Quoth the infamous Ernie P.:
>I was wondering if people here have been following the things happening
>with WebPages and the Neticity workstation. It sounds exciting, but I
>don't know if it will make a big dent in the world or not. Anybody
>make it to WebWorld?
Anyone who thinks WWW is the next saviour of the NS market is fooling themselves. Even
the Koolaid King has kept his distance from this lame theory. At best, NeXT ISVs are
keeping up with where the rest of the world is already headed. I applaud and support all of
the WebStep efforts--and AFS is committed to making its tools HTML-capable later this
year--but it's not going to make a dent in the larger world. NS may have given birth to the
Web, but its care and feeding have long since passed to other operating systems. Like
tables, HTML authoring will soon be one of those check-off items you need in order to be
considered for adoption in larger enterprise environments. But few people are suddently
going to make the grand leap to NS just for the sake of its Web tools.
As evidence, I quote from the headline article on this morning's Open Systems Today:
-----
Miscrosoft's Free Net Tool Entices Word 6.0 Converts
Internet Assistant for Word For Windows is an easy-to-use HTML authoring tool AND
FULL-FEATURED WEB BROWSER [my emphasis] that is well integrated into Word For
Windows. And Microsoft is giving it away for free.
-----
A long, glowing review follows with screen shots on the inside pages. The only noted
disadvantage is the additional RAM requirements, but OST's recommended 8MB is
nothing compared to NS. The release version of IA is scheduled for late February. So
basically, the world's favorite word processor has an at-least-competent web authoring
extension. It certainly doesn't sound bad enough for people to throw up their hands and
say "Gross! Gimme some of that NEXTSTEP over there." In fact, it sounds good enough to
keep everyone who has already committed to Word firmly in their camp.
There is also a two-page, glowing review of Cyberleaf, Interleaf's new tool that turns
WordPerfect, FrameMaker, Interleaf, and RTF documents into HTML. "Cyberleaf is sure to
become a staple in any Webmaster's bag of tricks." And of course, it runs native on
Windows, NT, and almost every Unix-based system other than NEXTSTEP. $495
Windows, $795 Unix.
Before y'all start flaming me about the source of these reviews, no fair jumping on OST as
one of Mr. Bill's minions. Those of you who receive it can attest that no magazine has
given NeXT fairer or fuller coverage. They claim to be for Open Systems, and best as I
can tell, they mean it. I have not seen any evidence of OS bias in this publication.
The bottom line is, NS is a small and slowly growing market. The current population
contains many sophisticated users who are much more likely than J. Average Luser to be
Web authors and subscribers, but the tools on other platforms are not so lacking that you
can make a compelling argument to switch to NS. Which means that us ISVs have an
obligation to help our existing users keep up with the Joneses, but there's no point wasting
resources in a vain attempt to attract new families to our cozy little neighborhood on the
basis of this relatively specialized feature.
Flame away.
greg