[thelist] The Mac Market (was: Mac runtime for java update?)

[i]

Greg,

> Without getting into a platform war (not sure how appropriate it is)

It's considered inappropriate, but don't let that stop you - just tip all the
way. ;)

> point, M$ in their cunning business strategy infused the education market

I apologise, but I'm unaware of a company named "M$"...

> with literally hundreds of reduced price or free PCs.  No blame to the

As has been said, Microsoft doesn't build PCs. It may have funded computer
purchases, or offered cheap/free software, but this is hardly any different from
Apple offering educational discounts (see the recently announced cube bundle for
students/whatever). It's the same tactic Jobs used - get the kids.

Incidentally, heroin dealers often use the same tactic - offer kids a few free
deals, and then you've got them. But that's not to say Microsoft or Apple
shouldn't be using similar tactics. They're hardly dealing heroin.

> literally millions of Mac users.  Why would you do anything that would
> alienate or frustrate even 500,000 users who may visit your site?  I am not

Well, the humour factor... oh, and a lifetime war against Mac goons.

JK. ;P

As Martin has mentioned, for a critical system like Internet banking, and with
things like time-to-market to consider, it's not always viable to consider the
less-popular platforms. Is it worth losing 6+ months in development, and spend
extra on a different solution, just to make a few customers happy? Sometimes
it's not... In that 6 months, they'd probably lose *far* more customers (of more
commonly used platforms also) to other banks for not having Internet banking *at
all*.

Businesses evaluate and make the decision(s) - you can't blame them for that.


With a simple Web site, however, it is not hard to have things happy on all/most
platforms. A few quick tests on a friend's Mac, and a couple of code tweaks.

> at the "higher-ups who think that Macs are some sort of fringe element,
> radical muckrakers who care nothing for business but only for graphics.

I don't think that any bank executives would be thinking that... see above.

> Don't even get me started on Quicktime/Real Player/Media Player. ;)

Funny you should mention "start" and "quicktime" - I can't even get Quicktime to
start properly or work reliably on this machine... ;)

> P.S.  I know the links are from Apple's website and rightly they should be
> suspect as proof but I couldn't find anything anywhere else on such short
> notice ;O).

Suspect is an understatement... at least Microsoft admit that your computer may
start playing classical music without warning, that the earth rotates in the
wrong direction, or Barney might start playing up (humourous kb articles from
their site) - while Apple is notorious for deleting tech support information on
critical issues like common bad pixels in powerbook displays, etc. (I don't use
a Mac, but I read Macintouch occasionally.)


i

<tip type="url hacking" author="isaac">

Don't float users out in a directory without an index. Many users backtrack by
hacking (hacking as in 'cutting' rather than the coding term) the URL.

ie, if they're at: http://www.yoursite.com/articles/fish_lurk_in_streams.cfm
they'll hack it back to /articles/

Put an article index in there instead of leaving it as an unbranded directory
listing or, sometimes even worse, a 'directory browsing not allowed' error.

</tip>