Apple Announces the Fate of Shake

Rura Penthe writes "NothingReal, developer of Shake (a high-end video compositing application), was purchased by Apple in February. Until now the fate of Shake on Windows, Irix, and Linux was uncertain at best, but in an email sent out to Shake users, Apple has declared that Irix and Linux versions will be developed at least through 2003. However, the upcoming Windows version will be the last for that platform. Good news for Shake users with Linux render farms like Weta Digital, which used Shake for Lord of the Rings." (Reminder to Apple users: visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)

Comments

not surprised

[doooras]

Apple always likes to Shake things up a bit.

Re:not surprised

[Metrollica]

I believe that is Shake and Bake.

Re:not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

how is this rendundant when it's the first (non -1) post?

Re:not surprised

[doooras]

i'll tell you how. yeah, i'll get modded down a little more, but i'll be back to the cap tomorrow, so oh well.

The answer: 74.85% of moderators have a cob up their ass.

It's about time

[G0SP0DAR]

Hopefully the other good ideas that Apple has can be implemented on other platforms, and implemented well.

Re:It's about time

[justsomebody]

If you would read a bit more carefully, they aren't implementing nothing, they are more like de-plementing some already implemented software.

Strange, not long after their deal with Microsoft has ended, they already have decided to play hardball (with everybody who has helped them gain a DTP market), a game that usually ends with consequences. First Sorensen, now deplementing Windows version, if they make another move in that direction, that would be probably swaping IE for Mozilla.

It's nothing than another try to make (straith edge - gain to Apple) competition loss, but real question is who will gain and who will loss. They will keep Linux and Irix versions for one reason only, not to loose complete movie market clientelle, but on the other hand that means that Apple version will be the only one evolving and other will evolve only to be abandoned.

Apple is either suffering from..... some financial needs we don't know, or some hopes that this is their time to breaktrough. But as it's concerning me they just wanna be second Microsoft.

Re:It's about time

[benedict]

(I think by "deplementing" you mean "end-of-lifing.")

Re:It's about time

[justsomebody]

"De-plementing" was the best word I found to contrary to "im-plementing". :-) But then again I could be wrong.

Re:It's about time

[MoneyT]

Seems to me like Apple is simply trying to draw people away from Microsoft. Remember, if you can convince them that Microsoft is not the only way (or the Way Out ) you can then convince them to buy alternative software. I don't think Apple is keeping the Linux and Irix versions because they don't want to loose the market (since when has apple cared about lossing markets by killing programs?) I think they're keeping them because it makes a statement that they aren't supporting M$.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no,
When you end of life something that's is in fact more viable than that which you mean to replace it with it's actually called something different:
suicide

Enjoy your self destruction Apple. You have earned it.

What About After 2003?

[krmt]

So, does this mean that after 2003 they are planning on killing the product for Irix and Linux, or just that this is the time frame that they are committing to these platforms right now? Stupid question maybe, but I think it's an important one to ask.

Re:What About After 2003?

[CommandNotFound]

So, does this mean that after 2003 they are planning on killing the product for Irix and Linux...

Hopefully they will continue to support both, since OS-X is also a Unix variant. Even if Linux represents a competitive threat to them, it's better to have Linux succeed (and thus have lots of Linux renderfarms) and then Apple can work on getting people to migrate to OSX from Linux in the years to follow. It's a whole lot easer to migrate from Linux -> OSX than Windows -> OSX.

Re:What About After 2003?

[sojourndeath]

Not necessarily, they are going to re-evaluate things at that point. Hopefully, they will relize that it is worth saving. But we'll see. I use shake everyday on win2000, but wouldn't mind switching my HP X4000 over to linux. I just need photoshop, damn it ( and no, no gimp). we'll see.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Kwikymart]

They say it will be supported to at least 2003. I imagine they are using that as a "trial" period so they can figure out the future of the product. They dont know for certain whether it will be profitable at all, but they dont want to just assume it wont. This is strange though, usually companies dont give out this much information on their plans. Uncertainty is not usually an attractive quality to the consumer, so it may be a self fulfiling proficy. They dont think it will be profitable, but by that action they dont make it profitable at all by themselves.

Re:What About After 2003?

[justsomebody]

Nope, if they would do that they would lost their money, MOX being on APple only is their only insurance people would buy Macs. Mac is just too expensive for common market to be interesting. So anybody with intention to run Linux wuold just buy common PC. Mac just isn't superior hardware, it's piece of a classy high breed with only approved hardware, but if you take that off, you just get a $1000PC.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking like a developer. From a user perspective it's the opposite.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid question ? No just missing the obvious answer.

What it means is that everyone using Shake now needs to make alternate plans immediately unless they are cool with the idea of being ass-raped over and over by Apple starting in 2003 and extending indefinitely beyond.

That's what it means to me. They may core you sooner, they may core you later; but the intent is to core you, make no mistake.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that would conlude a succesfull lesson nr. 1. Copy and paste the same stupid artice all over slashdot.

You've made it, you're an idiot.

Now go away.

Re:What About After 2003?

[00_NOP]

So, does this mean that after 2003 they are planning on killing the product for Irix and Linux, or just that this is the time frame that they are committing to these platforms right now? Stupid question maybe, but I think it's an important one to ask.

That would be my bet - kill off any new market (Windows) - keep exitsing customers (other Unicies) until you can persuade them to switch to Apple OSX.

OF course, if this was the Evil Empire doing it we'd all cry 'monopolist'.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you told Adobe that you want Photoshop on Linux for your work?
Just checking.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Alan Partridge]

the other way to look at this decision is to think "maybe Apple feel that they''ll have the hardware by 2003 that will make the IRIX and possibly even the Linux versions unneccesary". Apple has the ability to build a LOT of optimisation into it's software products - just look at the incredible speed of Apple's Altivec-charged software MPEG2 encoder. This is VERY bad news for SGI's movie business, Apple obviously aren't content to sit back and wait for discreet to develop for the Mac. Apple wants post - and it's going the right way about getting it.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that would conlude a succesfull lesson nr. 2. Copy and paste different stupid artice on slashdot.

You've made it, now you're level 2 idiot.

Lesson nr.3 concludes different and more difficult task than that, will you be up to master it?

.... Have you ever seen the back of a twenty-dollar bill-ON WEED?
Yes I have, aftwer weed we smoked some crack too.

Re:What About After 2003?

[MoneyT]

I think they're doing one of two things here:

a) They're warning users that if they are using the alternate platforms, they might want to start looking for new renderers (if the software no longer seems profitable)

or

b) They are saying that under the name Shake, the program will last till 2003, but when 2003 rolls arround, they hope to have a comprehensive version which will be released under the Apple name and have maybe a new interface and code. Perhaps with an optimised version for OS X.

Re:What About After 2003?

[rworne]

just look at the incredible speed of Apple's Altivec-charged software MPEG2 encoder.

I just wish the MPEG1 decoder was so optimized. I was rather disappointed this afternoon to see the audio out of synch watching some pr0n I downloaded off of stileproject.com.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Alan Partridge]

I use Apple's MPEG1 decoder extensively, and it's one of the best implementations out there. As someone who also uses Windows 200, I can tell that Apple's MPEG1 playback is MILES better. pr0n ofte has crappy over length GOP structures, illegal VBV sizes and bad audio. I'd suspect the file rather than the player in this case.

Re:What About After 2003?

[Anonymous Coward]

>It's a whole lot easer to migrate from Linux -> OSX than Windows -> OSX

Not that anyone cares (I think that's a cue to mod me down), but I moved from Windows 98 to OS X and it was like sex. Fabulous. Wish I'd done it sooner. (I used Linux a bit on my x86, but not as my main system, so I had SOME meagre *nix experience. Didn't need it much, but sometimes it's easier.)

I subscribe to the theory that Apple's software is a hook to get you to buy the hardware, so if Linux runs on an iMac, that's not really against Apple's desires, as long as you still buy the iMac. And unfortunately, once you buy it and boot it up the first time, and see OS X in real live action, unless you are a hardcore commandline commando, you WILL fall in love and not switch back except for certain apps or uses.

And about the lack of Windows support in Shake? Good for Apple. That takes "Balls of Titanium" (pun intended). I TOTALLY SUPPORT CUTTING WINDOWS OUT WHERE POSSIBLE. I would even support structuring open source program code so that it would be harder to port to Windows. If you haven't noticed, Microsoft is at war with everyone else, ESPECIALLY the Gnu guys and Apple. And so far, they're winning, with 95% of the market and GROWING. We NEED to get people on alternate OSes to help them become viable. Look at BeOS. It was awesome, but without a lot of users, it's just another dead project. That's how it is. It's war. It's Microsoft versus the world now, and I think Apple knows that. Microsoft WILL kill them when they can do it and get away with it unscathed. The DoJ isn't going to slow MS down much. They're pathetic, and probably (surely?) on the take. The courts have ruled against MS before, and MS blatently disregarded their punishment orders. Microsoft lied in court, fabricated evidence, abused the system horribly, used threats on their partners, stolen technology, lied about security issues, etc. And yet people still use their stuff religiously. If you found out Osama bin Laden owned MS instead of Billg, would you still use Windows? Saddam Hussein? Adolf Hitler? Of course you would. Most people say they use it because they don't care about the company ethic as long as the product works. This attitude has got to change as corporations realize they're above the law and get bolder and bolder, pushing the bounds of morality, environmental and labor laws, and proving that they only care about us when the camera's on them. We are merely pawns to be sold to and then discarded. Apple's probably got like tendancies as well, but if you don't want to buy an Apple, DON'T. If you don't want to buy Windows, however, in most cases, YOU'RE SCREWED. You're locked in. Nearly every app most people need is Windows only. Nearly every game for the kids. The business software. The engineering software. Even the Gnu software is mostly available on Windows now. WHY would I ever switch? Even if I wanted to, it's an uphill battle, and any software I want on the Mac or Linux is probably available on Windows. Microsoft has gone this market by the short and curlies. Unless we take a hit and make a determination to switch, we're screwed. Microsoft is not only waging war against the competition, but war against their own customers. We just don't see the results much yet, but we will. Bill will OWN YOU.

People here slag Linux for ease of use, or Mac OS X for speed, or BSD for lack of apps, or whatever. I don't care. Every slag on an alternative OS drives someone to use MS products (the trusted name brand default), and this slows development on other OSes by stealing marketshare, mindshare and developers. Don't do it. We have to have a unified front against Microsoft first, and then work out our differences after. I don't care what platform people use, as long as it's not MS. We need to get some balance into the market, and that means lowering the number of Windows users to an acceptable level. For my part, I will never promote a Microsoft product again. I will not support them financially. I will write letters to developers asking for Linux, Unix, or Mac versions of their software, depending on which OS would fit best with their goals. I will make arguments for cross platform software and show them what they have to gain by supporting the little guy. I will point out every flaw in Windows to the other people forced to use it at work (trust me, when some of the ladies start complaining, the boss will listen or go insane). I will devote my time to finding a way for our office to migrate off Windows.

This is just a start. Help me.

-Michael M.

Re:What About After 2003?

[rworne]

I've had nothing but good experiences using Apple's stuff. My post indicated that yes, an MPEG had crappy synch between audio and video. Media Player (windows) played it just fine. I'm more than willing to blame the file :-)

Double standard?

[Ducon Lajoie]

Woah, now if Microsoft did something like that, Mac users would be screaming bloody murder!

Re:Double standard?

[Simba]

Kind of like how Microsoft was about to terminate office for the mac a few years ago, if Apple didn't agree to bundle IE as the default browser for their OS?

In short, no. There's a difference between terminating a supported platform for a valid business reason, and threatening to terminate a supported platform unless the company developing it does what you say.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we're just awful people for holding a monopoly up to different standards than we hold any other business to. My guilt is killing me.

Was my response lame? So was your troll.

Re:Double standard?

[mr100percent]

Film editing is such a narrow narrow market for PCs. I don't see many people screaming bloody murder.

How many people really use Shake? A 1000? So Apple just gained 100 - 1000 new PowerMac sales for 2003? :-)

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it as affirmative action for Mac and *Nix users. MS has hurt minority OS users for so long by attempting to squealch development for other platforms. Think of this as a mini-payback, or to make up for the wrongs of the past.

The downside of the arguement is that I'm ignoring the thousand or so people who use the windows version. Now they have to change OSes, but with high hardware requirements, they'd be upgrading anyways.

Re:Double standard?

[CommandNotFound]

Woah, now if Microsoft did something like that, Mac users would be screaming bloody murder!

You are correct, and if Apple controlled 90%+ of multiple markets we would scream at them as well. There has been and will be different standards of conduct between smaller companies and large monopolies.

Personally, I think it is unwise to cancel the Windows version. They should offer a low-end Windows version and offer the "premium" features only on the Unix versions to pull more users to their platform.

Re:Double standard?

[Ducon Lajoie]

Interesting point of view. I tend to agree with you but if Microsoft bought Quark and cancelled XPress for Mac, for no reason other than to attract users to windows, then would it be fair game?

I think it would be by your arguments, but Mac users (and Apple) would still be hurting a lot.

Re:Double standard?

[ckd]

Woah, now if Microsoft did something like that, Mac users would be screaming bloody murder!

You mean like Bungie's game Halo? The one that was presented in Macworld Expo keynotes? The one that was going to be out on Mac, PC, and PS2?

Because after MS bought Bungie, it wound up shipping for X-Box, and, so far, nothing else. (Though Bungie continues to assert "There WILL be Mac and PC versions of Halo." -- I'll believe it when it ships.)

Re:Double standard?

[beme]

I'd say yes, if Microsoft hadn't been convicted of abusing monopoly power. Since they've been convicted, the rules are different for them.

Re:Double standard?

[doug_wyatt]

There is a double standard, and that's because of the monopolistic power that MS has. The fact that MS, by not porting "key" software to other platforms uses the synergy of their application and OS market-share to exploit their pseudo-monopoly and re-inforce their entrenched market position. This is bad for the market. Apple, by doing this, does not have the same effect, and thus, should not warrant the same concern.

Re:Double standard?

[MisterBlister]

So Apple just gained 100 - 1000 new PowerMac sales for 2003?

The sad part is that's probably a significant percentage of overall sales.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft and Intel have dones this repeatedly to Apple in the past, even some that where exclusively MacOS-centric, only to turn them into Wintel-only shops. For once the tables are turned and it's Apple who is doing it to them.

Re:Double standard?

[WiggyWack]

Woah, now if Microsoft did something like that, Mac users would be screaming bloody murder!

That's because Microsoft is a monopoly with 95% of the market. Apple isn't and only has about 4% of the market.

There IS a difference. If you're a monopoly, you're held to a different legal standard and can't get away with certain things.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you consider .1% to be significant

Re:Double standard?

[spectecjr]

Yeah, we're just awful people for holding a monopoly up to different standards than we hold any other business to. My guilt is killing me

Well, you are holding Apple to different standards than you hold any other business to.

Don't forget; if you use Judge Pennfield Jackson's criteria for determining Microsoft to be a monopoly, Apple is one as well.

Simon

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well MS did something close to that when they bought SoftImage so that they could get into the high end Graphics workstation business. MS eventually let SoftImage go and realized they know jack shit about making movies.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

"if you consider .1% to be significant"

Try 3 percent of your highest margin machines.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I dunno but certainly it's a typical move of Apple Computer... Don't ASK the buying public what they want: TELL them what they can have instead.

Don't expect Shake to be developed for anything but Mac operating systems in the long term, where it will lose its attractiveness by being tied to a slow as molasses OS on feeble, antiquated Motorola cpus.
RIP Shake, nice knowin' ya.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're quite right. Judge Jackson (and the appeals court that agreed with his definition) would define Apple as a monopoly in PowerPC-based PCs.

Now if only that were a relevant market, then we'd be on to something!

Re:Double standard?

[benedict]

I bet they're using mostly the same codebase for
all the ports except the Windows one.

Re:Double standard?

[feldsteins]

This point has fascinated me for a while. How is Microsoft's monopoly different than the one Apple seems to have?

One thing that does occur to me is that Microsoft's monopoly OS gives them the ability to pressure and control harware OEMs into doing thier bidding. Who does Apple get to pressure in that scenario? Themselves?

Re:Double standard?

[Evro]

Hi, Microsoft already did something quite like this!

Re:Double standard?

[pelorus]

Oh, you mean like Microsoft buying out Great plains..

Oh yeah, and end-of-lifing Project (after a slow and lingering stasis).

Oh and the complete lack of proper Outlook for Macintosh.

and let's not forget what they did to Halo...

Re:Double standard?

[NanoGator]

"Because after MS bought Bungie, it wound up shipping for X-Box, and, so far, nothing else. (Though Bungie continues to assert [bungie.net] "There WILL be Mac and PC versions of Halo." -- I'll believe it when it ships.)"

Okay, I found this comment a little offensive. Yeah yeah, it's cool to hate MS and all, but you're not considering an important factor here: Console games sell better than PC games. Always.

Halo would likely only be on the shelfs for a month or so on PC. It would hardly make any money at all on the Mac. What benefit is that to Bungie? As an XBOX exclusive, though, they have a title that will sell for months and months. Even today, they're still selling copies of it with new XBOX's because it's that graphic game that really shows off the power of the system.

It was a wise business choice for Bungie because it allowed them to earn money to fund future development (i.e. PC and Mac), plus it helped MS sell more XBOXes. More XBOXes, more developer support, and so on. If you're anti-MS, you hate this news. If you're an avid gamer, you love this news.

The fact that Bungie is saying 'Halo will be on other platforms', indicates that MS didn't do anything but give Halo a much better chance for success.

Consider that before you use Halo as an anti-MS weapon.

Re:Double standard?

[spectecjr]

One thing that does occur to me is that Microsoft's monopoly OS gives them the ability to pressure and control harware OEMs into doing thier bidding. Who does Apple get to pressure in that scenario? Themselves?

No, the clone manufacturers.

What clone manufacturers?

Exactly. There used to be some.

Simon

Re:Double standard?

[the eric conspiracy]

Woah, now if Microsoft did something like that, Mac users would be screaming bloody murder!

Microsoft has already done this several times in the past with both products it developed internally, and products it acquired by buying other companies.

Re:Double standard?

[pdo400]

u r stupid.

Diablo2 has sold more copies for PC than there are X-Boxen in existance.

Halo for PC would most likely sell as many copies as RTCW, which is > 1,000,000.

Re:Double standard?

[doce]

What monopoly does Apple seem to have? Make sure you understand what a monopoly is, before you answer.

Legally speaking, I think it's neigh impossible for a company with 5% market share to be called a "monopoly." The very term implies captive a captive majority of the market.

Re:Double standard?

[feldsteins]

Apple didn't force the (clone) OEMs into doing anything in particular. They just ceased licensing to them. Nothing was required in return. There was no "pressure" or "blackmail" type of deal going on.

Re:Double standard?

[NanoGator]

"u r stupid.

Diablo2 has sold more copies for PC than there are X-Boxen in existance.

Halo for PC would most likely sell as many copies as RTCW, which is > 1,000,000"

I'm stupid? Okay, let's talk about your post for a sec:

1.) Diablo 2 is a rare cirumstance. It's a AAA title made by a highly regarded company, Blizzard. A 'successful game' on the PC is defined by selling 500,000 copies. (at least that was what a publisher told me back in 97, that info may be different today, but I doubt it.) Most games don't go that high in terms of sales at all.

2.)Halo could potentially hit the 1 million mark on the PC. I doubt it, but it's possible. With the XBOX, though, we're talking like 5 million copies at LEAST. Console games have a much higher chance of selling at least a million copies. Square did it routinely with it's Final Fantasy series.

3.) If you had read what I said, you'd notice that I said Halo would continue to sell as long as XBOXes are being sold. So your argument that Diablo 2 sold more copies than XBOX's in existance really doesn't hold a whole lot of water. You could have saved yourself that embarrasment if you had just paid a little more attention about what I said.

4.) Did you catch the part where Bungie said they're still planning to release a PC and Mac version? Okay, so it's later, but virtually no harm done.

Am I really that stupid? Of course my attitude is biased, but my idea looks a lot clearer than yours does.

Re:Double standard?

[MoneyT]

Did it ever occur to you that despite Apple's short commings, people still enjoy usign the platform and the computers? They like what they do and the computer they do it on? The reason people screamed bloody murder over microsoft was because they kept restricting the user (read binding IE to the system), and because they didn't enjoy the Microsoft system. There is nothing wrong with being competative, and no company has the responsibility to promote competition (even M$) however, if you read the lawsuit information at www.beincorporated.com, you will find that M$ has done some rather vicious things to their "partners". Yes, Apple and Microsoft are held to two different standards. The reason is, mac users like Apple (for the most part) Windows users don't like Microsoft (for the most part).

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

No different than Dell or Gateway, or Compaq. Seriously, let's take the two defferent aspects of Apple in their respective markets. Software wise, Apple has about 5-10% and makes a very small profit. Next to microsoft, they look like a dying fish.

In hardware however, apple still turns about a 7-10% sales, that's actualy a comparatively good number. I think last I saw, Dell only made something like 12% of the hardware sales, Gateways is near there, and the others do worse, so if a 1000 computers is 3% of your high margin sales, it's not nessesarily a bad thing.

Re:Double standard?

[ckd]

Console games sell better than PC games. Always.

So the PS2 version of Halo would have sold well, if it hadn't been axed to make Halo an X-Box exclusive? Perhaps it would have even sold better as a PS2 title rather than being used as an X-Box draw? (Hmm...using one product to drive sales of another. Why does this idea sound so familiar, especially in the context of Microsoft?)

The fact that Bungie is saying 'Halo will be on other platforms', indicates that MS didn't do anything but give Halo a much better chance for success.

They're saying it; they're not shipping it. No deeds, just words. By your own logic ("only be on the shelfs [sic] for a month or so on PC [...] hardly make any money at all on the Mac") they apparently don't have any real incentive to ever ship PC or Mac versions!

Re:Double standard?

[MoneyT]

When are you morons going to learn that you don't get anywhere in life trying to please everyone, you get there by saying my way or the highway. Even though I hate microsoft, they had the right idea for being succesful, us or nothing, except they went wrong when they started supporting everything. That's what makes Windows so unstable, they tried to please everyone. When Appple was screwing up in 96 they were doing the same thing, hundreds of possible configurations for everything you could want.

Apple's policy is very simple, we release what we think is right, and it's what you will use. If you want things to change, complain to us and if we get enough complaints, change it. But if not, too bad. Yes, Apple pisses some people off by being restricting, but because they insist on one way of doing things, they also remain succesful. Yes, you are being told what you can have. And if you don't want it, you don't have to take it.

Re:Double standard?

[Lars T.]

Halo for Xbox is supposed to sell 5 million copies at least? Even if it was bundled with every Xbox (which it isn't), the Xbox is a bomb, it may not sell 5 million in its first year.

Re:Double standard?

[Chuuk Noris]

Your argument is based on the assumption that they designed the game initially for the XBox and then would have to exert large amounts of resources to port it to other systems. After all, if the game already more or less ran on a multitude of systems, releasing it on as many as possible would obviously make the greatest amount of raw sales of the game possible.

The fact of the matter is that the company that designed the game, Bungie, had an extensive history of releasing multi-platform games similtaneously (for example, Myth II). That is, before they were bought by Microsoft.

When Halo was in development, the official line was that, again, it was going to be a similtaneous MacOS/Windows release. That's why Steve Jobs could show it to everyone at Macworld. Extensive work had already been done on the MacOS version. It was only after Microsoft bought the company that the game was delayed for other platforms than the XBox.

Also, if the APIs for the XBox and Windows are the same (or so similar, apparently both use DirectX or Direct3D or whatever) then it would suggest that even extensive development work done after the takeover would easily apply to both platforms. So, even assuming that continued MacOS development was too costly or time consuming, (even though the game had been in development for a long time before the similtaneous release was nixed), what would MS have to lose by also releasing it for Windows? Only sales.

MS probably did this because it wanted to get a flagship game on the XBox: one that wasn't available anywhere else, and would act as an incentive to buy their console. This seems much more reasonable than the claim that the sales on anything other than XBox are just too horrible to support such a release.

Microsoft just wanted to push the XBox. It wanted it's console to succeed. Such a thing may or may not be so bad depending on your world view. To those that think MS is a monopoly, it probably seems like another example of it squashing competing platforms in favor of their own.

Re:Double standard?

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

I don't know why that post was modded down. Apple is not a monopoly and never has been. They never got a chance to be. Apple was Microsoft's first victim. It's more than fair that Apple(which now has a little over 4% of the market) tries to get back market share from Microsoft(which now has over 90% of the market).

Re:Double standard?

[NanoGator]

It will perpetually sell, provided it's not kicked out of it's roost for being the 'must have' game.

Consider: Nearly All Super Mario Games, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, Twisted Metal and Demolition Derby (I think that was the name, both for Playstation), Tetris, any Zelda game, any Final Fantasy game, any game made by Rare, and so on...

It's not so easy to find PC games that have sold near as much as the console games I have mentioned. The main reason is that console games stay on the shelf a hell of a lot longer. Halo could easily hit 5 million units if the XBOX is reasonably successful. The only thing that'd prevent that is if a new game comes along that generates a hell of a lot of buzz.

Re:Double standard?

[NanoGator]

"To those that think MS is a monopoly, it probably seems like another example of it squashing competing platforms in favor of their own."

You really should be careful about when to brand MS a monopoly and hate them for it, and when not to. What MS did with Halo was typical of *any* business. They do not deserved to be punished for it. Punish them for what they're doing wrong, don't punish them for what they're doing right. MS has a monopoly on the OS market and the browser market. They have a LONG way to go before they could possibly dominate the game market. (Face it, the only possible way MS could have a monopoly there is if the customers supported it just like they did with Windows. They can't buy it. Go back a couple of days on Slashdot and you'll see they tried to buy Nintendo, didn't work.)

Let me explain what could happen: Let's say people won't buy XBOX's because it's MS. Your alternatives are Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo is very monopolistic with their system, but they also care about making good games so most people don't even worry about it. (Hell, I don't!) Sony, however, is not only very monopolistic, but they have no clue how to make a game system. The PS2 is a nice system and all, but there are a lot of not so subtle hints that they are ruthless, and really only out to make money. Frankly, I see Sony as a Japanese version of MS. Here's an example: The first few batches of Playstations had a very high defect rate. Sony has 25 billion dollars in the bank, but for a customer to get their PS fixed they'd have to ship it at their expense along with a check for $75. All to fix a defect that showed up in normal use of the system. Nintendo and Sega put a great deal of effort into designing their systems that very few people know what it's like having to get their unit replaced. I've heard good stories about both those companies.

I'm sure I'll draw flack for those comments, but I don't want you carrying away that Sony is evil from my post, instead I want you to carry away a piece of advice: Don't let your hatred for MS cause you to give power to somebody who's WORSE.

MS made the XBOX, arguably it's a good system with good software support. Make sure that what MS does right with that machine and other companies will take notice. Not supporting MS for a non-related issue only gives power to somebody who may very well misuse it like Sony has done.

Re:Double standard?

[Chuuk Noris]

You really should be careful about when to brand MS a monopoly and hate them for it, and when not to.

I tried to phrase the last paragraph of my post in a was that was neutral with regards to one's actual position on the monopolism of Microsoft. Since, obviously, this is a not uncommon thing to happen in buisness, I didin't want to go the next step and say that it's somehow "wrong", or "evil", but only to suggest that for some people it might be considered "wrong-for-monopolies".

What MS did with Halo was typical of *any* business. They do not deserved to be punished for it. Punish them for what they're doing wrong.

If I am reading this correctly, what you are suggesting is that "right" and "wrong" are to be defined in terms of what is normative for a particular group. This is not an inconsistant view, but I don't think that upon reflection everyone will agree with it.

This is a little bit of a digression, but it may prove enlightening so I'll proceed anyways. Please note the implications of such a move. Sweatshops may be claimed to be "right" for the garment industry, in this sense, because they are so common. Or, in the early 19th century United States, slave labor could be said to be "right" for cotton growing buisnesses in the south because it was the most common way to do buisness. This may seem like an extreme example. However, it's only meant to show that most people seem to consider "right" and "wrong" to be somehow seperated from what it simply the norm for a group. Of course, arguments for these kinds of teleogical ethical theories can be made, but they have been shown time and time again to imply unwanted consequences. (See, for example, John Rawls's criticism of Utilitarianism and teleological views in general in _A Theory Of Justice_).

Don't let your hatred for MS cause you to give power to somebody who's WORSE.

I actually agree with what you say, for the most part, about Sony and Nintendo being ruthless. However, please don't assume that by one making the claim that what Microsoft did was bad-for-monopoly necessarily entails that one hold that Sony or Nintendo are good and/or that one must suppport said companies by purchasing from them. If one thinks that the XBox is bad because it's made by a bad company, there is no reason to infer that one must necessarily support any other video game console maker. It seems entirely possible for one to be ethically consistant by supporting none of them.

To return to the original question at hand-- because I feel that we may have veered off course a little bit-- I still am not convinced that Microsoft actively stopped the porting of Halo for reasons having to do with the game itself. I am also still not convinced that there is a good reason to purchase an XBox. As I stated previously, "Microsoft just wanted to push the XBox." Let's assume for a moment that it is not a monopoly, and even that it was never convicted of being one. Even in this hypothetical case, there would be a good reason for someone to not buy an XBox. For example, if someone valued similtaneous multi-platform releases, it would be perfectly rational for such a person to intentionally not buy the XBox/Halo combo. By not making such a purchase, one is showing that they do not agree with single-platform game releases.

I should also add that I think that supporting multi-platform releases is a good thing, or at least seems so prima fascie, for the consumer. I would imagine that being able to play a game that I enjoyed on both my XBox, Windows PC, or whatever, would be much more useful and more conductive to enjoyment that single-platform releases; after all, I might want to play somewhere where there is one type of computer/OS/console and not the other.

Not a big suprise

[mr100percent]

I'm sure Apple will make this availible on Mac OS X soon, like how Final Cut Pro came about (Apple bought the app from Macromedia and retitled it). Apple Cinema tools is the same idea, just happened recently.

Re:Not a big suprise

[Space cowboy]

Apple showed a technology demo of the OS-X port at NAB (Las Vegas, 100k visitors) in April. It seemed pretty stable to me.

Simon.

Re:Not a big suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I realise you get more of a kick from typing about young girls' underwear, but for the joke to be more accurate, it should talk about boys'.

Sweet

[erobertstad]

They did some good things with that in Lord of the Rings. Nice to see Apple continue to keep it out atleast for a while longer.

On a side note.... does Slashdot think Apple users are to dumb to find the Apple section themself and have to put a comment about going there on every post about Apple?!

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't an Apple luser you'd already know the answer to that question.

enough advertising

[mashy]

once a week is enough promoting of apple.slashdot.org. those who care about/use it know about it and have it first in their slashboxes.

Apple this apple that

[Morgahastu]

Don't get me wrong, I love apple. But is Slashdot trying to turn slashdot into a mac only site? Especially with that reminded to visit the apple site. Something fishy is going on, money from apple perhaps?

Re:Apple this apple that

[Anonymous Coward]

from the shoe-on-the-other-foot department

Re:Apple this apple that

[Metrollica]

I think they are concerned with eliminating the competition.

Re:Apple this apple that

[feldsteins]

Perhaps it's because Apple is making more "geek news" these days. Just a guess.

Actually it's funny you mention this. I often fume at how Linux-centric these forums are. it's Linux this and Linux that. I see front page articles dealing with the announcement (or mere spec-bumping) of some piece of handheld electronics that nobody has ever heard of simply because it - can you guess? - happens to have the ability to run Linux. The Linux kernel gets a x.x.x.x.x version number rev. The headline with have multiple exclamation points and shameless affection for it whether the individual has ever used it or not.

Mac news? It's gotten somewhat better over the last few months but it still has a way to go. Apple-related news is still too often posted with undeserved snide remarks. I'm thinking back to the day the iPod was announced. it was instantly pronounced "Lame" before the discussion even began. Oh, that and the fact that sometimes a story involving Apple will suddenly be made into a Linux article. I'm serious! Did you catch the one about Apple suing Sorenson over a deal with Macromdia? In spite of the fact that neither of these three are Linux comanies and none of them make Linux products, Pudge just has to make it Linux-related. Then half the resulting discussion ends up being about that.

Sorry for going off on you man, but you have no idea what it's like being a Mac-using slashdotter. No idea.

Re:Apple this apple that

[MoneyT]

Is it possible that Apple might actualy be doing things to the market again? Like it or not, Apple is here and they are influencing again. Unix as a viable OS, not just for servers but for everyone, external products that seamlessly integrate with the machine, pushing new and better products (USB, Firewire, even to an extent LCD). Yes, Apple is becoming a real company again, a computer that you are no longe afraid to say you own.

Re:Apple this apple that

[alfredo]

Tonight I went to CompUSA. there was not one person looking at the PC's, but there were five guys freaking on a Cinema display attached to a 1gig dual G4. Nothing near as exciting is going on at HP and eMachine. I didn't see them drooling over a Vaio either.

Is there any other product outside Linux/UNIX/OSX that is even remotely interesting now? Slashdot is going to reflect what they are interested in at this time.

Re:Apple this apple that

[Anonymous Coward]

i do not think this is a mac only site or will become one. I think its just an antimicro$oft site. I think that if it became a mac only site it would diminish, and i love slashdot so although i also love macs i would hate to see it go.

Re:Apple this apple that

[foobar104]

Sorry for going off on you man, but you have no idea what it's like being a Mac-using slashdotter. No idea.

Amen, brother. For instance, I can't understand why some people don't get the fact that OS X is a full-fledged, no-shit Unix operating system that makes the combination of Linux and KDE or Gnome look pretty damn pale in comparison. And then, inevitably, somebody trots out the PowerPC-versus-Pentium thing, as if it mattered which CPU were faster! Don't they get it?

I don't care how fast my computer is. I care how productive and happy I am when I use my computer. And I get more done on my Macs-- from graphic design to video editing to (what I was doing this week) writing Java servlet code-- than I could on any other platform. If I had a n.m GHz Pentium on my desk, it would just spend more time waiting on me.

You know what I think the problem is? I know I'm headed for flame (or flame-bait) country here, but I think it all revolves around territorial alpha-geeks not wanting to admit that they don't understand something.

If I had spent the past five years learning all about Linux-- by reading the source code itself, I guess, 'cause there ain't that much in the way of documentation-- I'd feel pretty good about myself. Pretty cool.

If I then started using OS X-- because it's a better desktop, or because somebody gave me a free Mac, or whatever-- I would have to put myself in a situation where I didn't know more than everybody else. I'd have to do things like reading again, and asking questions. It'd be a severe insult to my pride to have to admit, publicly and openly, that I am not the smartest guy in the world.

Therefore, I would actively avoid OS X, even to the point of publicly ridiculing it. I would continue to advocate using the stuff that I understand to do things that OS X can clearly do better. Because it's just too damaging to my self-esteem to swallow my pride and learn something new.

Re:Apple this apple that

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing used to happen every time there was a BeOS posting. The discussion would inevitably degenerate to "Yeah Be is a cool OS. They should make Be open source so we can take all those cool features and put them in linux." After that, the thread turned to linux linux linux.

Sigh, I miss Be :-(

Re:Apple this apple that

[Phroggy]

Not to mention, in every single article, somebody has to post something about OSX for Intel.

Linux as the de facto movie making platform???

[badboy_tw2002]

This tool was also used for Fight Club and will be (is currently) used in the Matrix II. Combine this with the render farms at Pixar and Disney, it seems like Linux is making HUGE inroads in the movie business!!!

Re:Linux as the de facto movie making platform???

[L. J. Beauregard]

This tool was also used for Fight Club and will be (is currently) used in the Matrix II. Combine this with the render farms at Pixar and Disney, it seems like Linux is making HUGE inroads in the movie business!!!

So how long's that going to last once the unholy trinity of Eisner, Valenti, and Rosen get their way with S.2048 or its successors?

Is it me?

[NickRob]

Or is the dream of any developer to be retired by Apple? Usually means you have some pretty good stuff going.

But why did Apple buy shake? Doesn't Final Cut Pro do pretty much the same thing?

Re:Is it me?

[sojourndeath]

in a limited sense. FCP has a small set of tools for compositing, where that is all shake is.

Re:Is it me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shake is high end special effects software used in a lot of blockbuster movies. Licenses are $9900. Final Cut Pro is a non-linear film editor and licenses cost 1/10th of Shake. With Apple's recent purchases it is positioning itself to move into the high end effects market. This is also where the rumors of the rack mount PowerMacs come from. Personally, I believe the rumors and think that there will be rack mount Macs by Macworld New York in the summer of 2003, perhaps much sooner. I'm not confident that Apple will keep developing Shake for Linux/SGI for very long - I think this announcement is as much a warning as an assurance.

Re:Is it me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basicly what he's saying is that where application like FCP, and Adober after effects leave off, shake picks up the slack.

Re:Is it me?

[MoneyT]

If they bundled shake with the G4s would it justify the 3,000+ price tag in the eyes of PC users

...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too.

[SilentTristero]

Now nobody knows what will happen. OSX is pretty nice, and our Sapphire plug-ins run pretty nicely on Shake on a dual G4, but still, there are a lot of Windows users out there. Apple is not doing anybody a service by being so close-mouthed about things. People in the post-production business are used to preannouncements of upcoming products, and if Apple won't do that they'll lose out to other companies (Discreet, Quantel, Avid, Sony) who will.

-- SilentTristero

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[sojourndeath]

which are really sweet tools btw.. I am tring to convince my boss to get them.

Re:OT: Who the hell..

[Anonymous Coward]

Pudge (aka Chris Nandor) wrote the MP3::Info perl module, among other things, and currently maintains MacPerl. Except for his occasional wacky pro-life commentary, he seems like a decent enough guy.

btw, I was *this* close to using my last mod point on you, but I decided to be a nice guy and reply instead. :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

MS Project and Outlook?

[masonbrown]

MS did exactly that with MS Project and Outlook..... just consider it karma

Is it really that bad of thing?

[NanoGator]

Hmm... though I hate that they'll eventually limit it to Mac, I'm not sure if it's that bad of thing.

I think Apple is more likely to focus the Mac towards 3D/Animation/Compositing productivity than Intel ever will. If they keep Shake updated for the latest/greatest Mac machines, then we may end up with some really optimized software.

The main difference between Mac vs. Intel/MS is that the company that makes the hardware also makes the OS. That's why we see products like the Titanium from Mac, but Intel doesn't really have a counterpart. I would expect that if I bought a Mac version of Shake, it'd work really well on both a Desktop and Laptop Mac.

Apple will likely make a laptop geared for Shake users (or at least tweak their line to keep them in consideration...), and that's not a bad thing.

Who knows, this may turn out to be a bright spot for the movie industry.

Re:Is it really that bad of thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then they better dig their sliderulers out of the drawer and get busy working on SOME CPUS THAT DON'T SUCK

Looks to me Apple can optimize all they want but if their best cpu remains inferior to a
PENTIUM III 1GHz
then they got troubles.

Not everybody is so ...sensitive... and "creative"... that they can be convinced by a pretty case to shell out top dollars for trash equipment:
slow cpus
waddling FSBs
cpus that COULD be upgraded but WON'T be because apple severely limits what the upgrade makers CAN offer to customers.

Re:Is it really that bad of thing?

[NanoGator]

I haven't dug into this matter too deeply, but the benchmarks I've read suggest that Mac CPU's can hold their own against Intel. In certain optimized apps, they perform even better.

Trust me, if they were half the speed of Intel processors, they wouldn't be going anywhere. (This from a guy who uses a 300mhz laptop more than his 1.2 gig Athlon.. hee hee. I guess there's a lot to be said for interface.)

Re:Is it really that bad of thing?

[foobar104]

Apple will likely make a laptop geared for Shake users (or at least tweak their line to keep them in consideration...)

They already have. It's called the PowerBook G4. Look at the specs, and you'll see that the TiBook is the closest thing you can get to a desktop G4 while staying within the bounds of laptop requirements for size, heat, and battery life.

My friend uses his TiBook for Final Cut Pro and Combustion. Not as a second machine, or something to use on the road; it's his primary platform. His opinion (which is more educated with respect to this video effects and editing stuff than mine) is that the TiBook is good enough to be his only workstation for those kinds of jobs.

Now, for doing Shake specifically, a better 3D graphics card will win big; according to one of the Nothing Real guys I talked to at NAB last month, everything-- right down to the UI buttons and stuff-- is drawn with OpenGL. So a faster 3D card will speed up everything in the program. But again, eventually you get to a point where even the pros say that the TiBook is good enough for full-time work.

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[doce]

It seems to me that this is exactly what Apple just did.... they announced (even PRE announced) that this will be the last version of Shake for Windows, and that they will continue Linux/IRIX versions at least through 2003.

What's so closed mouthed about that?

Go Apple Go!

[VEGx]

Nice to see Apple taking active part in the war against M$. Hopefully more people migrate to Linux and Mac OSX...

Sounds good

[sharkey]

But I still want to know, will they offer the Shamrock Shake?

Re:OT: Who the hell..

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Thank you, man.

I TOTALLY didn't think to check the ~[user] page.

Sorry for the OT post /.. This can be killed now...

(if I had mod points, I'd do it myself.)

Again, thank you, MrP-

Reminded to smart users

[Morgahastu]

(Reminder to smart users: visit Slashdot's topic specific sections for more specific news.)

Quicktime...

[pcmacman]

Apple makes Shake
Shake runs on linux
Shake does video
Quicktime is video
Quicktime for linux?

I hope so.

Re:Quicktime...

[x136]

I hope so too. :)

Lack of Quicktime and Shockwave are at the top of my "Annoying things about Linux" list. Not annoying enough to switch back to Windows, but still. ;)

Re:Quicktime...

[madenosine]

Shake does video
Quicktime is video

bad link.

(If I wanted to be really clever, I could have said "that is the weakest link. Good bye!")

Re:Quicktime...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I like the idea I must mention that it looks like another plan...

1) Give stuff away free (client and server)
2) ...
3) Profit

Re:Quicktime...

[Darby]

Lack of Quicktime and Shockwave are at the top of my "Annoying things about Linux" list.

For quicktime you can use Codeweavers Crossover plugin. I know it's not the same as having it native.

Shockwave has been available for linux for a long time.

Re:Quicktime...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shockwave has been available for linux for a long time."

no it hasn't been (and still isn't unless you buy the Crossover plugin product)
You my, confused friend, are thinking of Flash Player and SWF plugin. Those have been available for Linux.
Flash, remember though, is also an authoring tool and that part does not exist on Linux at all.
Shockwave/Director is a more capable api that bears resemblance to Flash but is more video oriented. THis program does not exist as either player or creator on linux, unless you buy Crossover and kludge the Win32 dll for the Shockwave viewer into running on Linux.
Linux remains a unacknowledged redheaded bastard stepchild over at Macromedia.

Re:Quicktime...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't I heard this broken logic before somewhere? Oh yeah....

• God is Love
• Love is Blind
• Ray Charles is Blind
• Thus God is Ray Charles!

Re:Quicktime...

[Darby]

You my, confused friend, are thinking of Flash Player and SWF plugin.

You my, at least less confused than I, friend are correct.
I was thinking of the shockwave flash plugin.
The authoring capabilities are not there, but I haven't found anything macromedia related in a web page that I have been unable to view in some time.

Thanks for clarifying

What about FreeBSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Apple uses BSD extensively in OS X, we should lobby them to do a FreeBSD port.

Re:What about FreeBSD?

[Rui del-Negro]

And as a result of that... do you prefer a traditional timeline or a node-based render queue?

RMN
~~~

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[Anonymous Coward]

OSX is pretty nice, and our Sapphire plug-ins run pretty nicely on Shake on a dual G4, but still, there are a lot of Windows users out there.

Yeah, and they're all playing jerk-off first-person shooters or running Office. If you want a powerful machine to do creative things with video and audio, you get a Mac. Period.

Re:HI, i want to ask slashdot about their fetishes

[Anonymous Coward]

By fate or preference? I'd be interested to know which species you prefer if the latter.

Thanks.

This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn't

[Rui del-Negro]

This is the kind of move that will leave Eyeon and Discreet very, very happy.

Apple did the same with Spruce Tech. They had the best DVD authoring software for the PC, so Apple bought them and... killed their products. Result: did people with PCs start buying Macs to author their DVDs? No, they simply started buying Sonic's and Pinnacle's authoring programs instead.

Apple is trying to act like Microsoft (killing the competition) but they lack the intelligence (they 'think different'). Microsoft only kills competition that is still worse than their products. If they find something that's objectively better, they simply buy them, re-brand it as 'Microsoft', and sell it instead (at a higher price, possibly). And they don't just sell Windows versions. They sell to whoever is willing to buy. If it wasn't for the GPL, Microsoft would port all their software to Linux.

I really don't see how people who bash Microsoft can like Apple. They have the same kind of software monopoly that Microsoft does (so they don't bundle their browser, but they bundle video editing software, MP3 software, Quicktime, DVD authoring software, CD burning software, etc.), plus a hardware monopoly (even Mac's PCI 'thinks different' from PC PCI, so you can't use PC cards on a Mac and instead must pay three times as much for a card that's five times slower), plus a serious lack of braincells.

Judging from how often it shoots itself in the foot, Apple should change it's name to Limping Centipede.

RMN
~~~

What we call drugs, we call a sinny-sin-sin

[Anonymous Coward]

Well round here, at 10 Normandy in West'n, we call this here a little twenty twin-twin, nigga!

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[doce]

Your fatal mistake is assuming that Apple doesn't make money....

US$40M profit this quarter, beating analyst expectations by a penny/share.

Sounds like bad news for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Why mention only support for Linux until 2003?

To me it sounds like they intend to dump everything but OS X once Apple has the OS X version out the door with appropriate hardware.

Otherwise I would only expect an announcement that Windows dropped and Irix/Linux continue.

Re:"Reminder to Apple users..."

[x136]

There are a lot of Apple-related things that are posted only to apple.slashdot.org, and don't make it to the front page.

Two observations...

[borgheron]

1) This kind of thing can never happen w/ free software.
2) Apple is denying itself revenue by cutting off a major platform.

GJC

Re:Two observations...

[Simba]

1) This kind of thing can never happen with free software, because something like Shake probably would not exist in the form of free software. High quality complex (note, complex) software takes money to build, and revenues to support.

Free software is great for simple things, like web, smtp, and other serving daemons. All they have to do is spew out data in accordance with an RFP, and most of them are so mature that they are vastly supperior to commercial alternaitves, simply because they are usually not bloated with useless features.

Case in point, sendmail. (Or qmail, whatever) It's faster then, say, exchange server, more stable, more secure, and just generally works better. Same with Apache vs. say, IIS or iPlanet. In those cases, free software works very, very well.

However, when it comes to complex things like desktop environments, free/open source software generally does not work. Things like non-linear editing suites, 2D manipulation tools like photoshop, and a wrath of other applications that pros use need to be commercial. They need to be protected from their competitors (please don't mention the GPL) and they need to be developed by people who get paid. This is due to the fact that they are very complex, have to deal with proprietary codecs, and provide user interfaces that are easy and intuative to use.

Free software historically does not handle complex apps, proprietary codecs, nor usable interfaces very well at all.

Open-source people do fun stuff that works quickly and doesn't require UI work or licensing or hardware-specific APIs, like servers. They don't do tedious stuff.

2) Apple is denying itself a very tiny market of windows users (don't think they would be doing this if there were 10,000+ users) so they can sell that very tiny market new macs. They are, after all, a hardware company at heart.

Apple may be denying themselves a few bucks in software sales, but they'll make it five times over back in hardware sales, with the bonus of getting a few thousand new users of its platform.

People who make movies are almost never loyal to a given platform (except the mac, ironically). They simply want something that works so they can meet their deadlines.

Re:Two observations...

[donglekey]

People who make movies are almost never loyal to a given platform (except the mac, ironically). They simply want something that works so they can meet their deadlines.

Do you have an example of Macs being used on movies by a major company? I am not doubting you, but I haven't even heard of it and am pretty curious.

Re:Two observations...

[borgheron]

So you're saying that the Linux kernel is not complex? For most of it's history it was non-commercial.

What about the Gimp? The Gimp is used by a number of people professionally and is widely recognized as a very useful 2D drawing tool rivalling even photoshop. It too is free software.

I am not going to waste my time looking for additional examples to prove my point.

You're reply reveals two things:

1) You're missing the point of my original post

2) You don't understand free software.

Free software is not about money, but about the freedom of the *software itself* and your freedom to use it. People have been developing and selling free software for a profit for many years Red Hat, SuSE, Cygnus, IBM, and soon to come HP/Compaq & Sun to name a few.

So, you see, there *IS* money in free software and plenty of it. Free software alternatives to programs on the shelf *do not need* to be done by people sitting in thier basement in their spare time, but can and are being done by big business.
If Free Software doesn't do servers well, why is Linux being sold on IBM mainframes and as thier default server system to large companies? Go figure.. :)
GJC

Re:Two observations...

[borgheron]

One correction: GNU/Linux is still non-commercial free software. It's just being sold and backed by a number of large corporations.

GJC

Re:Two observations...

[Simba]

Almost every post or broadcast house uses Macs for most of their NLE work, with Final Cut Pro and other similar tools for audio work, like MOTU's Digital Performer.

Apple always has been the defacto standard in audio, graphcis, and video work in professional circles. The only competition is windows, and due to its wrath of instability and security issues, the nod generally goes the way of the mac. It has for many years.

Re:Two observations...

[donglekey]

I'll give you audio, that is what I have heard (pun), but for video and graphics it is not so. Macs do take a larger percentage there than they do in the overall market, but there are other options like SGI, Linux, and Win2k for graphics work that work just as well (with Linux being more cost effective, faster and more stable on the very high end and windows being just more cost effective on the middle and low end). Macs are used by a large group of people who think 'Macs are better for artists' and don't know any better. Lots of people use Photoshop and After Effects on Macs and on Windows, but that doesn't make Mac the standard.

Re:Two observations...

[Simba]

Sure the linux kernel is complex. A complex hack job, to which there are better alternaitves. But that aside... my meaning of "complex" was not "lots of code". It was "a lot of different functions working with many vendor-specific APIs, third party codecs, and user interface elements". Like, for example, Photoshop.

As for the GIMP, sure, it's a great tool. Unfortunately it has a nearly useless UI, still doesn't have many of photoshop's features, and has a significant barrier to use in that it requires someone spend a lot of time learning how to use it. Photoshop, on the other had, is much easier to learn, because it has a UI that actually makes sense and is somewhat intuative. Not a mess of consecutive right-click menus.

However, as you've only managed to come up with two examples, each of which misses my point about free software, I won't bother debating those issues.

My original point is that something like Shake would not exist in the OSS world. My support of this statement is the fact that nothing like Shake DOES exist in the OSS world. If OSS is so great and spiffy when it comes to cranking out highly complex rendering tools, why is there no open source version of Shake? Perhaps because it takes money to develop these tools.

I have not missed your point, you have missed mine in an effort to convince me that open source software is good at something it clearly is not good at.

As for your comment about server software, I said open source DOES work very well in these applications, but DOES NOT work well in complex desktop applications. Try actually reading my post next time before trying to claim the non-existant moral high ground in a debate by spewing a bunch of names of large corporations who use linux at me.

Re:Two observations...

[Simba]

It really depends what aspect of video you mean. If you mean rendering and 3D work, sure, SGI is still the industry leader there, if not only for their reputation and amazing hardware. But, if you're talking NLE post-- the Mac has a very large userbase. I've worked in a few post houses myself, and everything is either a Mac, a SGI box, or an avid windows box.

As to your comment of linux being the most cost effective, there is a two sided arguement to that. From a cost of software aspect, it certainly is the most cost effective. However, linux has no accountability what so ever. Large film houses don't have anyone to sue of a linux app pukes on a large project, costing them money. That is why mac, sgi, and even windows platforms get preference. They are considerably more accountable.

As for your comment that linux is faster and more stable... that is true when it comes to windows, however very untrue if you're talking mac or sgi solutions. IRIX on an octane2 will blow the freaking doors off of any linux box you wish to build, especially as we're talking graphics intensive post work.

Macs are not used bo a large group of artists who simply don't know any better. Macs are used by a large group of people because they are the best platform for many tasks, especially audio and video work. They use them because the excellent UI of the mac is by far the most productive to use when it comes to artistic functions.

This does make the Mac the standard, as the userbase is considerably larger then any other unix, and probably even exceeds that of windows. I don't have any solid numbers to back that up, but based on my experience in the few post houses I have worked in, almost everyone uses a mac at some point, and another box (SGI or windows) only when necessary.

Re:Two observations...

[donglekey]

SGI is no longer the top dog and are fading quickly. Large studios are moving to Linux in droves for 3D, PDI has support from Red Hat and anyone else could do the same. Accountability is no longer an issue, expecially because large companie like that don't have to sit and whine when something breaks, they have programmers to fix for them. If they just wanted someone to complain to, they wouldn't have so much in house software in the first place, which is one reason they are moving to Linux. Macs, Windows, SGI and now Linux are all in the mix. It is obvious you are spouting cliches. I think Macs kick ass, but they are not the standard, there are too many players out there all doing a great job. And Macs certainly are used by a large group of artists who don't know any better (and by that I mean they don't consider other options, not that the Mac isn't the best, because for some things, it certainly is). Not that this is who they are only used by, but it is an identifyable group.

Re:Two observations...

[borgheron]

> Sure the linux kernel is complex. A complex
> hack job, to which there are better
> alternaitves.

Most OSes are *highly* complex and not just "lots of code". You seem to be trying to dismiss complexity by name-calling (e.g. "Hack Job").

> My original point is that something like Shake
> would not exist in the OSS world. My support of
> this statement is the fact that nothing like
> Shake DOES exist in the OSS world. If OSS is so
> great and spiffy when it comes to cranking out
> highly complex rendering tools, why is there no
> open source version of Shake?

Perhaps not because it such a "highly complex" tool, but because, as you yourself pointed out, there's only a *small* market for it.

No one said, myself included, that Free Software is a panacea. It shouldn't be considered one. It's wrong, however, to say that just because a tool like Shake doesn't exist now as free software that the entire methodology is "not good at such things".

If there were a community of sufficient size whose need for such a tool was great enough that they decided to collaborate one, there would be a free software equivalent. This is how Apache got started, BTW.

> Perhaps because it takes money to develop
> these tools.

My point in mentioning all of those companies which "use" GNU/Linux was also to point out that they also *contribute* to it. There is plenty of money in Open Source software/Free Software. Free Software is not about free beer.

> As for your comment about server software, I
> said open source DOES work very well in these
> applications, but DOES NOT work well in complex
> desktop applications. Try actually reading my
> post next time before trying to claim the non-
> existant moral high ground in a debate by
> spewing a bunch of names of large corporations
> who use linux at me.

I must have *misread* that part, but please see my above point which indicates why I mentioned those companies.

GJC

No go.

[Rui del-Negro]

Linux, I can understand. But Mac? Why? So you're stuck with their hardware, as well as their OS?

RMN
~~~

spensive

[benh57]

Isn't shake like $20000 software? The hardware is not exactly the pricey part here. :)

Re:spensive

[lux55]

It is on a farm of 200+ rendering boxes.

Re:spensive

[usrerco]

I found it hard to find their prices online, but looking through their pages, I found this 2001 press release.

• Shake Version 2.4 is now available worldwide. Shake 2.4 software is priced at $9,900. Additional render-only network licenses are available at $3,900.

Their prices may have changed since that press release (gotten lower).

Someone indicated a +200 host render farm; not taking into account a volume discount, a 200 host license would be $78,000.00 to run all 200 machines concurrently from the command line.

It ain't cheap; $4K is a lot to pay for a command line tool.

But then again, shake kicks ass speed wise. Much attention was paid to the I/O and optimization, even in the earliest versions. Once, in 1999 or so, I clocked it as faster to do a compositing operation than it took to copy the file with cp(1)..! In this case the source and destination files were on a remote NFS server, and were PAL resolution.

I'm guessing this was due to its multi-threading abilities.. (or maybe it was the crack I was smoking at the time ;)) It does seem feasable that shake's multi-threading, involving multiple concurrent seek()/read()/write() operations, could easily make better use of the network bandwidth and I/O than cp(1) ever could. cp() is surely only doing single threaded read()write() operations in series. Maybe someday cp(1) will thread by default to make stuff go /fast/.

I have to wonder about buying a 200 host concurrent license of anything though. I mean, unless you distribute your load to multiple servers (which few companies, even big ones do), if you network doesn't bottleneck with that much concurrent throughput, your NFS server surely will. Anyone care to comment on /that/?

Re:spensive

[Anonymous Coward]

For complex render queues the time spent transferring over the network is relatively small, compared to the time actually used in rendering. Large render farms need a fast network, but more importantly they need fast CPUs. And Macs are not exactly famous for their speed... if they kill the Linux version I really don't see a future for Shake (regardless of price). It really doesn't matter what OS it's running on (a Shake workstation runs Shake and little else), or how much it costs, what we need is speed.

My company uses mainly Digital Fusion, which is slightly slower than Shake for most things but (IMO) has a better, more productive interface.

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that this is exactly what Apple just did.... they announced (even PRE announced) that this will be the last version of Shake for Windows, and that they will continue Linux/IRIX versions at least through 2003.

What's so closed mouthed about that?

---

Easy. It takes on average three years to get to a state where you are onscreen. So one year is not much. Remeber these companies want support too.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[benedict]

> If it wasn't for the GPL, Microsoft would
> port all their software to Linux.

What about the GPL keeps Microsoft from porting
their software to Linux?

(This should be interesting.)

Reminder to Apple Users:

[Anonymous Coward]

(Reminder to Apple users: In a vain attempt to keep this site relevant by chasing whatever our amateur staff of one trick pony editorial has-beens have determined is "hot" into the ground, we've got an Apple section. Strangely, none of the Apple users are reading it, so we're going to remind them (despite the fact that they aren't reading Slashdot at all, anyhow) that it exists so we can extend our little racket possibly past the death of our parent company, which is showing some signs of confusion of its own. Next week we plan to introduce a "Chrysler" section in honor of Cmdr Taco's recent purchase of a 1983 Dodge Omni with his 100,000 shares of VA stock.)

They'll wind up spending less

[daviddennis]

Apple is going to charge so much less for Shake than Nothing Real did that it will cost less to get a G4 + Shake than it would to buy Shake before the takeover.

I'm looking forward to being able to try Shake on my G4.

I wonder what kind of price they'll charge to Irix and Linux users? I would assume it would be more expensive for non-Apple systems.

Curiously enough, this is exactly what I expected (and hoped) they would do. I think you can even look it up somewhere in my earlier messages.

D

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[PCM2]

Apple did the same with Spruce Tech. They had the best DVD authoring software for the PC, so Apple bought them and... killed their products. Result: did people with PCs start buying Macs to author their DVDs? No, they simply started buying Sonic's and Pinnacle's authoring programs instead.

Err... actually, I bought an Apple to do DVD authoring on. I admit I haven't used a lot of DVD authoring software, but Apple's DVD Studio Pro is pretty slick, indeed ... integrates well with Final Cut Pro, and the computer comes with a DVD-R burner! Pretty good solution compared to most PCs, if you ask me.

I really don't see how people who bash Microsoft can like Apple. They have the same kind of software monopoly that Microsoft does (so they don't bundle their browser, but they bundle video editing software, MP3 software, Quicktime, DVD authoring software, CD burning software, etc.), plus a hardware monopoly (even Mac's PCI 'thinks different' from PC PCI, so you can't use PC cards on a Mac and instead must pay three times as much for a card that's five times slower)

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[neoscsi]

According to Apple, there are less than 200 legally licensed users of Shake for NT.

Double standard and alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine what happens if you step on an elephant foot.

Imagine the elephant stepping on your foot.

Now, thank God there's double standards.

I'm hoping you're still young, otherwise I'd be sad. Unless you are a microserf, in which case I'd be LOL.

99.

But It's Not

[krmt]

OF course, if this was the Evil Empire doing it we'd all cry 'monopolist'.

Ok... I'm tired of seeing this idea on this article thread. It's obviously not Microsoft doing this. It's Apple. Not Microsoft. Apple. Not a convicted monopolist.

Yes, these actions are anticompetitive, but because Apple does not hold any sort of monopoly power, either in the OS market or the 3d rendering market, this move is not the kind of thing that makes one scream "monopolist!" Are you going to be mad at them for not producing Appleworks for Windows? Are you going to be mad at them for not making the iPod, iMovie, etc. available for Windows? These are features added to their product to make it more competitive against a court-confirmed monopoly, and they have every right to do this.

Apple is, quite simply, not to be held to the same standards as Microsoft. Get over it.

Re:But It's Not

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree fully, it's like saying that because Gimp was not made for the origional MacOS, it makes Linux developers monopolists, when we all know that it just isn't worth their time to port it to a different OS, because they don't use it themselves.

Re:But It's Not

[Anonymous Coward]

this is yet another example to me that apple is just as bad as microsoft if not worse.
In the mid 90s i was a mac owner -well predominantly a power computing powertower 225 owner- and I thought of Apple Computer as the indispensable alternative and couterweight to msft.

nowadays i see that was an illusion or at least only provisionally true during a certain span of time....

In reality though, behind all the plastic stick-on rainbow colored corporate logos and "computers with a human face" trade dress propaganda designed to make buyers feel their was something inherently liberating about the Mac interface and something more socially progressive about using a mac, some non-tangible quality about the mac that evinced a greater respect for the individual creator, Apple was really winding its users in more tightly than anything this side of IBM in the 60s and 70s.
In reality Apple was just as bad as Microsoft, is still just as bad as Microsoft, only they were SO GREEDY that they screwed themselves out of their leading market position. They just blew it early on by imagining they had more control than they did.

That aside, it's clear that Apple functions as an abusive monopolist in their own "relevant market" that is the consumer market for ppc based desktop systems. They manipulate the market in patently anti-competitive ways.
GO price cpu upgrades for Macs. Observe the steep uniform pricing! Observe that you cannot buy a recent vintage aftermarket PPC for a recent Mac. These aftermarket vendors are able to sell cpu products that bypass the onboard cpu socket with pci card mounted cpus, daughterboards that can carry two cpus and plug into g3 zif sockets. Firmware customizations included. AND YET.
Yet they cannot sell me a moderately recent "g4" CPU for my Yosemite G3, OR EVEN MY G4 ? --only slower cpus despite the pinout compatitbility.
You wanna tell me Motorola and Apple aren't colluding to limit consumer choice on a platform Apple controls even more absoultely than MSFT controls the X86 platform?
You bet your ass they are. All that's missing here is a lawsuit.
(But apparently the remaining Mac users are too passive a lot to do anything about this)

Re:But It's Not

[silentbozo]

Monopolist? More like self-preservationist. Linux and Irix versions are still being produced, and by cutting Windows development, there will be more engineering time to work on making Shake a better tool for Mac users.

Re:But It's Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you try buying a Mac with no OS... can't do it. Have a look and see what you get with your Mac? Quicktime, iTunes, iMovie, iSpanner, iChicken... it's all in there, all these 'little' extra applications that lever the OS maker into other fields. Apple not a convicted monopolist? You try making a Mac compatible - remember that little episode?

Re:But It's Not

[usr122122121]

Are you going to be mad at them for not producing Appleworks for Windows?

Appleworks for Windows was around for a while before Apple sacked the project. Microsoft's monopoly [and much more comprehensive product] made this market a very poor one for Apple to compete in.

Apple isn't completely against making windows software... just look at QuickTime.
(Win 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP Compatible).

Other than that, though, you raise some very good points.

Re:But It's Not

[usr122122121]

Wow. A couple second search revealed that we were both wrong: AppleWorks for Windows still does exist. It has just moved from the consumer section of their line to the education section.

"Best of all, AppleWorks 6.2 now runs on both Macs and Windows." -apple

Re:But It's Not

[zaffir]

You, sir, have hit one giant nail right squarely on the head. Took the words right out of my mouth. Major props (and kudos) to you.

Re:But It's Not

[zaffir]

God forbid Apple include high quality, free (as in beer), useful programs with their OS.

Last i checked, it didn't take much to get rid of iTunes, or iMovie, or Quicktime. Drag the application's folder to the trash and you're free of it forever. Delete a few extensions (at least in OS 9) and Quicktime is gone.

On my PC, where's the uninstaller for Windows Media Player? Hmm... guess MS forgot one. What about their shit movie editing app? Oh, damn, can't get rid of that either!

Re:But It's Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, you're just mad you bought a Mac clone and took a bath on it. You're covering that jealousy be coming up with a spurious conspiracy between Motorola and Apple. When any idiot knows that no one at Motorola is smart enough to contribute to any such conspiracy. :P

Re:But It's Not

[Melantha_Bacchae]

krmt wrote:

> Yes, these actions are anticompetitive, but because Apple does not hold
> any sort of monopoly power, either in the OS market or the 3d
> rendering market, this move is not the kind of thing that makes one
> scream "monopolist!"

No , they are not anticompetitive, they are competitive as all get out! Apple is trying to compete here. It is the underdog. It is trying to expand its market share in hardware and OS, hence its lack of interest in supporting its major OS competitor (who is an evil monopoly-abuser: Microsoft).

Most importantly, Apple acquired this company in the first place as part of its efforts to take on Hollywood (remember that the head of Pixar is Apple's iCEO). Apple's opponent in this market, a very large opponent with very high prices (they make Apple look cheap), is Avid. Apple has great Unix workstations, Final Cut Pro, now has Shake, and can run Lightwave and Maya (and a whole slew of other 3D programs, as well as Photoshop and other goodies). They have a good chance of making a sizeable splash, especially with Jobs' knowledge gleened from his experience with the industry at the helm of Pixar.

The one thing Apple doesn't have is an inexpensive little rack mount unit for the back end cluster. Unless they plan to build one, supporting Linux on the back end would be the smart move. I imagine they either haven't made up their mind on what they are going to do on the back end, or just don't want to tell us about it yet.

If Microsoft is ever to be taken out, Apple and Linux are going to have to learn to get along and work together. There is no time like the present to learn. ;)

"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961

Re:But It's Not

[Zeinfeld]

The salient point for me is that companies that invested in the Shake platform are now going to have much less choice in the hardware they use.

The graphics market has for a long time been driven by the games market. The $400 high end video cards made by the likes of nvidia outperform most of the 'high end' graphics workstations. With the exception of Evans and Sutherland and some 3DLabs stuff with $20K price tags and requiring multiple PCI slots this market is driven by the PC hardware platform.

While Shake is obviously bypassing a lot of the graphics hardware in renderfarm mode you want a combination of realtime and renderfarm. The closer you can get with your draft mode output the less you cycles it takes on the renderfarm.

There is no sign that Apple hardware is going to catch up in hardware speed any time soon so the lack of a PC version is a negative.

Then there are people like myself who loath the Mac user interface which was originally designed to allow newbies to learn to use computers quickly. Having used computers extensively for 25 years I don't need some idiot at Apple telling me how many of the buttons on my mouse are going to work (yes I know you can plug a three button mouse into a MAC, try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.)

The monopoly issue is beside the point. It may be legal for Apple to behave this way, but that does not make it ethical or right. Apple continually does to its users what Microsoft is accused of doing to other companies. It is like a wierd S/M relationship, the worse Apple treats its customers the more they band round to defend the company. So ignore the fact that the mid range apples now cost double to three times the cost of the equivalent PC and will be obsolete faster because apple plays interface manipulation games.

Just because it is legal does not make it right.

Re:But It's Not

[DavidRavenMoon]

Are you going to be mad at them for not producing Appleworks for Windows?

They do make AppleWorks for Windows...

Re:But It's Not

[DavidRavenMoon]

Ok, you try buying a Mac with no OS... can't do it.

You get the OS for free so what's your point? It's not adding a cent to your price. Do you even have a point besides the one of the top of your head?

Just wipe the hard drive clean and there you go...

But the real reason Mac users use Macs is for the OS

Re:But It's Not

[bnenning]

yes I know you can plug a three button mouse into a MAC, try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.

Just in case somebody takes this troll seriously, Mac OS X has full support for multiple mouse buttons and context menus. I'm using a Microsoft optical mouse; the extra buttons and scroll wheel work out of the box with no driver needed. Also for future reference, using "MAC" instead of "Mac" is a clear sign that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:But It's Not

[prizzznecious]

Did you only bother to skim his post? He specifically addresses the OS X support for other types of mice. His problem is that after years and years, Apple still doesn't ship with a real mouse. It becomes a much bigger deal with laptops. I like my iBook quite well, but I certainly wish the trackpad had two mouse buttons. It is not an acceptable solution to have to use a peripheral (this is a laptop, and it's meant to be mobile) in order to have full functionality.

Re:But It's Not

[Lumpy]

It's not anti-competetive... apple is simply dropping support for an antiquated and out-dated operating system.

Apple shouldn't have to continue to support a OS platform that is as out-dated as windows...

Hey, I can try to make excuses for them....

Re:But It's Not

[rbruels]

Also, you state: "The $400 high end video cards made by the likes of nvidia outperform most of the 'high end' graphics workstations."

I don't know where you work, but high-end graphics workstations (say, from SGI) far outperform the latest consumer hardware. And don't tell me you said "most" -- you also said "high-end" graphics workstations, so even your little $20k defense counts.

You're right in saying gaming drives the 3D card industry, but it does not LEAD the 3D card industry.

Also, NVidia doesn't make consumer graphics cards.

Troll.

Re:But It's Not

[overunderunderdone]

(yes I know you can plug a three button mouse into a MAC, try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.)

OK tried it... Works fine... your point?

Re:But It's Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you only bother to skim his post? He specifically addresses the OS X support for other types of mice.

He apparently payed more attention to the content of the post than YOU did. You apparently didn't even read the little bit the poster quoted and responded to: ...try using right click to bring up context sensitive menus.
Tried it, works fine. Looks like the troll is spouting off ignorantly. He's complaining that right clicking doesn't bring up a contextual menu - it does so he is just an ignorant troll. Your point, that it should SHIP with a two button mouse is (a little more) valid, but that was NOT the trolls point.

This is welcomed news

[tolldog]

I was nervous with Apples purcahse of Shake. Between that and Maya being ported to OS X, I was afraid that in the near future, our render farm would have to consist of some really nice desktops, but extremely expensive render boxes.
We currently have 250+ dedicated render machines. They are all dual proc 800 MHZ to 1.8 GHZ and they are running linux. This is a hefty investment. But to get the same power out of a Mac farm would cost us dearly.

We have looked at Shake. We will probably move to it for our next project. Using Composer right now is slowing us down. We have started end of life our octanes in favor for Linux desktops, but we have to keep them arround because our process relies heavily on Composer with Tinderbox to do depth of field and A over B composites. It is a slow and painful process, but at this time it is cheaper and cost less development time than Shake would.

I am still a little nervous I guess. At the core of the software for Shake, I don't imagine that it would take much work for Apple to continue the Linux port. I can see why they would want to edge out the SGI version in the near future. I have a feeling that the places that don't switch from IRIX to Linux in the next few years will have switched to OS X instead.

Another concern of mine is the state of Alias|Wavefront. They are a good company. Unfortunately, them being owned by SGI causes concern because I do not see a pretty future for that company. There machines are being replaced in several industries. Its true that they have some heavy hitters that are dedicated to them in the data visualization and high end server areas, but I feel that even these places will look at the cost savings of a Linux solution, they will port over and they will not look back.

It makes this an exciting yet delicate time in the animation industry. Being tied to a platform is a necesity because of the investment but it can also seem like a potential downfall of a studio. Heading on the wrong platform at the wrong time can cost you more time and money than you can afford.

-Tim

Re:This is welcomed news

[Dusty]

We currently have 250+ dedicated render machines. They are all dual proc 800 MHZ to 1.8 GHZ and they are running linux. This is a hefty investment. But to get the same power out of a Mac farm would cost us dearly.

Not necessarily, if Apple can do a good job of optimizing the code to use the G4's Altivec unit, you could end up requiring a much smaller farm.

Although the Altivec is almost ideal for cracking rc5 keys, distributed.net's mulitprocessor client speeds has dual 1GHz G4's processing about four times as much as dual P4 1.8 GHz.

Re:This is welcomed news

[Anonymous Coward]

Most, if not all software that support render farms are not platform specific. One of the points of OSX that Apple is [ushing is multi platform compatability, so I expect you'll be able to keep using the Linux machines for as long as the software is supported on Linux, or perhaps Apple will just maintain the slave software for the other platforms.

Not really.

[Simba]

Linux is becoming a good rendering platform, not a "movie making" platform.

There's still nothing in the way of good NLE or 2D/3D image manipulation software floating around (and please don't mention the GNU stuff-- it's laughable to the pros). The main reason, aside from the fact that there's no standard linux desktop interface, is that intel hardware isn't that great for doing much more then crunching numbers.

Intel-oriented video hardware simply can't touch SGI visual workstations, among other things. However, it's cheap, and relatively easy to turn into a cheap rendering node. Thusly linux boxes are being adapted as such. Cheap rendering nodes.

Implying that movies are made on any linux based OS exclusively, however, is nothing short of BS. Take a tour of any broadcast or post house sometime and see what the editors use. Macs, SGI boxen, or intel machines running windows (E.g. Avid)

Re:Not really.

[tolldog]

I disagree.

If we had shake in house instead of composer, we would have a studio of 50+ linux desktops and 250+ linux render boxes.
We have a few macs for photoshop and an NT box for 3D painting. We would have two Avids for editing. We would have some Suns for file serving.

No SGIs would be needed.

Infact, that is our current setup, minus the SGIS we keep to do our composites. And we are producing a 3D feature film. Even our DDR is a linux system.

We could get rid of our Macs for photoshop and use gimp for almost all of the digital painting that is being done. Gimp is almost there. It is not laughed at by the pros. We use it all the time for paint fixes and other quick solutions.

There are still a few, small niche markets for non Linux boxes in the studio. They do have an important roll. But when comparing the amount of systems and the price, they don't compare to the amount that is invested into a Linux solution.

-Tim

Re:Not really.

[chill]

Wrong. Linux USED to be a render-only platform, now it is taking over the workstations as well. Check out this Slashdot link titled DreamWorks Switches to Linux for only the most recent convert. Many major post houses use a lot of home-grown tools, and Linux is a godsend for them. Porting those tools from Irix to Linux is much easier than to Windows or even Mac -- since they have the source code for many items.

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[Anonymous Coward]

powerful...
BWAHAHHAHHAHHHAHAHAH !
hooohhahhahoooooheeeeheeeheehahhah
hohohoho
h hhah
hhhe
ehe
(pant gasp pant)

C'mon say it again please? Please?
Aww C'mon!

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your fatal mistake is assuming that Apple doesn't make money....

US$40M profit this quarter, beating analyst expectations by a penny/share."

MS can buy all the gold in Fort Knox. That's just its rainy day fund of liquid cash. Compared to MS Apple is just an also ran. Now some will say that's just because of it's contracts, but most would also note that Apple had the same oppertunities but got greedy and lost out. Comoditize the hardware make money on the software while providing good software.

Linux Irix

[xconslash]

I think Apple announced Linux/Irix support to at least 2003 because they're not sure if they should support it afterwards.

Ever since Mac OS X came out, everyone (including Apple) has been watching very carefully to see how much synergy there is between the Mac and Linux communities. I think the water is still very murky, and it's not clear yet if Linux is a threat to Apple's Corporate interests.

So they're going to wait it out and see what happens.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[doce]

even Mac's PCI 'thinks different' from PC PCI, so you can't use PC cards on a Mac and instead must pay three times as much for a card that's five times slower

This is quite honestly wrong.

The PCI in Macs is exactly the same PCI that's in PCs. What you see, sometimes (Voodoo was really bad about this) where a card manufacturer will write the ROMs on their card so that it'll only work on Macs (or PCs). In most cases (as with Voodoo), you can just re-flash the ROM to make it work on the other platform. You can blame this on the device manufacturers, not Apple.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[doce]

Compared to Microsoft, EVERYONE is an "also ran."

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

MS has a monopoly on X86 PC hardware Apple a monopoly on PPC PC's.

If you don't see that maybe it is you do not understand what a monopoly is.

When you consider that Apple has been as bad or worse in it's feifdom of PPC PCs there is a double standard.

If you think the legal slap on the wrist that will result is a proper punishment then you are wrong. Right now it is being used by companies to get an advantage through the courts that they do not have in the marketplace.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[justsomebody]

GPL is just an excuse for not porting software on linux. If it wasn't GPL it would be some other lame excuse.

Why NOT Mac?

[Paradox]

If you're "stuck" with hardware you like, it's not really being "stuck" now is it? Besides, it's not like hardware you would want to use it outside the grasp of a G4 owner. This is what PCI slots are for. OS X has decent hardware support given what it's for. If more of a demand appears, drivers can be written quickly (thanks to IOKit, which is a lot better than DriverKit for OpenStep Enterprise). I'm not really a systems programmer but it was so easy to make simple drivers I hardly needed more than a few days of research and examples to make an effective driver pair for some custom hardware I needed to test out.

As for being "stuck" with OS X. Oh no. I moved BECAUSE of OS X. However, nothing stops me from running linux on this box. I had it running for awhile but junked the partition for disk space because I am so happy with OS X.

Linux is nice and all, but I like a bit more of a slick user experience. It's like Neal Stephenson said... Sometimes I just want to go to disneyland :)

Re:Why NOT Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're "stuck" with hardware you like, it's not really being "stuck" now is it?

That's just it -he doesn't OK ? There's nothing to like about slow,/b> unless we're talking about long slow blowjobs. Or maybe you can tell me what part of slow in computing appeals to you. As far as I know they don't give out awards for slow. I can't guarantee I'll understand , but I'll listen.

"As for being "stuck" with OS X. Oh no. I moved BECAUSE of OS X"
Well, I can't guarantee I'll listen to the explanation for this one.
You like watching 3-4% CPU being pissed away on NOTHING. On no work at all but running the OS and the shell/display. That's what you're telling me and that's what you're getting from OSX.
No explanation of that will work on me so don't bother.

Sometimes I just want to go to disneyland :)
So why take the slow boat? You may notice that Disneyland itself has steered clear of your choice of barge.

Frag it, tag it -'n'-,bag it:
OSX is dead as Caesar for a real workstation OS.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'll agree with that to a point, MS started in a similar manner at about the same time as Apple but is in a better position financially.
So ultimately one must ask themselves why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple only makes $. One can point to stupid people (the market wants) or to unfair/illegal business practices (which were only unfair/illegal when they were ruled a monopoly).

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[Anonymous Coward]

&gt It seems to me that this is exactly what Apple just did.... they announced (even PRE announced) that this will be the last version of Shake for Windows, and that they will continue Linux/IRIX versions at least through 2003.

&gt &gt What's so closed mouthed about that?

because, umm... 2003 is only next year? and people in this businees as in any business (you in business?) would naturally appreciate a bit more lead time notice from their partners and vendors if said partners and vendors are planning to take a crap on them --er I mean planning to make changes that could end up costing these customers a lot of money.

for example, hp let customers of OpenMail know that they would continue to develop bugfixes for OpenMail for 5 years (or more) past the announcement of product official end-of-life.
That's an enterprise app of course, so expectations are greater, but i think you can see the immense contrast and how apple's announcement could cause concern/anger with existing customers of Shake.

GPL doesn't keep them from..

[Roadmaster]

There's absolutely *nothing* in the GPL itself preventing Microsoft from releasing proprietary Linux software. It didn't stop Corel, StarDivision/Sun or Netscape, so WHY should it stop Microsoft?

If your point is that Microsoft won't port to Linux, an already very popular platform, because they want to keep their posture that the GPL is evil, even though to anyone who understands it it's obvious that the fact that the OS is under the GPL doesn't imply apps for it also have to be GPL, then perhaps you should have been clearer about it. Because now this will degenerate into a completely off-topic thread about why Microsoft is/isn't kept from Linux development by the GPL.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Tycho]

Mac PCI is pretty much the same as PC PCI, the only important place it differs is in the boot ROMs and a special case for video cards. For PowerPC machines which include Macs and for Sun machines the boot ROMs are written in Forth and is platform independent. However, I am not aware of any Mac/Sun cross-platform cards. However, I believe this is possible. For x86 machines the boot ROMs are written in x86 assembly. For Alpha based machines the ROMs are written in Alpha assembly. IIRC Alphas can emulate, though not very well, an x86 so that x86 PCI cards with boot ROMs can be used in an Alpha. The boot ROMs are really only necessary on those cards that need to be set up before boot up of the OS. These cards include video cards, SCSI cards, IDE cards, or network cards that are to be used to netboot need boot ROMs. Otherwise they are not needed. Now if the card is intended for a Mac or Sun it helps to have a ROM that tells the BIOS its name and address ranges. This method is also helpful to force users of Macs and Suns into using a card intended for their platform as opposed to a generic and potentially much cheaper x86 card. I personally have used an OEM Adaptec SCSI card from a Mac in an x86 PC. Granted the drives hooked up to it are non-bootable, but it works. I have also put the same DEC tulip ethernet card in both a Mac and a PC and it worked both times. The important case where this is not true in video cards is because a graphics controller intended for Macs and PCs has to deal with an issue in bit depths in either in hardware, which is faster, or in software, which is slower. In Macs at 16 bits per pixel, five bits are for blue five are for green, five are for red and one is for transparency. In x86 machines at 16 bits per pixel, five are for blue, six are for green, and five are for red. To the best of my knowledge every video card that has a boot ROM for the Mac except the 3dfx Voodoo 3 can do 16 bpp the Mac way in hardware.

Where is Your Mind?

[krmt]

MS has a monopoly on X86 PC hardware Apple a monopoly on PPC PC's.

I think you completely misunderstand the actual issue at hand.

First is the issue of the Office monopoly. Somehow, I don't think Apple has any sort of monopoly on Office suites. How about Web browsers? Sure, there are competitors, but they're still measley compared to the behemoth that is IE.

While the fact that these programs are successful doesn't make them or their creators "bad" in any way, the fact that they have been used as leverage to bully others out of the market is the problem.

What happened to Netscape? They couldn't deliver a whole alternate OS that supported Microsoft's Office monopoly. What happened to Corel's Word Perfect? They couldn't bundle an OS with their Office software either. What about Apple? Well, Apple can provide these things, which is why they are able to compete, and they can only do this because Office and IE ship for the Mac. If you think Apple would survive without Office, you're kidding yourself. It's by Microsoft's good graces that other companies live and die, including Apple.

So while Apple might have a monopoly on PPC PC's and Microsoft might have one on x86 PC's, their situation is very different. In addition, you have to remember that if you wanted to, you could manufacture your own PPC motherboard and generic box and throw Linux on it. There just isn't a market for these things so no one is doing it. On x86 on the other hand, we've got every single OEM being forced to put Windows on every single PC, or face being priced out of the business by Microsoft.

In short, monopolies aren't bad. Using yours to beat other companies to death is.

Re:Where is Your Mind?

[Rui del-Negro]

you have to remember that if you wanted to, you could manufacture your own
PPC motherboard and generic box and throw Linux on it. There just isn't a market
for these things so no one is doing it. On x86 on the other hand, we've got
every single OEM being forced to put Windows on every single PC, or face being
priced out of the business by Microsoft.

Hm... slightly confusing. First, Windows does not come on every single PC; you can buy PCs without any software, or with Linux (at least where I live you can). Even if it did you could always build your own system (which is easy to do with a PC, and lots of people do just that), and pick your own OS. Macs, on the other hand, always come with Mac OS and, as you said, it's not viable to build a PPC system from scratch.

So the way I see it, hardware-wise, Apple has a much bigger influence over their platform than Microsoft does (although MS also has a big influence over Apple, so in the end they play for both teams).

RMN
~~~

Re:Where is Your Mind?

[Surlyboi]

Even if it did you could always build your own system (which is easy to do with a PC, and lots of people do just that), and pick your own OS.

Quick question, hotshot. How many PCs does Microsoft make?

None?

Your point is Moot.

Macs, on the other hand, always come with Mac OS and, as you said, it's not viable to build a PPC system from scratch.

Yes you can, you just can't put MacOS on it. And
actually, according to all of the x86 boosters out
there, why would anyone want to use "inferior PPC
hardware" anyway

Halo has sold over 1 million copies

[Pfhor]

In less than 6 months.....

How many other games that cost $350 sold so fast?

(Because it was a release game, you have to factor in that there wasn't really an Installed base of customers)

I think I do

[Rui del-Negro]

You keep using that word [monopoly].
I do not think it means what you think it means.

It means exclusive control (of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service). Apple is the only supplier of Mac computers, and effectively controls who can and who can't make hardware for the Mac. They also control the software their clients use (in the same way that Microsoft does).

Which wouldn't be such a big probem, if it wasn't for the ludicrous prices they charge. I work regularly with some old Mac-based Avid editing workstations, and the SCSI AV drives they use cost 4 times as much as the PC models. The drives are exactly the same; the difference is they're not oficially 'certified'. It's not just Apple / Avid doing this, some PC manufacturers do (or are planning to do) the same. I find it very hard to understand why some people scream bloody murder when Microsoft does something, but then applaud when someone else does exactly the same. It's not who, it's what.

As to DVD authoring, I was lucky enough to buy Spruce's DVD Maestro. It does everything that DVD Studio Pro or Scenarist do, and comes with much better documentation (IMO). Plus I get to pick my own MPEG-2 and AC3 encoders and my own DVD recorder, not to mention the rest of the system: Dual Athlon XP 1800+ with 1 GB DDR ECC RAM, 160 GB RAID, real-time Canopus DV editing card, a Pioneer DVR-A03 recorder and a dual-monitor card with fast OpenGL (Radeon 8500). It's about 50% faster than a Dual G4 (depending on the task - for 3D rendering and MPEG encoding it's nearly twice as fast) and cost about the same (but I get faster drives, real-time DV editing, better graphics, a much broader choice of software and the ability to upgrade each component independently). Oh, and I have a floppy drive, too. ;-)

I think Apple makes some nice products, but they are overpriced and bind the consumers to Apple's decisions. When I buy a PC I can select each component independently and I don't have to pay for "features" that I don't really need or want. It's kind of like Windows brought to the hardware level. The reason why I would like Windows to come without IExplorer (for example) isn't to "give other companies a chance". It's because I'm not planning to use IE, so I shouldn't be forced to pay for it.

RMN
~~~

Re:I think I do

[hondo77]

It means exclusive control (of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service). Apple is the only supplier of Mac computers, and effectively controls who can and who can't make hardware for the Mac. They also control the software their clients use (in the same way that Microsoft does).

That reasoning is just asinine. Gee, Porsche is the only company that makes Porsches. They must be a monopoly! Bzzzz! Wrong. Thanks for playing.

Re:I think I do

[hype7]

Apple is the only supplier of Mac computers, and effectively controls who can and who can't make hardware for the Mac. They also control the software their clients use (in the same way that Microsoft does).

Niche players can't be monopolists. Otherwise; "Acme Corp is the only one who makes zippers that are 8cm long, therefore they are a monopolist."

"My local bakery is the only business that makes cookies the way I like them, therefore it's a monopoly."

Is there an alternative for Apple products - ie, if Apple put the prices up to $30000 for an iMac tomorrow, could people go out and purchase something other than an iMac? I think so. But Windows - no; because of the berth of platform specific applications, and the fact it is the only OS that ma and pa can use without having to resort to command-line hacking on the (endemic) x86 processor.

-- james

Re:I think I do

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is the only purveyor of PPC based computers for the consumer market and it's not just an accident.
Aftermarket Mac cpu upgrade companies powerlogix, OWC, newer, Sonnet et al. -- companies with a proven market established over years-- CANNOT get motorola 7400s in the speed range that begins to compare with current apple production.
There are no 866 mhz G4 upgrade cpus , no 733s not even 667s
It's not like there isn't a market for them, they are FLAT OUT UNAVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE.
Got it so far?
Now tell me how a competitor to Apple could get started in the market with this obvious exclusionary practice going on between Apple and Motorola?
??

Now as to his point that Apple controls the behavior of companies making hardware (peripherals I assume) for the Mac I'd want to see more case evidence of what he means before I credit his statement. But there is no doubt that Apple is doing illegal things to maintain its monopoly position as the only PPC based consumer computer. This does put them in a dominant position in the event conflict arose between them and some Mac specific hardware maker that for example was making moola in a product category that Apple intended to own for themselves. That's in principle - I'd want evidence of such a practice before saying anymore.

Re:I think I do

[denzombie]

>>Oh, and I have a floppy drive, too. ;-)

Yeah, those floppy disks are great for capturing video to.

I blame it on the bytes.

[Rui del-Negro]

No, it's not. Macs are big-endian, x86 is little-endian. Most PC cards will not work on Macs. And I'm not blaming it on anyone. I'm simply stating a fact. In fact, the PowerPC can run in little-endian mode, so Apple could have made the Mac's PCI perfectly compatible with PC PCI. It was a conscious decision to make it different. Not better, not worse. Just different.

RMN
~~~

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[mpiatek]

Now that's a good idea...If Apple would have just switched endian modes on the CPU when it started including PCI slots in it's machines. Of course, then they would have to rewrite countless lines of already established machine code to get the OS to work on the CPU again, but that's not a big deal, is it? And since when does a company have to switch their way of designing hardware just so it can be compatible with another platform?

Mike

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[Rui del-Negro]

Hm... isn't OS X a complete rewrite anyway...? Doesn't Virtual PC set the CPU to use x86 bit order? And didn't PCI exist on the PC when Apple decided to adopt it?

These decisions aren't arbitrary (most, anyway). The 'formats' business is big business. Just ask Sony why they make 5 new types of plugs each year, and why their 'standards' are often incompatible with the industry standard (SDI vs. QSDI, for example).

RMN
~~~

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[MoneyT]

X is a rewrite because Classic finaly got to old for the new computers.

VPC is an emulator, it doesn't do anythign to the hardware.

And yes PCI did exist on the PC when apple adopted it, but when Apple went PCI, PCs wer still using ISA. It's the same thing as USB was on PCs before Apple adopted it, but none of the PC people inlcuded it.

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[Rui del-Negro]

VPC is an emulator, it doesn't do anythign to the hardware.

Quoting Connectix:

"The PowerPC has a special mode which allows it to simulate little endian mode (the native mode of Intel-compatible processors). On PowerPC processors prior to the G3, however, this mode came at a high performance cost when the data in memory was misaligned. The G3 and G4 processors removed these performance bottlenecks, allowing Connectix engineers to take advantage of this feature."

So as you can see it does do something to the hardware. And, according to Connectix, there is no performance hit by using little-endian bytes on the G3 / G4. Doesn't mean Apple should change the system, but it shows they could if they wanted to.

And yes PCI did exist on the PC when apple adopted it,
but when Apple went PCI, PCs wer still using ISA.

Er... I'm sorry? So did it exist on PCs or not? It doesn't seem very relevant that some motherboards still came with ISA slots (or EISA, or MCA, or VLB for that that matter). The standard existed. When Apple decided to adopt it they knew it would not be compatible with PCI cards designed for PCs. Which is fine; they don't have to make things the same way others do. But somehow they keep forgetting to mention this difference in their specifications (and a lot of people assume they can simply stick any PCI card in a Mac and it'll work).

RMN
~~~

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[dair]

So as you can see it does do something to the hardware. And, according to Connectix, there is no performance hit by using little-endian bytes on the G3 / G4. Doesn't mean Apple should change the system, but it shows they could if they wanted to.

You're confusing two things:

1. The PowerPC is bi-endian, in that it can boot into both big and little endian memory access modes.
2. The PowerPC has some instructions (lwbrx and stwbrx) that can byte swap (integer) loads and stores on the fly.

The paragraph you quoted refers to the lwbrx and stwbrx instructions - they were very expensive if the address was misaligned (it punted to an exception handler which performed two aligned reads, combined them, then swapped the result).

-dair

Re:I blame it on the bytes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Current versions of VPC (since late 2000 I think) set the PPC to native little-endian mode when emulating x86, they don't need to invert each byte manually.

To clear it up

[Rui del-Negro]

Microsoft can't keep saying GPL spells doom for the industry while at the same time profiting from software written for a GPL'd OS.

I wouldn't be (too) surprised to see Microsoft porting some software for FreeBSD, for example, if the user base gets a bit larger (if only to claim that there are alternatives to Windows, etc., etc.). In fact, I'm pretty sure they even have Linux ports of some of their programs hidden in some basement just in case they feel the (commercial) benefits suddenly outweigh the (moral) damage.

Unlike Intel, Microsoft doesn't suffer from the NIH (not invented here) syndrome. They don't care about anything half as much as they care about making money. And if there's money to be made somewhere, they'll go there to make it. They can't do it now because of the legal mess they're into and the strategy they're adopting, but if Linux ever manages to grab a relevant market share, do you have any doubt that MS will start selling Linux software? Or even selling Linux itself (bundled with their software, of course). I can see it now... the Red Mond distro, with Ballmux the monkey instead of Tux penguin... ;-)

RMN
~~~

Re:To clear it up

[donglekey]

If I had a mod point I would mod you up :) I think that MS knows that if they did a FreeBSD port, people would find a way to make it work on Linux.

Apple's Motivation

[Anonymous Coward]

I just love reading /. --- people here jump to the most conspiritorial conclusion rather than the lost likely conclusion. Apple isn't trying to stick it to Microsoft---Shake, while a lucrative product, is niche and it's a niche where Microsoft has exactly 0 leverage anyway.

Did anyone stop and think that it's probably easier for Apple to keep tabs on a Mac OS X, Irix, and Linux versions of Shake without the added complexity of maintaining a Windows port of a fairly complex product? Note the common point of the platforms Apple's continuing to support beyond the current version: They're all *nix pedigreed and maintenance of the code, even between disimilar unices, is going to be a hell of a lot easier than parity between a *nix triad of products and a Windows version.

Public service?

[Rui del-Negro]

You say that as if Microsoft had any obligation to port software to Linux. Microsoft cares only about money. If they can profit from Linux versions, they'll make them. The two reasons why they don't are simple: a) the user base (and thus the market share) still isn't attractive enough and b) they've been telling everyone what a terrible thing the GPL and OSS are, so now they can't start developing for a GPL'd, open-source OS without losing face.

RMN
~~~

Re:Public service?

[benedict]

Microsoft has never been afraid to do an about-face.
"Oceania is at war with EastAsia. Oceania has
always been at war with EastAsia."

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[MoneyT]

Did it occur to you that Apple might not want to make $$$ they may be happy with $? Think about it, if Apple can turn a business sustaining profit with a small number of people, and make those people happy, what need to they have of getting a larger and more diverse market? It's easier to win in Niches than it is to win in the general public. Besides, since they only make $, Apple doesn't get viewed with the same resentment that M$ does.

The other possibility is that Apple just enjoys what it does, hence, in the 90's when they tried to go to a PC business model they almost killed themselves and so they returned to the "hacker model". That is, doing what you do because you enjoy it. Apple likes making new, odd and niche computers, M$ does not.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[MoneyT]

Could someone tell me which PCI card for PCs has a mac counterpar that costs 3 times as much and runs 5 times slower?

Fate of Shake

[commodoresloat]

Apple announced the fate of Shake, but declined to comment on the fate of Rattle and Roll.

I have three Porsches actually... in NFS

[Rui del-Negro]

Porsche does control the production of Porsche cars, just as Apple controls the production of Mac computers and Microsoft controls the development of the MS Windows operating system. And, in a broad sense, you can call those situations 'monopolies'. But that's not the point.

The point is using their position in the market (and their customer's dependency on them) to impose unfair restrictions on their competitors and clients. I didn't say it was illegal (though, in some cases, it might be), I just said that there's no fundamental difference between the way Apple behaves and the way Microsoft behaves. The only difference is the scale.

And if, with PCs, you can still pick the hardware you want (despite Microsoft's control of the OS and software market), with Macs you are bound not only to Apple's OS (and software), but also to their hardware.

How many people will spend money on a new graphics card after being forced to pay for the card that came on their iMac? How many people will buy other editing programs after being forced to pay for Apple's Final Cut Pro? Apple is using its position as sole supplier of Mac OS systems to force people to pay for their software (even if later they decide not to use it, or to buy a competing program), while at the same time putting competitors at a disadvantage.

It's probably not illegal, but personally I don't like it, regardless of who does it (Microsoft, Apple, or any other company or individual).

RMN
~~~

Re:I have three Porsches actually... in NFS

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to face the fact that with the Windows/Intel monopoly, you basically have a choice in case design and power supply. Oh yeah you can pick a shitty graphics card or merely a crappy one. Yawn.
Does having a floppy drive make you feel l33t? I got a green on black CRT here. Wana buy it? Mebbe then you can feel as l33t as I do.

Yea and look how well that helped SGI

[BillTheKatt]

So Linux is making inroads into movie render farms. So did SGI/IRIX and look at where that took them.
If Linux wants to take over the world it needs to out-Microsoft Microsoft. Embrace and extend.
Look at Evolution and their Outlook replacement. Looks like Outlook, works like Outlook and connects to Exchange servers. Now that's a product that gives corporate IT execs wet dreams at night.

Maya will continue to run on all platforms....

[Anonymous Coward]

for the foreseeable future. I work there. Most of our customers run Maya on Windows. Most of our high-end customers used to run Maya on IRIX but have or are in the process of migrating to Linux (or to MacOSX in some cases). We have virtually no technical contact with SGI and they definitely do not enforce any OS-specific strategy on us. So don't worry. We'll continue to ship the best 3D apps out there, on all 4 platforms.

So can you please explain...?

[Rui del-Negro]

Did it occur to you that Apple might not want to make $$$ they may
be happy with $? [...]

So what need do they have to buy other companies simply to kill their products, and eliminate the competition?

Sorry but I can't understand what's so good about Apple killing Shake on the PC (it'll start with Windows but other versions will follow).

It it because it "hurts" Microsoft? Does that make it a good thing? In fact it doesn't hurt Microsoft at all. High-end workstations are small business for the OS maker (Microsoft makes about the same money off a high-end workstation as it makes off a home PC). The only people this will hurt is Shake's users. They'll be forced to switch to a different, more expensive, less versatile platform, just to keep using the same program. So they lose.

And a lot of them won't switch (because they rely on other programs, that don't exist for the Mac), so they'll just stop using Shake and move to Combustion or Digital Fusion or some competing product that still runs on Windows. So Shake loses, too.

Besides, since they only make $, Apple doesn't
get viewed with the same resentment that M$ does.

I think you have a point, there. Most people dislike Microsoft not because they are dishonest but because they are successful. For me it's not the amount of money that counts, or who is making it. It's how they make it.

RMN
~~~

Re:So can you please explain...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to scream. I think apple is trying to make products that have usefullness, and i do not think they are about money. They make money, but if they didn't they couldn't release efficient and usefull products. Now apple may not be the sharpest tool in the shed its got some very nice tools at the least. I used to have windows, but i had to pay for so much and it broke at least once a week. Well, it crashed anyway. I like how macs are compatible with just about everything, they look nice they're functional, and friendly. I can understand that M$ users fear macs, but thats because they do not know macs. And that may be a good thing. If people start off with M$ then learn that its too frustrating they will start to understand that macs make things easy. I think that M$ may be a good place to start, but if youve used a pc for over a year you might want to think about switching. macs are less maintenance, no defragging, or reinstalling the os. Apple isn't perfect, but so far theyve done nothing but good things for the computer industry lately. Don't hate macs.

Re:So can you please explain...?

[MoneyT]

Apple buys companies and kills competing versions for two reasons. One why should they promote their competitors? Don't like M$ confuse you, they didn't pay money and continue development of IE and Office for mac out of the goodness of their heart, the mac Office sales are huge, every single school that has a mac lab has Office, and it's a new license for each computer, that's a lot of money.

Two, they do it for the same reason they keep a tight control over their OS and Hardware, they can optimise them to work together. The reason apple can afford to be behind in the technology curve is because the software that they put out and the hardware are so tightly integrated they have the same comparable speed as the faster technology PCs.

So why did they kill the windows version? Well, it seems to me that the reason they would do that is because Windows is not a platform condusive to graphic and video design (for instance, for a very long time Intel's advertising department was a mac shop). I think that they are killing the windows version because they don't see a profit in it, and they're waiting to see what profits they can pull from Linux and Irix before they make a desicison about it.

Re:So can you please explain...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand what's so good about Apple killing Shake on the PC (it'll start with Windows but other versions will follow).

Now that is what this thread should be about. Not about Mac vs. PC (does anyone really doubt who the winner is?), but about what this kind of move from Apple means for the future of Shake. IMO it means there won't be one.

Re: nope

[fferreres]

That's not a monopoly. a Mac is a computer and they don't have a monopoly over it. MacOS is an OS and they don't have the monopoly either.

Thy just have a brand of computer/software that is kind of sucessfull and below 15% market share.

Please read some basic economy introduction to microecomics (or better yet, common sense) and you'll see.

iFUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple iFUD. Fret different.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

excuse me moderators why is this post Flamebait?

Why so touchy about Apple?

You disagree with the post ? Ok fine - logout and give him a piece of your mind. Don't try to mod this guy's valid perspective out of public view.
The poster makes a statement and characterizations you may personally object to, but he offers historical examples to back up what he says.
Usually that's called "argument", but certain people seem to just have huge problems seeing arguments in print that gore their sacred cows, even if the arguments are substantiated with examples and reasoning. So they lash out and try to make people like RDN up there shut up.
That's the mark of a real cowardly cunt.

Fuck Appple (read it anyway)

[E-Rock]

If our favorite software monopoly bought a company and supported every platform except one, we'd scream bloody murder. As long as it's the only actual monopolist (sells the hardware, software, upgrades [ha], and such) on the block it's ok. Fuck Apple and their crappy wanna be newage looking crap.

**I've had a few drinks, but I still think it's at worse rendundant. :)

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is trying to act like Microsoft (killing the competition) but they lack the intelligence (they 'think different'). Microsoft only kills competition that is still worse than their products. If they find something that's objectively better, they simply buy them, re-brand it as 'Microsoft', and sell it instead (at a higher price, possibly). And they don't just sell Windows versions. They sell to whoever is willing to buy. If it wasn't for the GPL, Microsoft would port all their software to Linux.

This statement by itself qualifies you as a either a troll or an astroturfer. Possibly both.

Not Flamebait.

[NanoGator]

Take a look at my parent post again. I think I made a pretty good point. I don't understand why my response was considered flame bait, but when somebody calls me stupid in the same thread and in the same topic, offering very little information to back up his claim isn't considered flame bait.

I took the time to put together a rebuttal to a point of view. There's a large difference between writing that and writing a post intended to make people fight with me about it.

Please reconsider your moderations of the parent post to my reply here.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't try to mod this guy's valid perspective out of public view.

What's valid about it? Seriously, I want to know. He's been throwing up the same straw man argument in every post and it holds almost no water.

Enlighten us, oh non-cowardly cunt, to the validity of his post.

Typical Apple

[Nogami_Saeko]

Since they can't compete on the hardware side, they purchase popular software packages and then restrict them to non-windows operating systems.

See Spruce DVD Maestro for another example.

"If you want to use the software, you have to work on an Apple".

Nice.

I used to have a bit of respect for Apple, but this sort of predatory software practise even puts MS to shame.

Re:Typical Apple

[Rui del-Negro]

My, my... flamebait without a single reply. I guess there's no fish in this pond.

RMN
~~~

Re: nope

[Anonymous Coward]

By that basic reasoning, Microsoft does not have a strict monopoly either.

Uh oh! PUNT NOW AND TAKE THE THREE!!!

Not to be captain obvious, but ...

[1in10]

If Microsoft did something like this, everyone here would be screaming blue murder. Yet when Apple drops support for platforms other than their own, it's ok?

Re:Not to be captain obvious, but ...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Yup. It will be OK for Apple to attempt to become a monopoly, until such time as they actually do. Then, all of these such actions will retroactively become evil. See, that's the US of A for you; punishing success at every turn.

Mac = PPC Machine + OS

[krmt]

Ok, you try buying a Mac with no OS... can't do it.

This is absurd. Of course you can't. The only people who make Macintoshes are Apple, Apple, and Apple. There are no clones, but then, why should there be? Apple could not survive with them in the market (proven previously) and without Apple, the clones would die themselves for lack of an OS. Everyone loses in the end, except Microsoft. Microsoft does, by the way, have the entire clones market completely locked up by teaming with a rotating cast of OEM's. Apple can't get in there, so their current business model is the only way they can survive.

You can build yourself a Mac if you'd like. There are no motherboards for PPC available, as far as I know, but that's because the market for it just isn't there. But barring that, it's all standard PC components from off the shelf, thrown in to a pretty case. If you think there's a great market for building PPC motherboards for mass consumption, I challenge you to start a company to do just that. But as it stands, there's no way to make money off a generic "Mac" without the OS, because it's just not necessary. Apple adds real value to the hardware with their OS, making it more than just a pretty box. If you want an empty box, then buy an x86 machine. The performance difference won't be so great that you'll really care, I can assure you.

It's the Same Platform

[krmt]

How different is the Mac platform than the PC platform? Processor different, Ok. Memory? Nope. CD/DVD drive? Available for both. Hard drives? Same. USB? Both. Firewire? Available on both. 3D accelerator cards? ATI and NVidia duke it out on both. Mice? USB-driven works fine on both. Keyboards? Same. Printers/Scanners? Same. Am I missing something?

Aside from the PPC vs. x86 comparison, the Mac and Wintel platform is essentially the exact same thing. Sure, Apple's hardware might look nicer, but the underlying stuff is identical.

So, then what is it that specifically makes you want to buy a Macintosh? The look? The platform is the same, processor aside, so what real features do you get out of running on Mac hardware vs. PC hardware? None, really. So, then why are you so concerned with buying a "Mac" with no OS on it? So you can run Linux or BSD? Why not buy an x86 box, given that everything else in the box is essentially the same thing, you lose nothing.

If there really was so much to gain from buying a PPC platform with no OS on it, the product would be there. After all, all that's missing is a PPC motherboard, and someone would make it if it were profitable to do so. But it's not, and if you think it would be profitable to do so, I challenge you to start a PPC motherboard company and see how far you get.

The reality of the situation is that the hardware no longer dictates, on the desktop, what the platform is. The x86 and PPC platforms are identical, except for the chip itself, and this is indicative of the fact the the actual platform people are worried about is the OS itself. Apple is not stopping anyone from producing a blanked PPC box, they are simply unwilling to license their OS out to anyone, because the OS is where the money is. Apple might control what goes in to the default configuration of every single box, but that doesn't make them any sort of monopoly, because you can get, for all intents and purposes, the same hardware platform elsewhere. You won't get the software platform you might want, but that's the value Apple adds to their system (the value is not in PPC vs x86, that I can tell you). And personally, I don't think you can argue that Apple has the right to add value to the machines that they sell. If they didn't, they wouldn't be competitive against the Microsoft monopoly.

Re:It's the Same Platform

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why doesn't Apple make OS X for x86? It's based on BSD, and BSD runs on x86, right? So they could make it for x86, and compete against Microsoft on the same (faster) hardware. The problem is, Apple charges insanely high prices for their hardware, and that's the only way it manages to remain profitable (that and the fact that it's partly owned by Microsoft). If Apple let people run their OS on 3rd party hardware, no-one would buy Macs, and they'd go bankrupt (yet again).

Anyway, Apple is free to do as it pleases, and Apple fans are free to go on paying ludicrous prices for Macs. But you can't criticize Microsoft for doing something and then cheer Apple for doing the same.

Personally, I think Macs are terribly ugly, and a lot of the software I use doesn't run on Mac OS, so I use Windows / Linux. But if I could run Mac OS X on one of my x86 boxes, I would probably buy it (if it cost about the same as Windows), just for fun. But I'm not paying three times the price of a good PC to end up with something that runs as slow as a Pentium II, and can't be upgraded.

Re:It's the Same Platform

[krmt]

Check your prices on Macs. The "Macs are too expensive" argument is a lie that's been refuted in just about every single Apple article on /. As such, you don't really need to buy an x86 PC.

Plus, as your argument goes, why doesn't Microsoft make Windows for PPC? Surely, if they did, there would be some market for PPC clones. No one is condemning Microsoft for this, because they do have the right to produce their OS for whatever platform(s) they wish. Apple does the same. The funamental difference in their business model, which is what has kept Apple alive and competitive mind you, is what prevents this from happening.

Apple doesn't have an Office suite to back up their OS sales. It doesn't have expensive dev tools any more. The actual money they make is in the hardware, but the software is the selling point. The Windows world is the exact opposite. Apple can't compete with Microsoft using their same business model. I know you'd love to see OSX on the x86, but that would kill any chance of having OSX around thereafter, which makes complaining about it pointless. Apple has to make money. This is the only way for them to do it.

Because of all this, I can criticize Microsoft for doing something and not Apple for doing the same thing. Apple does not have a monopoly on 3d rendering software, so shake isn't even an issue. And as for hardware, they might have a monopoly on OEM distribution for the PPC platform, but that's because they are the only one right now to try. Microsoft is free to produce Windows for PPC, and someone can build a PPC motherboard and ship Windows on their own box. Or you can even put Darwin or Linux on it. But this company will go out of business, because it's just not viable. Apple producing OSX for the x86 would kill them. Microsoft producing Windows for PPC wouldn't hurt them in the slightest. That's why I can criticize Microsoft, but not Apple. There is a difference.

Re:It's the Same Platform

[Rui del-Negro]

Check your prices on Macs. The "Macs are too expensive" argument is a lie.

I have. Before buying my DVD authoring system I actually considered buying a Mac. It turned out that, for the price of a Dual G4, I was able to buy a system that is 50% faster, has more memory and disk space, does real-time video effects and is easier to upgrade. I may not like Apple's business tactics (just as I don't like Microsoft's), but I also don't like to throw money away. If the Mac was cheaper (or better for the same price), I would have bought one.

Plus, as your argument goes, why doesn't Microsoft make Windows for PPC?
Surely, if they did, there would be some market for PPC clones.

Microsoft does not sell PCs. They sell software, period. Apple sells both the hardware and the software, and forces you to buy one if you want the other. On top of that, they have a deal with Motorola to make sure that no-one else can get PPC processors that are faster (or even the same speed) as the ones used in Macs.

I know you'd love to see OSX on the x86, but that would kill any chance
of having OSX around thereafter, which makes complaining about it pointless.

Why? If OS X is so obviously superior to Windows, surely some people (maybe not most, but enough) would switch from Windows to "OS X86". Overall, the number of OS X users could only increase if it ran on x86 (or x86-64) platforms.

Apple does not have a monopoly on 3d rendering software,
so shake isn't even an issue.

Actually Shake is a compositing program, not a 3D renderer.

And Shake is precisely the issue. Because Apple is deliberately killing all other versions of Shake (that a lot of people use) to force those people to buy their hardware. Shake does not "run better" on Macs. Apple isn't going to "improve" Shake. Shake will continue to be made by the same programmers, who had developed it for x86 platforms (Windows, Linux) and developed it well. And I really don't understand how this can make Mac users feel happy. A new version that runs much faster on Macs, yes, that would be a good thing. But why so much cheering because Apple is destroying something that already existed, and that several people depended on...?

Microsoft is free to produce Windows for PPC

Why should they? PPC is slower and more expensive than x86. Running Windows on PPC would only interest professional masochists. At least Macs have a decent operating system. Couple that with decent hardware and mentally sane prices and you have a great system, that can take on Microsoft on the desktop market. Microsoft is already running on the fastest, cheapest hardware. If there's an area that PC users need to improve, it's the OS. And if there's an area that Mac users need to improve, it's the hardware.

You know what I think? I think Microsoft is using Apple to improve its own image. They can say: "see, there's an alternative to Windows, there's competition. And it's more expensive and slower, and they try to kill their competitors just like we do, so we are the good guys!"

RMN
~~~

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[flynn_nrg]

" plus a hardware monopoly (even Mac's PCI 'thinks different' from PC PCI, so you can't use PC cards on a Mac and instead must pay three times as much for a card that's five times slower), plus a serious lack of braincells."

What you mean here is the PC is the only architecture that doesn't support Forth-code-enabled PCI cards, like the rest of the industry does, right?

Stupid, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just plain stupid. 3ds max is the fastest growing 3D animation program and it runs exclusively on Windows. Windows has much faster graphics than the Mac and runs on much, much faster hardware. Mac zealots remind me of the Amiga fanatics a couple of years ago, always saying how "the Amiga could do this and that in 1980". Well, problem is, that's _still_ all it can do. The PC has evolved. It's faster, it's better, it's cheaper.

Windows doesn't crash all the time. I have a Win2K box at home and I've seen it crash once in 2 years (when I swapped 2 cards and forgot to change the driver). And if you need top stability, you can simply install a unix (Linux, FreeBSD, you name it).

If you want to go on paying extra for slower systems just because they have gay-looking cases, be my guest. But don't pretend they're better because they're not. As someone else said, if Macs really were better at anything, they would gain market share naturally, Apple wouldn't need to buy out the competition just to kill them. Pretty GUI, yes. Nice OS, true (OS X). But dreadful, terribly overpriced hardware.

You say Apple wants to optimize Shake for their OS? Please! Do you think Apple is going to tell Shake's programmers how to do their job? They just bought it to kill (some of) the competition, because they know they would never gain market share otherwise. Look ar 3ds max, for example. Intel worked with discreet to optimize some functions for the Pentium 4. But it still runs on Athlons (and in fact, some Intel optimizations also made it run faster on Athlons). If it had been Apple doing it, the "Apple optimization" would have consisted of making it incompatible with the competition.

Microsoft and Apple are two bitches, but Apple is a blonde.

Re:Stupid, stupid

[MoneyT]

You missed what I said. I said that the windows platform was not known for it's graphics and video design, I did not say that it didn't have programs for it. There is a difference.

And as I tell every PC zealot who complains that the numbers on the mac are slow and that the macs are behind the tech curve, go out, buy one and use it for a while. Do reall work on it. Use it as your primary machine for a few weeks, then tell me what you think. If you don't like the mahcine, sell it, you'll get back most of your money because the resale value of a mac is huge.

And before you ask me if I've done that with a PC, I have. I used a Win2k box as my primary machine for about a month. The only thing I discovered that the PC (1.2 Ghz, 512M, 30G, 32M, DVD) could do that my iBook (300 Mhz, 192M, 6G, 4M[?], CD-ROM) could not do, or not do well was:
a) Play DVDs
b) Play Unreal Tournament and RTCW well.

I was expecting a whole lot more from the PC, and I got very little out of it. And when I got the iBook back. I went back to using that as my primary machine and now my W2K box is a Hotline server remotely administered by the iBook.

Stuck with Wintel? Only if your stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself. I don't run Windows and I don't have a single chip made by Intel in my PC. And I wouldn't call a GeForce4 4600 a shitty graphics card.

Abandon Ship....

[theartist]

I've been using Shake for a few years now and basically myself, and the studios I've been in contact have seemed to have decided two things regarding this. First most will just stop at 2.5 (last for Win, Linux, and Irix it seems), Shake is a great product and they just simply aren't going to upgrade or switch to Mac because of the cost and performance issues with the Mac. Plus all the custom scripts, plugins, etc written for their studio. Most studios have already bought licenses of Rayz or Combustion for their work now since it seems that Shake is dieing slowly.

It is really a shame, especially when Shake was becoming so common and was really kicking butt on the Linux side. It seems that Apple has signed the death warrant for serious compositing in Shake and now we are just left with iShake for Final Cut Pro enthusiasts.

BTW: I use IRIX, Linux, PC, and Mac in my work so I'm not creating a bashing thread here just the thoughts from the industry I'm part of.

Re:Abandon Ship....

[Anonymous Coward]

He said something mildly negative about Apple -
of course he knows he has invited the insanely biased moderators to do their thing. He'd have to know nothing about Macsdot to be ignorant of that risk.

Re:Abandon Ship....

[overunderunderdone]

It is really a shame, especially when Shake was becoming so common and was really kicking butt on the Linux side. It seems that Apple has signed the death warrant for serious compositing in Shake and now we are just left with iShake for Final Cut Pro enthusiasts.

I'm curious, how do you think FinalCut Pro would be recieved by the lower-end more budget conscious segment of the market if a substantial portion of shakes functionality was folded into it? Or perhaps as (relatively) inexpensive expansion module/plug-in for FinalCut Pro?

Shake

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if Windows has more users and more software that's because Windows is... er... better?

Have you considered that possibility?

People are free to install Linux or OS/2 (nice OS), or any other OS. But maybe Windows is closer to what the average Joe wants. I rather like W2K. It's stable, it's pretty fast, it has a nice interface and drivers for almost every piece of hardware out there.

Microsoft isn't being sued because they sell a lot; they're being sued because they're using illegal means (blackmailing, to put it bluntly) to make sure competitors don't have a chance. But their software is pretty good (and would be much better if they fixed the bugs instead of releasing a new version every year), so even without those illegal (and immoral) tactics, they would probably still dominate the market.

But Apple isn't exactly pure and innocent, either. They have a deal with Motorola to ensure that no-one else can build (competitive) PPC systems, so their customers are forced to pay their bloated prices.

Anyway, this discussion is about Shake. And I think Apple is making a mistake by killing the x86 versions of Shake. In this kind of market, speed is everything. A workstation running Shake is probably not going to be used to run any other program. People don't care what OS the program is running on, just how fast it runs. And x86 is much faster than PPC. Apple could go on selling Shake for x86 (and making money off it) until they have hardware that can actually compete with AMD / Intel. Shake isn't dead, but it's seriously numbed. It's a matter of time until Shake's competitors are so much faster (running on a 4-way SMP Hammer / Opteron, for example) that Shake simply becomes commercially inviable. Just look at what happened to the Amiga. Had some great software, but the hardware just couldn't keep up with the PC's open market, so it died.

Re:This is why Microsoft makes $$$ and Apple doesn

[Anonymous Coward]

Pentiums can work in big-endian mode too, actually. Athlons can't, AFAIK, but I'm sure AMD would change them if anyone ever used that mode in Intel CPUs.

Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple kills one of the few programs that gave Linux a foothold in the high-end graphics industry and slashdotters cheer? My my what the world is coming to.

What does Halo have to do with Shake??

[Rui del-Negro]

I'm sorry, how is this insightful? Because it bashes Miscrosoft? Halo hadn't even been released for the Mac (or any other platform). Microsoft didn't kill it, they simply released the X-Box version first to give it some leverage against Nintendo and Sony in the console market.

Of course there will be Windows and Mac versions of Halo. Microsoft likes money too much not to make them (and they have an investment in Windows and Apple too, remember?).

And Shake isn't a game. Large studios depend on it. And most of all they depend on its speed. Even the fastest PowerMac can't compete with a quad Xeon (Dual G4s barely manage to edge out a single-CPU Athlon, and are crushed by the much cheaper Athlon MPs). If Apple kills Shake on the fastest platforms, it kills Shake completely. Studios have deadlines to meet and they certainly aren't going to meet them if they're forced to use Macs for their render nodes. It's not a matter of price or even bang for the buck. It's a matter of bang, period.

I work in animation and post-production and I know what I'm talking about. Half the artists don't even know which OS they are running, and the other half doesn't care. They just want the thing to render as fast as possible. And if you don't believe me (it seems that I'm a troll for not applauding Apple's scorched earth tactics), check out this post.

Discreet, Eyeon and Silicon Grail probably can't belive their luck right now.

RMN
~~~

Re:What does Halo have to do with Shake??

[Bishop923]

Linux runs on Quad Xeon Machines just fine... As you said half the artists don't know or care which platform they are running so why not just drop the M$ tax and still run the app that they want on the hardware they want?

I'd also imagine that being able to drop Win32 would help considerably in development, they'll be able to focus on three similar platforms rather than 3 'nixes and odd-man-out Win32.

Re:What does Halo have to do with Shake??

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Apple is going to kill all x86 platforms. They'll start with Windows, but they've already announced that other platforms will only be supported until 2003. From a render node's point of view, the OS is almost irrelevant; rendering code is optimized for a specific processor, not for a specific OS. Linux (x86) code would be very similar to Win32 code. It would be very different from Mac (PPC) code.

Time to be optimistic about future Apple Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Many years ago, long before the birth of firewire, I read an article somewhere that basically said that firewire (in those days it was just a future technology) would allow for multiple processors to be added to machines to achieve what people now seem to call 'render farms'. Hot swappable Plug and play processors in stripped down units (only the bare essentials).

The article said that this would never be a reality because special software would be needed to make it happen and at the time Apple was very much a closed shop and Apple would never adopt such a policy.

Now we have Darwin, OpenSource and software that turns current mac hardware (full blown machines) into clustering solutions. Margins on Macs are a whole lot lower than on the Macs of old.

Does anyone know if it is possible to make a processor boxes in this fashion using the bare minimum of components and connect them using firewire?

On another point it's obvious reading the posts here that many people are already scoffing at future Apple hardware announcements. This is strange because Apple is wading into the high-end workstation market with its recent software/hardware purchases and obviously will not bring new machines to market that do not pack a considerable punch. If one were to look at the current situation it seems clear that 'something wicked this way comes'.

The next big PowerMac revision will bring a completely revamped motherboard architecture with it and it would be totally ridiculous to put a workstation onto the market that wasn't optimized to the gills.

Apple knows that the high-end mac market needs to make up lost ground on speed and bandwidth fronts. The current version of the unified motherboard architecture is surely about to be replaced. Given the circumstances I would expect fireworks from Cupertino in the coming months.

Those who have already written off Apple's future hardware should look at all the indications before doing so. Every corner of the new revision (with the execption of the modem) will probably be replaced. Busses, interconnects, Firewire, processor, memory, Graphics and with a major revision of OS X sitting on it to boot! We are definitely not talking about simply re-tweaking a currnet model.

Industrial strength software requires indutrial strength hardware and Apple would not be acquiring such complex software if it could put it on decent hardware

Render Farm

[Rui del-Negro]

A render farm is simply a bunch of computers connected through a LAN that each render a different frame (or part of a frame) of a large animation. It's an old concept and is no way way related to Firewire / IEEE-1394. All high-end animation software (and some low-end as well) can be setup to render over a network, regardless of the platform (PC, Mac, SGI, etc.). Naturally, these computers don't need much besides fast CPUs and a network connection.

RMN
~~~

Why are the moderators so biased?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any special reason why every post saying "Macs aren't perfect" gets modded down as troll, flamebait, or offtopic, while every post that says "Macs rule" is modded up as insightful?

There are two posts on this thread, one about a guy making DVDs on a Mac, the other about a guy making DVDs on a PC, and comparing their system specs. The post about the Mac gets a ton of "insightful" and "interesting" points. The post about the PC gets modded down as a "troll".

Even funnier is how, on a discussion about Shake (a high-end program that most people know nothing about), the few relevant posts (ie, made by people who actually use Shake) are systematically being modded down because the moderators don't like what they're saying. Get a clue, idiots, this is a place for people to discuss and get information, not your stupid propaganda and obscurity.

The main page only posts news that are nice to Apple. Apple suing some company, Apple killing software on other platforms, some Mac that scores almost-as-good as some PC on some obscure test.

There's a real-world comparison between PCs and Macs running After Effects at Digital Video Editing. I submitted that as news and I know other people have as well. Does it get posted, even on a day without any other news? No. Because the results aren't "nice" (the Mac loses). But those are the real results (even on Adobe software!), and everyone who works in high-end graphics knows that.

Macs are fine for home use, especially for people who don't know or don't care about the technical details. But they are not able to perform at the same level as PCs (Win32/Linux/FreeBSD). It's a matter of hardware. The PC market has something called competition. That means PC hardware is faster and cheaper, and there's nothing Apple can do about that until they start playing by open-market rules.

I'll probably be modded down as a troll, or flamebait, or whatever, although none of the idiots moderating have the balls to answer, because they know the truth.

Re:"Reminder to Apple users..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there aren't. Usually there isn't more than 1 news item a day about Apple. You see, they only post "nice" stories, and there are very few of those around.

Re:...and we just ported our plug-ins to Shake too

[mbbac]

Just like Final Cut Pro is losing out to Avid? ;)

Rackmount hardware from Apple!

[2nd Post!]

In case you're interested, Monday, May 6th, Apple has preannounced Apple rackmount hardware, more info to be released May 14th or so.

This was from Job's keynote at the WWDC, which you can find in plenty of places.

Check the benchmarks

[bcaulf]

Okay, calling the guy a troll is uncalled for, given that he is right and you are wrong.

If you take a look at current SPEC Viewperf results you will see that NVidia's most recent "Quadro 4" chipset for professional users clocks in a lot faster than SGI's Octane personal workstation using their fastest graphics offering. The Quadro 4 cards cost $700-$1500. Granted the SGI is doing 12-bit per channel color instead of 8-bit on the PC. Few users care.

Today you have to spend not $20K but $200K to buy an SGI that is flat out faster than a $2K PC.