[Ham-Mac] What I don't like?

[Mike Murphree]

On Apr 12, 2004, at 9:34 AM, Sergei Ludanov wrote:

> It is easy to complain about  limited availability of ham radio 
> software  for Mac platform, but this is a reality that we'll have to 
> face at least for now. There is a huge difference between PC ham world 
> and Mac one. PC is big enough, that competition is actually works to 
> it's advantage. On the other hand there is basically only two major 
> developers of ham software on Mac - Don and Chris and they are both 
> doing great job! Given the size of Mac market, there really is no 
> place for competing software.

Whoa!  Hold on a second here... no place for competing software?  If 
so, why don't we all sell our Macs and buy Windows computers now?   It 
seems rather silly to run off any developer wanting to write software 
for the Mac.

>  Introduction of such software may have opposite effect, instead of 
> encouraging developers, it may discourage them. I learned it a hard 
> way. Even though OrbitaX was not intended as attempt to compete with 
> MacDoppler Pro (and it really can't with it's limited functionality) 
> it had a negative impact on distribution and further development of 
> MacDoppler Pro.

Your preliminary software package had a negative effect?   I find that 
hard to believe.
Who convinced you of that?   Even if it did, competition is generally a 
healthy thing...


>  Yes, there is a great potential for use of Mac in ham radio and there 
> are a lot of areas that software has to be developed for Mac to 
> compete with PC world, but that how we should look at it now, compete 
> with PC not discourage our own Mac developers. As for shareware prices 
> on MultiMode or MacDoppler Pro, they are dictated by (again) market 
> limitations.

Market limitations?  As in what the market will bear?  Unfortunately 
the cost of Mac software (not just ham) is often determined by 
availability and not necessarily the value of the software.

Another interesting thing that I've heard in this thread is that the 
quantity sold would not justify the expense of writing the (ham) 
software.  While this may be true,  most us realize by now that you're 
not going to get rich selling ham equipment or software.  The question 
that I would ask is would that developer have written the software for 
himself anyway, after which other sales would just be icing on the 
cake?
Also a number of the developers of PC software have supplemented their 
incomes with sales to commercial customers in addition to individuals, 
why does this not work for Mac developers as well?

>  Instead of trying to start from ground zero, I think efforts should 
> be directed towards helping (with suggestions, advise, ideas) to help 
> make MultiMode the best ham radio communication software on any 
> platform, as MacDoppler Pro is for satellite tracking. When Mac market 
> will grow there will be space for  competition, freeware and 
> everything else that PC users enjoy, but this time has not come yet.

I've downloaded Multimode a few times for evaluation and I didn't 
really have a problem with its feature set.  It was more a case of 
getting the available features to actually work and to get the program 
to run without crashing.  I wish Chris luck, but will continue to use 
other solutions until things improve.

73 Mike W4LNA