On 18 Aug 2003 at 15:56, Darcy James Argue wrote: > No offense but at this point, you're lucky that *any* software company > is releasing *any* new version that doesn't require OS X. OS 9 is > long dead, and OS 8.6??? That's over five years old at this point. > Most current Mac software requires OS X. Virtually all of it requires > at least OS 9, and that's been true for some time now. So I'm not > sure why you were expecting Finale 2004 to be the sole exception to > the trend. Coda have supported OS 8.6 well past the end of its > natural lifespan.
While this may be true on the Mac side, on the PC side, five years is a *very* short period of time for compatibility. There are very few types of Windows software that will not run on Win9x, unless the developers have specifically chosen not to support it. Why? Because the architecture of the kernels involved is such that it's not really an issue unless the product is hardware-related. Microsoft chose to design its Win32 API to work on both kernels (Win9x and WinNT), so that software written on top of that API would work seamlessly on both. This was in Microsoft's interest as a way of migrating users to the NT kernel -- if the software installed on your Win9x machines works perfectly well on NT 4, there's little reason not to migrate to the more stable version of Windows. And that's exactly what happened. Windows ME is the last version of the Win9x kernel, and was not worth having, as by the time it came out, Win2K was already out, and was perfectly acceptable for all uses, home and office. If I'm not mistaken, MS OfficeXP will not install on Win95, but will install on Win98 and WinME, as well as NT 4 and Win2K. The next version of Office, however, Office 2003, will not support NT 4 or any of the Win9x kernels. Not supporting NT 4 is an artificial constraint, in my opinion, as I see nothing that should *require* Win2K SP3 or later (security is not really the issue MS would like it to seem to be, as there is nothing in Win2K security-wise that could not be abstracted in a way that would make it possible to run it on NT 4; Active Directory also should not be not an issue, as it is not required to run Win2K in the first place). And what really matters is not an OS version's *release* date, but the last date at which it was available on machines. If Win98 machines were still being sold 3 years ago (as they certainly were, since ME wasn't out yet), it should still be supported. That Microsoft has chosen not to does not mean it is right. I have a client with WinXP Pro who is running a dBase II program compiled in 1983. It was a little tricky getting it to print properly, but it still works. In short, most incompatibilities for newer software are not due to the OS's, but to the desire of developers to implement features of the newer OS's in ways that are not backward compatible. While it costs more to implement backward compatibility, that does not mean that it is not a valid business decision to do so. Choosing not to, though, sends a message loud and clear -- people with older hardward are not important. And that often translates into poorer people, students, musicians, etc. That hardly seems a wise decision to me for a company making softward like Finale. On the other hand, I make sure my clients don't buy at the low end when making their PC purchases. It's essential to get hardware and software that is going to be viable for 5 years, and that means spending more than $500 on a new machine. If you bottom feed, you'll end up with problems much sooner, problems that will cost far more in the long run than paying the money up front. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
