There have actually been a number of lay-offs in the science and
technology markets at Apple over the last year or so. I can only hope
that Apple is not losing focus of the science markets as I have seen a
bit of traction for OS X recently from entrenched Wintel users and
developers I've been talking with. The CTO of one company I've been
speaking with is actually pretty excited and is working on getting the
message out to their board of directors who hopefully will look at
bringing some of their *NIX code back to the platform by working with
X11.
Additionally, rather than simple marketing to science users and science
developers, I've long thought that Apple could really gain a lot of
focus in the science market by identifying a couple of applications
that are crucial to a number of areas in science and using open source
code already out there to improve upon them with an OS X only solution
that would make the Mac (particularly an OS X Mac) a necessity. My
bias is bioscience, but I am thinking of an application something like,
say, ImageJ that a whole bunch of disciplines use. In fact, scientific
imaging is a potential strong point for Apple as they have a long
history in imaging and massive outlays in R&D in imaging as well as a
number of technologies that could be leveraged. Don't forget, Apple
was one of the first companies to create a digital camera for the
consumer with the Quicktake, and with other products in their pocket
such as Firewire, Quicktime, Altivec, Colorsync, Quartz and Quartz
extreme, Inkwell etc... they could have a serious contender in this
market that could reflect in sales to bioscience, earth science,
forensics, etc...etc...etc... An argument could even be made that a
relationship between Apple and Pixar (yes, Pixar, if that could ever
happen) that could result in some serious benefits to the science
community through some relatively inexpensive investments in imaging,
cluster computing and databases that might also benefit Pixar. Ah, the
good old days of the 90's where "skunkworks" labs at tech companies
were more common. With a little focus and direction, really cool stuff
emerges from collaborations such as that.
Bryan
On Sunday, June 1, 2003, at 10:03 PM, Dave Schroeder wrote:
Apple has laid off Morgan Simpson, the Senior Manager for Science and
Technology Markets at Apple. This wouldn't seem to bode well for
SciTech at Apple. It appears that there may be no person responsible
for this at Apple now (I hope I am incorrect, and further, that Apple
hasn't decided that its normal channel staff and "Pro" marketing is a
worthy replacement). First the SciTech web site disappears when, if
anything, it should be expanding; and now this. Perhaps someone from
Apple can comment on its commitment to these markets? Mac OS X and
related products may be great for the sciences, engineering, etc., but
you can't expect to do nothing internally to support these specialty
marketplaces.
Regards,
Dave Schroeder | University of Wisconsin - Madison
Apple Distinguished Educator | Division of Information Technology
Email: email@hidden | Platforms and Operating Systems
Pager: email@hidden | 3108 Computer Science and Statistics
Pager: +1 800 449-4951 | 1210 West Dayton Street
Phone: +1 608 265-4737 | Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1685
Bryan William Jones
email@hidden
University of Utah School of Medicine
Moran Eye Center Rm 3407
75 N. Medical Dr.
Salt Lake City, Utah 84132
http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~marclab/
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