By Bill Graham, Graphics Editor, nucmong@primenet.com
This is a letter I sent to the editor of the local Phoenix paper. They ran an article about Mac users crying the blues over the slow death of their machine. This is my response.
It was with both amusement and a sense of sadness that I read the Praise The Mac articles in the Monday Republic Business Computing section. The slow demise of the Mac platform is being described as the fault of a biased media, the marketing strategy of Bill Gates, or the unwillingness of the general computing public to accept the inherent superiority of the Mac.
Having owned various Amigas for years, I'd like to point out that the Amiga was ignored by the media and by Bill Gates, and was generally unknown by the general computing public. Yet the machine still has a small following of users today even though no new hardware has been produced in four years. The Amiga was poorly marketed and viewed as a niche machine by those who did know about it.
Not so for the Mac. Everyone knows about the Macintosh, they are in most schools, many homes and businesses, and the logo is a symbol of late 20th century American corporate culture the world over. And while it may gratify those "militant Macintosh owners" to cast blame on the world, I have to wonder just how many of them own all the fonts and software residing on their hard drives.
The fact is that software piracy is a major factor in a developer's decision to continue or discontinue support for any particular computing platform. And without developer support, any computer platform and operating system is destined for oblivion. I remember talking to a Broderbund representative many years ago about piracy, and she told me they figured that for every legal copy of a product they sell, there are ten illegal copies in use. In the case of fonts, the situation is much worse. Nearly every Mac owner I've known has fonts they did not purchase.
Make no mistake about it. Borrowing, copying, and lending software are illegal activities. And though the chances of getting caught are slim, the results of that activity are reflected in every negative financial statement put out by Apple, by the lack of availability of Macintosh products on dealer's shelves, and by the newfound unwillingness to further upgrade or develop hardware and software by third party developers.
Just this week I was made aware of a major valley business that is Mac-based and very successful, yet was caught using numerous illegal copies of a well-known software package. They were caught and had to settle with the developer, yet how many do not get caught? And worse yet, how many of these people are Mac enthusiasts, eager to dump on Windows at any occasion? Not to say there is no piracy in windozeland, but, from a developer's point of view, there is safety (and profits) in numbers.
As an Amiga user, when I read about the Mac people whining over the diminishing popularity of their machines, all's I can say is been-there-done-that. But cheer up, Macintosh owners! Take it from me, when Apple goes belly-up, your machines are not going to disappear from your desktops. The death of a computer platform is a long drawn-out affair, and the machines will still be good for a while. And, since the companies that used to make software for your machine will no longer be around, you'll be able to pirate with impunity! Only, there will be much less to pirate.
Now, having written this in Microsoft Word, I'll fire up my Windows 95 version of Netscape 3.1 and send it off to the Republic.