• Early Years and Apple II

• Macintosh Development and MacPlot

• MacDraft

• MacDraft and Mac OS X

• 3D World and Other OS X Plans

• Mac OS X Plotter Driver Development

• On Being a Mac OS X Developer

• Looking Into the Future

AFR Let me ask you some questions about being a Mac OS developer working on OS X. How has the transition to OS X development been for Microspot?

RC. Hmm....I really can't talk about that too much. We are doing some of our work outside of the company.

AFR Sure.

RC We took the route that Carbonization was something that you only have to do once. So why do we want to learn a lot about it? So we thought it was better to get the Carbonization process done outside.

AFR You are referring to consulting firms that specialize in Carbonization work?

RC Yes.

AFR So as developers are you interested in the Cocoa side of OS X ?

RC Oh yes, definitely! Yes, We like the Mac OS platform a lot It's obviously a preference. So we will want to move on doing development using the best development system for the machine.

AFR Sure. Where do you see the Macintosh in the technical market in the UK? Is it strong?

RC I wouldn't say very strong. No, but I hope that in the next couple of years we will be able to make some impression on that with MacDraft.

AFR Right.

RC And also maybe in the education market. In the UK it has done reasonably well, but obviously not the penetration like in the US market.

Our products are really of a technical nature. So we are hoping that Apple will push forward with the SCI-tech side.

AFR Do you have any other products planned for the future that we don't yet know about?

RC I don't have anything that I want to discuss now...(laughter)

AFR (laughter)...OK.

RC We do have other product plans. And you know...I'm just not ready to talk about them now.

AFR OK. Well, will they be in the technical market?

RC Yes. And related in some ways to plotter drivers.

AFR I wanted to ask this earlier. Microspot. If you had to characterize it as a company, are you a CAD software company?

RC. Yes, I guess we are really because I mean our main product has always been our plotter and printer drivers. Then there is MacDraft/PC Draft and then 3D World. And then really the only products that aren't sort of CAD are PhotoFix and MediaAssistant that goes with it.

So yes, I would say we are a CAD company.

You know we are strange company in a way because we have been going so long. Most developers in the Mac market are relatively new companies and we've done well to survive over the years and increase our product line. And what we are trying to do now is start selling our products to new users as opposed to upgrading existing users.

AFR Now do you have retail product or channel plans to increase product exposure?

RC. Yes, that is what we are trying to figure out now. How to market the products. What vertical channels to go after. We can't really afford to do very broad based marketing, we have to pick some vertical markets and go after them.

Obviously they are going to be in engineering, architecture and technical illustration...those sort of areas...and maybe education. We have some ideas. And we are going to start working on those.

AFR Sounds good. And I wish you the best. Thank you for talking to us today.

RC Well, thank you for the interview. And I hope it provides some good answers.

AFR Oh, definitely. I think our readers will have found your company and its products interesting. Microspot has been around much longer than I had realized...and its good to see that your enthusiasm and commitment to the Mac is so strong.

RC Well, thanks again.

That concludes our interview with Robert Coulling, Managing Director of Microspot Limited in the United Kingdom, one of the larger Macintosh CAD companies providing market leading products in the plotter driver and printer driver area and a leading entry level CAD product called MacDraft.

We hope you have enjoyed this interview and please be on the lookout for a MacDraft 5 review article coming up very shortly.

You can win a copy of MacDraft 5 by entering our Architosh Forums Contest. See the Microspot Sponsors graphic link directly below.

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