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The Holy Grail of the computer industry is an operating system that offers protected memory and symmetrical multi-processing, but is as easy to use as the OS we all know and love. There is no denying that OSX turns heads. Nor is there any denying that it has given Mac users the power of UNIX in a much more easy to understand operating system. But in gaining these advantages, the Mac OS had to be changed in some fundamental ways. These changes meant that programs written for the Mac would have to be altered to take full advantage of the new features the UNIX based operating system had to offer. This is a big problem for the thousands of software developers who were already producing Mac applications. They could not afford to reinvent the wheel. To this end, Apple developed the ‘Classic’ environment for OSX. In Classic, applications that were written for OS 9.x could run on a machine running OSX. The big problem was that they would not be able to take advantage of the next generation features that OSX was truly developed for. Simply put, Apple created the Classic environment to buy time and ease the transition to OSX. The real heyday for the new OS would be when all of the software developers who had written applications for OS 9.x start releasing software that is considered OSX native. In porting their work to the native code, they take advantage of the protected memory, revised virtual memory, UNIX based kernel, true multi-threading, and full symmetrical multi-preprocessing. At this month’s Macworld, Steve Jobs highlighted ten software developers who were nearing the release of their flagship products. Among the premiere developers were Adobe, Microsoft, Quark, Filemaker, Connectix, and IBM some of the leaders in the industry. Adobe demonstrated several of their staple products running on OSX. These products included Illustrator, Golive, and InDesign. Each product took full advantage of OSX, and each product was running under the new Aqua interface. As an avid Mac user I hate to admit it, but a successful transition to a new OS cannot be done without the support of Microsoft. Office is the leading software suite on which much of modern business is run. And for any new OS to gain acceptance in the business market, it must support the current standards. As much as I detest what Microsoft has turned out in the operating system market, the software their Mac development team has produced is truly second to none. It is for this reason that I am happy to see that Office will be released for OSX by the end of this year. And in doing so, Microsoft has also made every effort to move the Office interface to comply perfectly with OSX’s Aqua interface. Filemaker Inc. has already released Filemaker Pro for OSX, and is touting it as the first Mac and PC compatible product to be certified as both fully OSX compliant, but also fully Windows 2000 compliant. Adding to the Filemaker line, Filemaker Inc. will release the server edition of Filemaker Pro on July 30th. They also claim that they will have their entire product line native by this fall! Quark will be releasing a native version of Quark 5.x. The 5.x version for Mac OS 9.x has just entered its beta stage, but Quark Inc. will be using it as the code base for the OSX version. From what was demonstrated on stage at the keynote, Quark will not be giving up this area of the pre-press industry to Adobe without a fight. The new version will take an unprecedented step toward the web in ways other software publishers have only made attempts. As a user of Quark for nearly ten years, I am very excited to see this new version hit the market! Connectix will be releasing a native version of Virtual PC. In fact, the company has a ‘Test Drive’ version available on its web site right now. This version is a free download to all previously registered users of VirtualPC. The demonstration did not give specifics on how much faster the new version will run, but it was used to run AutoCAD. In AutoCAD, the demonstrator used VPC to render an automobile in near real time. Given how processor intensive this would be, I think we will be seeing more and more Windows based applications running on our Macs in the near future. IBM also announced a native version of ViaVoice for OSX. The speaker demonstrated how the new version could be used to navigate the computers desktop, give the finder commands, and dictate text into just about any text-based application. The new version will also be multi-processor aware, which should greatly improve the accuracy and efficiency of the product. With all of the industry ‘Big Dogs’ onboard, we can all take a sigh of relief. Apple finally made it to market with OSX, and now we know for sure that the industry has every intention of taking full advantage of what the OS has to offer. The two greatest hurdles any operating system has to clear have officially been successfully negotiated. |