>Some short comments on the general subject. In this entire thread, nobody
>was able to cite a commercial finite-element application that is now
>becoming available for the Mac.
Actually 3 were cited. COSMOS/M, LapFEA and VisualFEA. I use COSMOS/M on
my Mac and have been for years. LapFEA is another one to try, since it's
descended from software written by MacNeal Schwendler. I haven't had time
to try out VisualFEA--it'll have to wait 'til I get to Dunn's for WiFi
access.
>Engineers tend to buy the biggest performance bang for the buck. They get
>tired of running a single finite-element job for several days, and start
>looking for quicker, cheaper ways of getting the job done.
I'll give you my take on this, since I've been in the FEA biz for 25
years. Most engineers who use FEA work for large companies where the IT
droids make the decisions. Engineers rarely win fights with IT. I'm
continually amazed by the number of closet Macheads there are among
engineers I run into. Almost without exception they think the Mac is the
better machine, but they can't get their Mac in the door because IT won't
support network access and the CW is (still) that there's no software for
the Mac. And in the corporate world uniformity surpasses both cleanliness
and godliness. I confess I don't know what motivates the IT droids to put
up with Wintel. Between the viruses, the constant upgrades and the bugs,
you'd think they'd come around, but they don't.
>Perhaps when the rumored 3 GHz G5 shows up, and the
>4 GB memory addressing limit is increased, then engineers will start looking
>at the Mac as the best for engineering solutions.
Hardware is not a solution, unless there's software. It's very much a
whipsaw. The thing that made enterprise computing a reality was the
invention of the spreadsheet and the WYSIWYG word processor. Apple is
living proof that software sells hardware, not the other way around.
Failure to recognize that is probably what did in the MacSciTech
organization. We tried to sell science and technology for the Mac to
Apple--we should have been selling the Mac to technical software
developers. Apple's success in graphic design is because Mac's run Adobe
apps and Quark Express so very, very well. The combination of Mac and
Photoshop is like lamb and rosemary--world class.
I think what's needed for sciTech to migrate to the Mac is a killer
app--like Excel and Word and the WYSIWYG notion. I figured OpenDoc would
be it at one time--the ability to assemble custom apps from commercial
software used as building blocks really sounded hot. It still sounds hot,
but unfortunately it's dead. The whole UNIX thing may be what's needed to
encourage major developers like ANSYS or MSC to recompile their LINUX or
Sun work station software for the Mac, but they aren't going to do it
unless they can see a market or unless they're confronted with such a
killer app that's obviously so superior it'll practically sell itself.
Frankly, I think a version of ANSYS or NASTRAN for the G5 that's
Applescript-able and with their wretched Windoze interface replaced by a
Mac-centric one, would be truly killer, even in a vertical market like
engineering analysis. Mate it with a 3D modeler like FormZ or the Ashlar
Vellum CAD software and you'd have the new WYSIWYG.
I really do need to get back to work so I can get that prescription
refilled... I'm starting to sound like Archie Plutonium. ;->
Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
email@hidden | this distance" (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw
_______________________________________________
scitech mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/scitech
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
