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| Architosh News Reports | |
| Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com) |
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NY Expo tales & tidbits: high-tech users and Mac OS X -p. 2
Collateral Personnel Downstreams: Mac OS X As many engineers are quick to point out, large engineering companies often have large collateral personnel bases. These individuals support the work of scientists and engineers by providing general business duties and research. For many of these non-technical users Windows-based office applications are their standard tools and since they are available for NT as well (such as MS Office) it makes sense for NT to be on everyone's desk. It provides a common user platform for such things as email, group scheduling, word processing, etc, etc.. However Macs have access to many of these same programs, including MS Office, groupware and corporate email applications. While many IT heads in these engineering companies know that it would be cheaper to deploy iMac and Power Macs in these non-technical areas, it simply doesn't make sense to do so if the engineers and scientist can't run most of their advanced engineering and visualization tools on them as well. Simply put, it doesn't make sense to introduce a third operating system into the mix, even if there is cost savings associated with that platform.
So not having the largest technical applications running on the Macintosh has hurt Apple more than it realizes over the years. Mac OS X -- because it is UNIX-based and could support advanced engineering applications -- is Apple's second big chance to become a major force in the technical market. What are these high-end UNIX apps that should be ported to OS X? As many of our engineering Autocad petitioners pointed out, ProEngineer is probably the most important technical application that currently does not run on the Macintosh and should. In fact, we have received many request for petitioning for this application (and Architosh may help in this effort in the future) which we are considering. As it turns out ProE on Mac OS X may be a reality in the not so distant future (more on that later). However, ProE is just the tip of the UNIX ice-burg. As Doug Wiser, an aerospace engineer in the US Airforce has so kindly pointed out, there are a number of key applications which have been traditionally UNIX apps which can all be ported over to OS X if given the incentive to do so:
CATIA is an important CAD and modeling application which Boeing runs on various UNIX hardware/OS configs. CATIA runs on any IBM RS/6000 workstation, which is based on the PowerPC 604 chip, according to one source. If CATIA is running on PowerPC chips now perhaps it would not be too hard to port it to Mac OS X. CATIA, by the way, is one application that some architects would run as well. It has become famous due to architect Frank Gehry's use of it on a number of high-profile projects around the world. CATIA also runs on Power2 and Power3 RISC processors, according to sources, on AIX versions release 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3. ALGOR, MSC NASTRAN, UNIC family products, and IDEAS by SDRC are some other key UNIX high-end applications vital to engineers. New York Expo Possibilities While it is not in Architosh's nature to make predictions for Macworld Expo, it is hard not to make some suggestions in this case. While the announcement of Maya on OS X came out of left field during Jobs' keynote at the Apple WWDC last May, it wouldn't surprise us and many others if Jobs was to make more announcements about the high-end market come this summer's New York Expo. While it is pretty certain that Jobs will announce a new iMac model -- possibly in a radical new shape -- and speed bumps to its professional line of Power Mac G4s, many can expect a focus on Mac OS X, Apple's next, state-of-the-art operating system based on a UNIX Mach core. In that light, it would seem natural to announce that some big hitters have been testing Mac OS X and will be deploying it in full force when it ships next January. Boeing would be a major announcement for the Mac platform and would send a loud message around the world that OS X is for real. Other possible announcements could be about Pixar's or ILM's use of Maya on OS X as well as ProE on OS X. Lastly, Apple and Autodesk could make a joint announcement about Autocad for OS X -- those recent rumblings have suggested that that effort was in trouble, however. Which is the whole reason for the petition effort. Closing Comments One thing seems certain about OS X as we move closer to its introduction. And that is that Apple is well aware of its potential in the traditionally UNIX-based, high-end engineering world. Whether or not Apple fully understands the true gains to be made in this large and lucrative market remains to be seen. However, with so much noise being made about OS X by this market segment and such industry heavy weights as Boeing, ILM and others being interested in it, it seems likely that Apple will eventually make a serious move. Coming in the future: Notes on ProE on Mac OS X efforts Other Architosh News Stories & Related Info MacCAD News: Autocad and ProE for Mac OS X efforts - Hot! Mac3D News: Strata introduces Strata3D, and for FREE! - Hot! Alias' StudioTools CAID and Apple's Industrial Design Group - Hot! Architosh reminds you to take a look at LightWave 6.0! Palladio software for the Macintosh: Book plus Planmaker / Facademaker Special Mac REPORT: Diehl Graphsoft explains merger with Nemetschek
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