspect that tying apps together with AppleEvents/AppleScript is easier than using COM on Windows, given that one knows equally little about either.
On another level, namely marketing, fitting in will become easier when OS X is finally released (that the release has been delayed is not, to my mind, a bad thing). It means that I will be able to approach both large and small companies with UN*X based solutions. I can say "why wouldn't you put this box on your network, it's UN*X."
It's a bonus that a) Frontier runs there and b) I can do this on the tiny but powerful G4 Cube, maybe running headless with Timbuktu; six months after the installation, nobody will notice it's there, all they will see is the applications I write. This is a Good Thing, imho.
Also imho, the "It's UN*X" message is no small matter -- many of the larger companies are already predisposed to liking UN*X and historically it has a reputation for being "industrial strength".
Granted, this will depend on OS X being as stable as other UN*X systems, like Solaris or xBSD. We know the history of OS X, it's based on BSD and the highly-respected if seldom deployed NextStep, and we know the engineering quality at Apple is high, so it's reasonable to expect it to be a strong implementation.
But I want this product to be appreciated and used in the Mac OS X environment
I want both products to be appreciated in equal measure, by developers and users alike, for their respective strengths.
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