Yes - I had a similiar experience. I live and work in the L.A. area and got layed off awhile back after 4 years as a "web master" and could not find new work for 6 months. What made this worse was it was for a non-profit so I could not take advantage of COBRA or anything like that. 2 kids - no income - no insurance. I sent out hundreds of resumes and calls and got only 1 real interview - luckily they hired me, or I would probably be doing something completely different now. What I discovered though, and I have found this to be increasingly true for both web development and programming as well is that less and less companies are looking for full-time salaried employees. They want to develop on the cheap with a blend of contract work, off-shoring, and 3rd party outsourcing of services. Why pay all that extra money for insurance, workers comp., pension, etc. when you can just put together a hodge-podge of desperate people? I think this is bound to bit back sooner or later however, as comapanies realize this a recipe for developing some seriously crappy projects.
At first I thought iWorks looked like the rumoured "Office replacement" that I have heard about. Sure it only has a word processor and presentation maker, but it follows in the path of "coolness" that Apple does best in. They both look sufficiently "slick" and easy to use, and the word processor seems to have good (basic) interoperability with Office files and PDF. Then I thought that it seemed as if they are missing out of the real guts of what business users need like not having a spread sheet to replace Excel, and some of the other Office integration components mentioned before.
But you know what, there is just not that much you can do to make a spread sheet application sexy and useful for a home user (accountants don't care about sex anyways), so it is probably a smart move by Apple to skip these apps. This is where Apple seems to be concentrating their efforts - focus on the home PC and home user. A home user does not want to do work at home (usually) and if they need to the company buys them a lousy Dell laptop. They will never win the office space in my opinion, so after the succss of consumer-oriented devices like the iPod, this seems like a very shrewd and logical move by Apple to win over the home user, and leave the office space to M$.
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Yes - I had a similiar experience. I live and work in the L.A. area and got layed off awhile back after 4 years as a "web master" and could not find new work for 6 months. What made this worse was it was for a non-profit so I could not take advantage of COBRA or anything like that. 2 kids - no income - no insurance. I sent out hundreds of resumes and calls and got only 1 real interview - luckily they hired me, or I would probably be doing something completely different now. What I discovered though, and I have found this to be increasingly true for both web development and programming as well is that less and less companies are looking for full-time salaried employees. They want to develop on the cheap with a blend of contract work, off-shoring, and 3rd party outsourcing of services. Why pay all that extra money for insurance, workers comp., pension, etc. when you can just put together a hodge-podge of desperate people? I think this is bound to bit back sooner or later however, as comapanies realize this a recipe for developing some seriously crappy projects.
As a parent myself, and one who volunteers with family community services ... Amen.
At first I thought iWorks looked like the rumoured "Office replacement" that I have heard about. Sure it only has a word processor and presentation maker, but it follows in the path of "coolness" that Apple does best in. They both look sufficiently "slick" and easy to use, and the word processor seems to have good (basic) interoperability with Office files and PDF. Then I thought that it seemed as if they are missing out of the real guts of what business users need like not having a spread sheet to replace Excel, and some of the other Office integration components mentioned before.
But you know what, there is just not that much you can do to make a spread sheet application sexy and useful for a home user (accountants don't care about sex anyways), so it is probably a smart move by Apple to skip these apps. This is where Apple seems to be concentrating their efforts - focus on the home PC and home user. A home user does not want to do work at home (usually) and if they need to the company buys them a lousy Dell laptop. They will never win the office space in my opinion, so after the succss of consumer-oriented devices like the iPod, this seems like a very shrewd and logical move by Apple to win over the home user, and leave the office space to M$.
-- foil