Anthony Frausto (afrausto@architosh.com)

17 Jan 2004

 

Macworld Expo Highlights and Misc. Thoughts

On the Event Itself

As we already mentioned this was our first time out to San Francisco specifically for Macworld Expo. The Moscone Center is in a great location in downtown SF. Right next door to the center is San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, which was designed by world renown Swiss architect, Mario Botta. (for a QuickTime article on Mario Botta click here.) Of course San Francisco is loaded with interesting architecture to see including the Golden Gate Bridge.

We would love to encourage more CAD/3D and AEC users to make the annual trip to SF Macworld Expo as a way of stimulating interest in the show as a venue for this type of work and software development. All of the software developers we spoke to said the show was turning out great for them -- which we were encouraged to hear. I'm speaking specifically about Mac CAD/3D and AEC developers.

Of Apple and Things

You may be encouraged to hear that Apple is actively interested in further stimulating software development in the CAD and AEC markets. It has been a long time (nearly five years) since I began this site and it appears that Apple is finally coming around to warming up to this market. By "this market" I mean specifically AEC, CAD and technical visualization and engineering fields. The good news is there appears to be good news and I would be remiss if I didn't do the right things now to help encourage Apple along.

Is SF Macworld A Good Show for Technical Visualization Users?

For both a general Mac user or a technical one like an architect, the SF Macworld Expo is the best show one can attend. This year's product announcements were a bit anemic since there were no new major computer products introduced, but the Jobs Keynote was still exciting because of the whole introduction of the digital music strategy. GarageBand rocks! And the iPod mini should sell well in addition to come down to that 'magic-mass-market-price-tag' figure of $195.US, sometime later this year we expect. In fact, given the sellout rate for the regular iPod during the holiday quarter, I suspect that Apple and Jobs decided the price of the iPod mini was good at $249US in the short term in order to not run out of them in the next quarter due to popular demand. Still, this is the product -- in my opinion -- that they should plan on selling in the range of 500,000 units per quarter in the coming year. In other words, this is your wife's, husband's, girl friend's, or daughter's "starter" iPod.

What My Windows Buddies Are Saying About iTunes and the iPod

What, you have Windows buddies? I can hear some of you saying that. Yes, it's true. My best buddy, who is also an architect and painter, received an iPod many months ago and absolutely digged it. Unfortunately for him he left it in a taxi cab before he ever got to experience the release of the Windows version of iTunes. Currently, in the firm were I'm an associate, a number of Windows users are finding iTunes to be the coolest software they've ever used. Imagine that? What a revelation! The coolest software they have ever used and it doesn't come from Microsoft. That fact alone is changing people's perspective on Apple.

Cupid and the Arrow: A Lesson Plan

Few Windows people -- it seems -- have any idea just how cool and awesome Apple's stuff really is. Just this past week a fellow in my firm who got an iPod for the holidays turned to me and said, "this FireWire stuff is awesome!" I said, "no kidding, isn't great we have Apple around to invent this stuff for us?" It is really great that Apple has developed this new strategy which will allow Windows users to -- over time -- fall in love with Apple gear. Romance really is the best weapon.

Apple has the opportunity to develop a 'Cupid Strategy' with digital music. Cupid is an apt metaphor for Apple's strategy because Cupid was originally very mischievous and enjoyed matching odd couples and seeing how things would evolve. Saying that a Windows user -- who may have always hated Macintosh computers but never used one -- has now fallen in love with an Apple iPod is -- quite frankly - a little odd! Apple's first task is to get people to fall in love with something the company makes, other than a Mac, and then to sit back and see how things evolve. Some unknown percentage of Windows-based iPod users will fall so in love with Apple's music solution (iPod + iTunes + Music Store) that they will definitely consider looking at the rest of the company's product line. And that should mean OS X and the Mac.

That's good news for Apple...

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