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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.)
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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.
Hippies smell.
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.
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?
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!!!
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?
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?
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.
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.
-- SilentTristero
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.)
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.
-beme
1971
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.
The sad part is that's probably a significant percentage of overall sales.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
MS did exactly that with MS Project and Outlook..... just consider it karma
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.
"Derp de derp."
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?
woof!
Nice to see Apple taking active part in the war against M$. Hopefully more people migrate to Linux and Mac OSX...
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.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
But I still want to know, will they offer the Shamrock Shake?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Apple makes Shake
Shake runs on linux
Shake does video
Quicktime is video
Quicktime for linux?
I hope so.
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.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
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
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Your fatal mistake is assuming that Apple doesn't make money....
US$40M profit this quarter, beating analyst expectations by a penny/share.
woof!
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.
SIGFEH
1) This kind of thing can never happen w/ free software.
2) Apple is denying itself revenue by cutting off a major platform.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Linux, I can understand. But Mac? Why? So you're stuck with their hardware, as well as their OS?
RMN
~~~
I bet they're using mostly the same codebase for
all the ports except the Windows one.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Isn't shake like $20000 software? The hardware is not exactly the pricey part here. :)
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?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
> 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.)
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
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
Breakfast served all day!
(I think by "deplementing" you mean "end-of-lifing.")
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Hi, Microsoft already did something quite like this!
rooooar
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)
Hippies smell.
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...
"De-plementing" was the best word I found to contrary to "im-plementing". :-) But then again I could be wrong.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
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.
woof!
Compared to Microsoft, EVERYONE is an "also ran."
woof!
GPL is just an excuse for not porting software on linux. If it wasn't GPL it would be some other lame excuse.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
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
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
"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.
"Derp de derp."
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
Coming soon - pyrogyra
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.
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.
--
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.
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.
woof!
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.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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)
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.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
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
~~~
"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.
"Derp de derp."
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$.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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
~~~
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).
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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
~~~
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?)
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!
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.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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
~~~
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.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Could someone tell me which PCI card for PCs has a mac counterpar that costs 3 times as much and runs 5 times slower?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Apple announced the fate of Shake, but declined to comment on the fate of Rattle and Roll.
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
~~~
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.
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.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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
~~~
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.
-- "--," ?
And as a result of that... do you prefer a traditional timeline or a node-based render queue?
RMN
~~~
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.
unfinished: (adj.)
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).
Albuquerque PC
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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
"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.
"Derp de derp."
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?
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
" 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?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.
--- Whasabi!
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
~~~
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.
-- "--," ?
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
~~~
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.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Just like Final Cut Pro is losing out to Avid? ;)
mbbac
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.
GPL Deconstructed
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.