Making software deliberately NOT cross-platform?

Great Debates
1

I don’t know if this is a “profound” enough topic for GD, but I didn’t quite know where else to put it.

Before I go any further, PLEASE DON’T MAKE THIS INTO A BIG STINKING PLATFORM PISSING CONTEST. Macs rule, PCs rule, Linux is sublime, they all are great for their own reasons. We all are a bunch of big smarty-pants for choosing our particular platforms, because we have such superior discernment in our computer choices. Blah blah blah.

Being seriously out of the loop on such computer matters, I only recently discovered that Apple bought the much-touted video editing software Final Cut Pro and then developed it into a Mac-only application. Apple also recently bought another well respected app (can’t remember the name) and intend to immediately drop the Windows version, and only release a Mac version.

Final Cut Pro is (from what I’ve heard) an excellent product, and is considered better (so I’ve been told) to a competing product (Adobe’s Premiere). Some people have switched to Macs just in order to use Final Cut Pro. Apparently Apple is hoping to have the same success with this new software program they have purchased, by making it Mac-only.

Now, as a Mac user (though I do have a PC too) I think this is fine. Business is business, and if Apple wants to do this to help boost their hardware sales, then that’s fine with me. I am a Mac user, after all, and I’m used to seeing PC-only software. So, what’s wrong with Mac-only software?

I guess the thing I want to discuss is - do any of you (PC users, Mac users, Linux users, Amiga users) think that there is something “underhanded” or “unethical” about such business tactics? What if Apple (or Microsoft, or whoever) bought out your favorite application, and made it only available on one platform (one you didn’t use)? How would you feel?

2

Seems a little short-sighted to me; not very many PC owners are going to just give in and convert to mac simply because some software is only available to Mac users (and vice versa); if it isn’t available, you look elsewhere - there is so much software out there now that there’s virtually no task for which only one package exists.

3

Ah, but from what I understand, there is no true rival for Final Cut Pro. Some high-end video editing users really swear by it. I’ve read the glowing reviews—apparently it’s quite the thing. If your bread and butter was video editing, and you were less productive using one of FCP’s competing apps, (while all your friends were having a breeze using FCP on their Macs) maybe a platform switch wouldn’t be such a crazy thing.

Apparently it’s working that way with FCP, because Apple has bought yet another app and hope to do the same thing with it that they’ve done with FCP (make it Mac only).

4

Perhaps so, but anyone to whom that is such an important issue is probably just as likely to buy a Mac for FCP and keep the PC for other things (like office tasks; spreadsheets, databases and the like).

5

I don’t see anything wrong with a PC- or Mac- only product. Companies are free to develop whatever products they wish, and cater to whichever market they want to. There are alternatives for almost every software type, and I’ve never been left hanging simply because company X decided to make their product (platform) only.

WRT programs like FCP: Making titles single-platform is a not-too-subtle way of trying to convert users. I have no problems with companies doing this-- they’re free to make their products as they please. Of course, if I were a hobbyist user of the program, I’d be annoyed, naturally, if a corporate takeover meant I could no longer use the software. But if I was serious about my hobby, or if my livelihood depended on me using and being skilled at a particular program, I think it would be foolish of me to refuse to become a multiplatform user, even if I had to spend a couple thousand dollars on a different platform system. If my livelihood depended on it, I’d consider it basic job skills maintenance, and would see learning a new OS as something that can benefit me in the future.

What does bother me, however, is when companies do a half-assed job of creating a version for what you distinctly feel they consider to be the “other” :sneer: platform. The best example I can think of this at the moment is ICQ, the instant messaging app. I believe it was version 2.5b or so that was a complete waste of code. It would crash frequently, refuse to install, have random, irreplicable bugs, freeze, and/or have seldom-working features. The consensus was that it never should have been released, and most programmers would be ashamed to be associated with it.

I heard it mentioned at versiontracker.com that ICQ’s Mac development team consisted of two programmers. Worse, they were under pressure to release any Mac update (it had been many months since the last one). So they ended up releasing the big steaming pile of poo, which, not so surprisingly, ended up working like a big steaming pile of poo.

This, to me, is inexcusable. If you’re going to have a (platform) version, then don’t do it half-assedly, because it will show.

6

I don’t really have a problem with this, I would have a problem if a company bought a product out from under an installed base, and then proceeded to develop it on a single platform and made it absolutely crap, or even made it not as good as the multiplatform version.

I’m trying to think of examples of this, but I’m stuck. (Though my heart did sink a bit when MS bought Visio, they don’t seem to have screwed it up, and it wasn’t multiplatform to begin with).

A nitpick: Apple didn’t buy the software, they bought the company.

As for the other company they bought, it’s Emagic, who make Logic, which is the ‘Final Cut Pro’ of sound mixing apps AFAIK. If they don’t make a balls of it or screw over the current users (apart from making them buy a Mac), then more power to them.

7

It won’t just help Apple, it’ll also help Adobe. PC users who won’t switch to Mac may have to use Adobe Premiere, Adobe gets more money, Adobe ends up improving Premiere until it’s as good as Final Cut Pro was… possibly with help from Microsoft, to keep users on Windows.

Of course, the only reason anyone will need to switch is if the newer Mac-only version of FCP has a must-have feature that justifies the cost of buying new hardware and retraining employees.

8

Since no one has touched on the development aspect, let me throw my two cents in.

Making software cross-platform is hard. Any code you write dealing with a graphical user interface, or file management, or some other stuff (like threading, if you know what that is) is going to be platform-specific. In some apps, this represents the majority of the code.

Converting that code requires time, money, and expertise, all of which may be in short supply. I strongly suspect this is the reason why more software isn’t cross platform.

9

I also agree that they have the right to do this, but I can see the other point of view.

Imagine if there was a great PC-only program that gave people a lot of enjoyment, and Apple came along and bought the company for no other purpose than to take the program off the market so that people wouldn’t be as likely to buy a PC. Would that be okay? Because in a sense, that’s what’s happening here. The program is currently available in two versions, and they bought the company for the express purpose of dropping PC support.

10

Some real world data to consider.

Single platform software does sell that platform. If you step into any radio station in the US you will find some Macs. The industry standard audio editor/sequencer that the radio stations use to sequence ad spots, etc is only written for a Mac.

This product alone is selling a considerable number of Macs. At many stations, if you want to be an on the air personality or work in the booth you better know that software if you want to be considered.

11

When will the big-endians and little-endians just get along?

12

They also bought the company to increas Mac support. I do see a little bit of wicked (not in a bad way) ingenuity in what Apple is doing, but it doesn’t seem so bad, because they are a definite “underdog” in the computer world.

After all, software is created all the time with no Mac support. No intention to do a Mac version. Also, some software used to have Mac support, but then eventually the company decided to drop their Mac software. It is not uncommon. I’m sure the rationale is that it’s too expensive, but I suspect that sometimes it merely because they don’t give a damn. So, in essence, many companies are making software that will automatically shut out Mac users. And probably make some people think twice about buying a Mac. (How many times do we hear people claim that “there’s no software for the Mac”?) Mac users like Audrey and I know that there’s plenty of the “good stuff” for Mac, but still, we all know that there’s a lot of PC software out there that is NOT ever going to be ported over to the Mac.

So, for Apple to make a point to make some software Mac-only doesn’t seem so bad, or so “unfair”. Surely PC users can’t complain that the Mac market is depriving them of their fair share of software.

Yes, this is what I’ve been led to believe too. There are certain specific “niche” markets that are predominantly Mac. This is not a bad thing. For Apple to focus on being a “niche” market is not a bad thing.

The only thing that concerns me (and makes me curious) is those fabulous cinema flat panel monitors that Apple sells. (I can’t afford one, alas.) They are, I believe, Mac-only. (I could be wrong about that, though—sometimes, things change fast.) They also can sell for up to $3,000. Personally, if I were Apple, I’d sell 'em to PC users as well. I mean, why turn down $3,000? That’s more expensive than most computer systems! But, I guess Apple is trying to send the message of, “We make some nifty stuff. If you want to use it, you have to go in all the way with us, not half-way.”

Amen to that! I remember the Mac version of Napster. Well, actually, it wasn’t that bad. It was more stable than the PC version. But it had so few features compared to the PC version.

13

I don’t think the lack of Mac software shows that companies don’t give a damn, rather that companies believe customers don’t give a damn.

After all, writing Mac apps is fundamentally different from writing Windows apps on many levels. It’s hard to find programmers who know both systems, so a software company has to face the expense of hiring additional programmers as well as months of porting. Since the Mac software market is a fraction of the Windows market, it may not be profitable in most instances.

14

Which customers? Mac customers? I certainly wouldn’t expect Linux or PC customers to care about the availability of Mac software, since it does not affect them.

Certainly. And, they may just not give a damn. Not profitable enough=not give a damn. It isn’t like I expect all software companies to bend over backwards and take a loss to develop software for the “minority” OSes. If they want to, they will. If they don’t want to, they won’t.

And, I don’t expect Apple to cater to users outside of their specialized niche. (Unless they want to, of course.)

15

Customers in general. At least the ones with money. :wink:

The fact that Windows is the most popular platform means there are PC emulators for many other platforms, and that makes porting less of a concern. The people on those other platforms who really want/need the software can use an emulator, so a company who makes a Windows-only program can still sell a few copies to Mac and Linux users, without the expense of actually porting their software.

For example, my freeware project is written in Delphi, which makes a Linux port much easier than it could be otherwise. But it’d still take months, and Linux users who want to use my software can currently run it with WINE (a Windows emulator), so I haven’t given it much thought.

Since there’s less Mac-only software, Mac emulators aren’t as advanced or reliable as PC emulators (IME). Apple probably won’t be selling many copies to Windows and Linux users, especially since they have an incentive (hardware sales) to make their software fail when run under an emulator. If this trend continues, though, I expect the emulators will become much better as there’s more software to emulate.

16

yosemitebabe, i’ve programmed UNIX and Windows, and have also used a Mac for years. I was a professional video type for a year, and we used Final Cut on the Mac, because the experts told us to.

During my video experience I tried Adobe Premiere, to see what it was like. My superficial observation, based on re-editing what I’d just been doing in Final Cut, was that for our purposes, there wasn’t a difference that was so overwhelming I couldn’t work with it.

The cross-platform controversy is, I feel, simpler than it’s often portrayed.

Issue 1: It’s always easier for a company to produce software that only works in a limited environment. (One OS, one CPU, one model).

There’s nothing wrong with making software that only works on one computer. It’s cheap. If my company was struggling to survive, I’d do whatever was cheapest, and that would sell.

Issue 2: Computer systems are complicated beasts. Take my experience at Hewlett-Packard. We practically gave away (very expensive) software, because the company made most of its money from hardware sales. The application software I worked on was actually one of the top three available. The company was willing to fund our software development because we made millions more for the company than we cost.

But. If our application software ran on IBM computers, we’d be screwed. Our division would have immediately lost it’s funding. Why spend big bucks on software that helps IBM sell it’s hardware?

The point is that our application software was not an entity of itself, but a part of a package H-P intended to sell customers. Sure, we wrote superb application software, but it was bankrolled by people selling hardware. In a sense our customer was the hardware division.

In a system, inevitably some parts will be better than others. But manufacturers can’t compete on every single nut and bolt. You can’t go to the Ford dealer, and say “I like your car, but Toyota has cooler hubcaps, why can’t I have Toyota hubcaps?” Neither Ford nor Toyota is claiming to sell a car perfect in every respect. They’re selling a package that they couldn’t mix and match even if they wanted.

The bottom line is that cross-platform software works when a company has decided that being “cross-platform” is a competitive advantage. That very same company, if they thought they could make a buck, would make the least portable software ever invented.

17

You need to remember that Apple is not a software company. It is a hardware company.

My take is the sales from PC versions of <em>Final Cut Pro</em> is probably peanuts from what Apple can get by trying to increase the market share.

18

Urban Ranger, exactly.

Final Cut Pro’s purpose is to increase the sales of high end Apple computers.

19

I’m still a little confused about the debate here: to suggest that it’s wrong to release software only for certain platforms is to suggest that manufacturers have some moral obligation to release their product as widely as possible.

I work for a plastics manufacturer. We make no attempt to sell our products in South America. Is that wrong of us?

The intelligence of a single-platform strategy is debatable, but in what possible sense is it morally in error?

20

I don’t think anyone was saying that companies have a moral responsibility to write software for multiple platforms.

The issue here is whether it is okay for a company to purchase a software package that is available for another, competing platform, for the sole purpose of removing it from the market in order to give their platform an advantage.

Let’s say Microsoft Purchased Final Cut before Apple did, and then promptly dropped the Mac version. Would the same people defending Apple also defend Microsoft in that case?

Or would it be seen as restraint of trade and a possible anti-trust violation?