Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

29 Sep 00

Scientists hunger for Mac OS X, initial report

Architosh ran a story two weeks ago on Apple seeking assistance in gathering information on strictly Unix applications for science and technology. This critical feedback from the science community would assist Apple in determining which apps are most critical to adoption of Mac OS X in the high-tech/science market.

While we are in the process of preparing a longer report, it turns out that individuals representing many scientific institutions around the world are all saying the same thing, namely, that they are seriously looking for adoption of OS X and need certain apps to be ported from Unix (and in some cases Linux) to Mac OS X. The bottom line is that the science community has had their eye on Mac OS X for quite some time.

Hundreds of request point to key apps

By far the most sought after application for Mac OS X is MatLab by MathWorks Inc. The company was a past Mac OS software supporter so getting MatLab back on the Mac shouldn't be a problem. The request for this application alone is quite staggering, though we have no precise numbers to report just yet. Suffice it to say, we will give you the numbers later; the important thing to know now is that some institutions would completely switch over (or eliminate NT) to Mac OS X, keeping their Unix workstations for certain advanced work.

Other highly requested applications included ProEngineer, Maple, Mathematica, and Autocad. On the engineering side, CATIA, IDEAS, SolidWorks and even Alias Design Studio were all requested. SolidWorks in particular is highly sought after on the Macintosh.

There were also quite a bit of apps mentioned for specific fields, including astronomy, chemistry, biomedicine, DNA-sequencing—which is very important—and physics.

Next Steps?

A few of the participants sent in huge emails with detailed discussions on science and the Macintosh, histories of individual applications, links to open-source work done in Unix and Darwin, and all kinds of other info useful to this endeavor. John Martellaro, Senior Marketing Manager for Science & Technology Markets, is working with this information. John will also be contacting key individuals and asking them if they want to join the Apple Science Advisory Group (ASAG) that he formed as part of his new role at Apple.

Many of you may know John from the Mac Web world as a popular journalist. John is a trained physicist, a former Cold War national laboratory scientist, and now Apple employee. The science community is very excited about his role at Apple.

If you are interested in helping Apple in science send us info.