--- Forwarded Message from Jeff Magoto <[log in to unmask]> --- >In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> >References: <[log in to unmask]> >From: Jeff Magoto <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: LLTI Digest - 11 Mar 2005 to 14 Mar 2005 (#2005-38) >Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:07:08 -0800 >To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]> Chris and others have made some good points about market share and platform preponderance. For many of us the bottom line is simply what will their IT people support. We're lucky to be on a very platform-agnostic campus, so we've been able to remain an all Mac OSX Language Center. We've found that the long term costs of machine ownership and the reduced need for technical support to be good reasons for doing so. But nothing really matters as much as what faculty and students want to do in the labs. Here, that's increasingly been project-driven, presentation-driven, and fluency- driven work. So the Mac's combination of basic multimedia tools like the iLife suite and our own resolve that any web-based applications be fully cross-platform, multilingual, and, ideally, speech-enabled, has served them well (or so they say). Jeff Magoto University of Oregon On Mar 14, 2005, at 9:00 PM, Automatic digest processor wrote: --- Excerpt: From: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]> Date: March 14, 2005 10:08:00 AM PST Subject: Re: #7836.3 software availability for OSX (!) --- Forwarded Message from "Chris Dalessandri" <[log in to unmask]> --- --- Excerpt: From: "Chris Dalessandri" <[log in to unmask]> To: "Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum" --- end of excerpt <[log in to unmask]> --- Excerpt: Subject: RE: #7836 software availability for OSX Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 10:36:51 -0500 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> --- end of excerpt I can not speak to the issue of what CALL software is available for Macs, but I am a software developer who has been around the industry for a while. I do not want debate the issue of which platform is better, they both have there plusses and minuses. One important thing to note is there are several Windows emulators for Macs out there, but there are no Mac emulators for windows. This is because Macs are only about 3% of the market, and that number is falling. Even in the education market, Microsoft continues take market share away from Apple. As a software developer, I would like to support OSX but as a business person I can not devote an excessive amount of time to a platform that has a small and shrinking market share. Where it makes sense we write applications to run on both OSX and windows, but this is exclusively for web based applications, not for applications that need to be installed. This is an unfortunate, but real problem. If you look around the industry, only the largest companies are able to develop for both platforms. Most software companies have to pick one or the other; and most of us choose the one with the largest number of possible customers (Windows). *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning, and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://consortium.dartmouth.edu). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************