Replies to post #846 on Apple Inc (AAPL)

[ljk]

WinLoseOrDraw: Good points. We don't want inferior software, but we also want some competition and the encouragement of software from third parties, where they can be creative in different directions than Apple. I am a former Apple Partner and Developer, and I'm also a consumer. When third parties come out with great stuff, Apple sometimes takes off on it for their OS or their own software products, and of course, there's always the problem of updating the software for the upcoming changed OS. That makes it very hard for a small company to succeed in an ongoing way. But Adobe isn't a small company and they never put big efforts into Premiere. But of course, we then had iMovie and FCP. Those products really did knock them out of the box.

Linda

[tomm]

WinLoseOrDraw,

The main point was not about Premeire - I should have snipped that part or added an example of a low priced Shake to hammer on After Effects- it's more about the message to developers. To repeat, "the health of a platform is dependent on the developers who are willing to code their applications for it. As Apple gets into the habit of competing with developers on its platform, it may be heading for a future where all major commercial applications are Apple-coded.

That would appear to be a foolish move because the whole point of having third party developers is to help spread the risk and capital investment that software development projects entail. Taking control of the entire software market may increase profit margins in the short term, but would most likely hurt long term growth."

Ditto, retail stores - where are the increased total sales?

I'm not in any way suggesting that Apple should not develop best-of-breed apps but it should put as much effort as it can to encourage developers to write for or port to the Mac, even to the point of cash infusions.