I have a few old clients you can have
They cost me far more in terms of time & effort than I ever earn from them
More customers only makes for success if you earn more than they cost you - in any market.
Apple illustrates that perfectly - they don’t have the highest market share of smart phone vendors but they certainly make far more money than all others combined.
Philip zedalis.
My coment was regarding windows, as this thread is about windows.
HOWEVER, .net is available on osx and linux via mono. So its certainly a common denominator
OSX/mono
Win/.net
Linux/mono
Win32/windows
Win32/wine.
The “lowest”. Tag was reference to it being less well suported everywhere.
Sorry. Got my nominator/denominators the wrong way round for win32 in that last post.
Russ, my point was that in order to ABSTRACT the low level toolkits they have to use common controls across all platforms. If Windows has a new shiny control it does not help if Mac does not have it in Cocoa.
Yes Mono runs on Mac but it supports WinForms and some XAML stuff. Even if it did support everything you aren’t honestly suggesting they drop Cocoa and move to .NET/Mono for everything are you? If you are not then it does not matter where .NET runs, the controls are not a 1:1 match which ruins the abstraction.
So if you do see .NET controls come out for Xojo they will just be less flickery more modern versions of what is already available.
When I read Gary’s post talking about Windows woes, professionalism and looking modern I think METRO, TILES, FLAT UI, etc. Maybe I misread Gary but what I hear is Windows whats some love. To get those things I think its best for a third party not Xojo because they are not cross platform ideas at the moment. That’s what I mean by lowest common denominator.
[quote=49153:@Norman Palardy]I have a few old clients you can have
They cost me far more in terms of time & effort than I ever earn from them
More customers only makes for success if you earn more than they cost you - in any market.
Apple illustrates that perfectly - they don’t have the highest market share of smart phone vendors but they certainly make far more money than all others combined.[/quote]
By having more customers you have the option of firing customers that don’t perform or that are not profitable. Having less customers, you don’t have that option and you’ll still probably have some you’d like to get rid of. I would never have a customer that isn’t profitable and I have been in positions to go tell customers to find another vendor.
Apple is successful because the focus on what they are good at and don’t try to be everything to everyone (hint, hint). Rather than chase market share they provide higher end products for customers that need the “user experience” they offer. You have to buy their hardware. Think Mercedes. But remember not too long ago Apple was on the ropes and about checked out. On the other end you have Google with Android. Their approach is different (More Customers) and they are chasing market share. Think Chevrolet. They are a software company that licenses their OS to many phone makers. They believe market share is more important than Apple and the payoff long term will be greater (I agree). What Apple has is working now, but never, ever underestimate the power of Market share. They have some really significant challenges coming up. You’ll notice they are trying to go after the business server business, if things are so rosy, why?
[quote=49165:@Joseph Evert]By having more customers you have the option of firing customers that don’t perform or that are not profitable. Having less customers, you don’t have that option and you’ll still probably have some you’d like to get rid of. I would never have a customer that isn’t profitable and I have been in positions to go tell customers to find another vendor.
[/quote]
Ferrari would be out of business if “market share” mattered, as would Lamborghini, Bugatti & McLaren - after all they are just cars.
Make sure you know what that market it is you’re in and you’re pursuing.
[quote=49165:@Joseph Evert]Apple is successful because the focus on what they are good at and don’t try to be everything to everyone (hint, hint). Rather than chase market share they provide higher end products for customers that need the “user experience” they offer. You have to buy their hardware. Think Mercedes.
[/quote]
Apple does this very well hence they make a crap load of money selling to a specific kind of user & don’t chase low end stuff that builds “market share” but makes no money (Read Samsungs 10-Q and you’ll see)
That’s all I’m advocating.
We know what our market is and being the best MS only dev tool or OS X only dev tool isn’t it at this time (maybe one day)
Cross platform is where we focus
And that often has trade offs
Advertising market share - they really don’t give a damn about phones
They make $0 from Android - MS makes more money from Android than Google does 
FYI the only time Apple chased market share was the only time they just about went bankrupt - mid 90’s.
Tried to mass market the Mac in Sears and so many other places that did them no good it was sad.
[quote=49165:@Joseph Evert]Think Chevrolet. They are a software company that licenses their OS to many phone makers. They believe market share is more important than Apple and the payoff long term will be greater (I agree). What Apple has is working now, but never, ever underestimate the power of Market share.
[/quote]
Better to know WHAT the market you targeting is - Android is after “phones” - and apparently not ones that sell for a profit given how HTC LG et al reported numbers. Samsung is the only one that made any money. Motorola mobility is bleeding money.
http://beta.fool.com/jacobsteinberg/2013/07/31/microsoft-may-make-more-money-from-windows-phone-t/41704/
Apple isn’t going after “phones” - they’re going after “premium phones” which they already own the market on hence why they made
how many billion in profit last quarter
FOCUS
Oh ? Those would be . ?
Apples going after small business servers because thats often small shops with no IT and no expertise. Mom & Pops.
Something where other vendors don’t have a really decent offering for a small shop.
I just set one up for my next door neighbor in his print shop as they wanted what it could do but their usual IT folks wanted 7500 for a server + set up & configuration. And programming on top of it to get their site , wikis , shared calendars etc etc on it.
$500 for the mini + server $20 and a couple hours later we were done - shared calendars wikis and all sorts of stuff.
They bought me dinner and still saved a crap load of money.
And they can administer it for themselves.
Apple got out of making real server hardware (the XServe) several years ago, quit selling (and then giving away) perhaps one of the nicest enterprise dev tools (WebObjects) and mostly let the entire enterprise arm of NeXT die out.
Too bad as the XServe was a really nice machine - way faster than many other rack mounts we tested including custom built rigs that were super expensive (made the XServe look cheap)
But I know WHY they got out of that market - it was NOT their forté.
I think that it is important to use a development environment that produces high quality software. Whether for sale or for inhouse, to me it is counter-intuitive to use a development environment that produces software that is mediocre because it is cross platform. That software still has to be supported and if it is written to some least common denominator it will not meet the customers needs. If Xojo is going to continue to be cross platform, all platforms need to be fully supported, enhanced. Chasing potential markets at the expense of current customers does not make good business sense. The Xojo WE is a very promising product and I think it hits a very vital market and it would be unfortunate to lose that momentum for a far more limited market.
I think the part of this discussion that is most disturbing to me is that Xojo knows about the issues and is making a deliberate choice to put off fixing it until some far distant point in time that could be years away. Taking the chance to lose a whole segment of their business while developing vaporware products.
FWIW Windows isn’t the only poor cousin. I’m currently developing on OSX on the assumption that it will work better, and it does. But the IDE issues are just different.
For example: I added a container control to my OSX project, and added a button to that. What next? - Add the action event of course, but I didn’t have the option. I had to close the project & re-open it to continue working. Then I did the same thing on Windows - absolutely no problem!
That’s not axiomatic at all. If the customer needs are met by the greatest common denominator (the correct term you are looking for here), then that’s fine. There are plenty of desktop products where straddling platforms is as or more important than any particular feature. Think education. If you can offer a school district a way to preserve their software investment year over year despite the hardware purchasing whims (Mac vs. Windows), you will be presenting an unmatchable value. Been there…
Fiat owns Ferrari, otherwise Ferrari would have been out of business. Interesting the largest market share automaker in Italy buys up the little guy who didn’t care about market share. And Bugatti AND Lamborghini is owned by Volkswagen, again big guy with massive market share buys little guy who didn’t care about market share.
That is EXACTLY my point. There is room for both. Google and Apple are two different companies, just as Mercedes is to Chevrolet. Google is after market share because they are in the advertising business. Guess what? ITS WORKING. Google is quite profitable. People are adopting more Google Android phones over Apple. They’re less expensive and honestly many like the interface better, look at the stats. Now, fast forward a few years, Google has 80% market share and lets say they start charging for their OS, let’s say $1 an install. Guess what - carriers and phone builders will pay it, why, because 80% of their customers are already using and comfortable with Android! On top of that they can’t get Apple OS because it is closed. THAT is the power of market share - leaverage. Google also leverages their user base to drive ad revenue. If they only had 5% of market share how much do you think they could demand for advertising?
![quote=49169:@Norman Palardy]Better to know WHAT the market you targeting is - Android is after “phones” - and apparently not ones that sell for a profit given how HTC LG et al reported numbers. Samsung is the only one that made any money. Motorola mobility is bleeding money.[/quote]
I really don’t care whether a particular phone maker is profitable or not when they are using an operating system that can be used by twenty other phone manufacturers. That doesn’t change the fact Google has 80%+ market share.
Their market share also helped them drive developer demand, Microsoft got this right too. Android has been very successful at attracting a large developer following. The market is larger so naturally when someone has to develop an app they have to ask themselves - Android or Apple? Windows or Apple?
iPhone is getting a bit tired. Yes we got finger print reader and cool colors, a new connector big whoop. Honestly all of this technology is getting less and less unique, all these phones now pretty much do the same thing. They currently don’t have a phone that will compete in emerging markets - their cost structure is too high. Just ask anyone what the prices in emerging countries for an iPhone or MacBook are. That is a big challenge if they want to continue to grow. We’re reaching the point where there needs to be major event for them to take it to the next level, or they need to reduce costs and pricing to gain market share (lower margins higher volume). Regardless of what you want to believe Apple does care about market share. They are a publically traded company, if their stock price stagnates, well that is not good for a whole bunch of reasons. That certainly hasn’t happened, yet. They are doing quite well, now… But they cannot ignore market share - there are shareholders to answer too.
Maybe their next home run won’t be an iPhone, iPad or computer - a completely different category. What do you think?
Now, since you brought up cars I will finish with them (I’m a car guy). Mercedes, Cadillac, BMW, Volvo. All of these companies make higher end cars. Your argument is they know who their customers are and shouldn’t care about market share and the low hanging fruit. Guess what - ALL of these companies are coming out with lower priced ENTRY level sedans that are less profitable than their current models. Why would they do this? Market Share and the power of customer conquest - once they get the customer in they’ll stay if their happy. I believe that is Google’s strategy with Android and for every Android phone sold it takes one customer away from the pool for Apple. That cannot be ignored and Apple would be arrogant to do so.
Anyway, we’ve veered off course from the original thread, but have a great Thanksgiving!!!
[quote=49180:@Joseph Evert]
but have a great Thanksgiving!!![/quote]
I did - last month
I’m in Canada
You think only in terms of product features and forget that Apple has a much stronger relationship with customers, including through their Apple Stores. And yes, they are arrogant. It’s part of their personality.
The Apple logo is a status symbol, and as such it creates a much stronger attachment from consumers. Feature-for-feature, Android certainly can compare to iPhone and iPad. But show off-to-show off, Apple owners win.
Now, market share. Sure, Google has 80%. But I would love to get Apple share and profit 
@Gary MacDougall:
Like your customers my paying customer base uses windows (mostly in Terminal Server Environments) and most of your statements are facts and there is no need to compain or discuss about - Xojo simply serve Macs first, then Linux Servers, then Windows and at least Linux Desktops (more worse than Windows in my point of view).
My situation might be compareable with yours and when talking about enterprise windows customers I may report from my customers that they WILL NOT see current fancy Windows features (tiles or touch-controls) in their business apps and they like the Windows Unlike-Features" most (no dependencies to any .NET/Java Middleware), installation is simply done in copying the app bundle (folder) and so on.
Of course it depends on the field of area where your software is used. Most business Apps are nothing more than kinda Input- and Output Gateways. All number crunching operations are done on more powerful server or databases (e.g. Stored Procedures in MSSQL e.g.). And when running my Apps on Terminal Server I am using multi-threaded console threads. Xojo is very powerful there but you have to lay your hands on it. My Xojo App is running smooth on a virtual MS Win 2008R2 Terminal Server serving 100+ users with MySQL AND (!) MSSQL databases on the same hardware (in seperated VMs) without any lack of speed.
When talking about performance and optimizations I agree with you in this spot, that you have to do this job kinda by your own in Xojo. The IDE itself is quite rudimental lacking a lot of features and components IDE Monsters like Visual Studio have. It’s not only buying Addons and Plugins. It’s a long path with a lot of tweaks and traps left and right. But when you do this job for your apps, Xojo rewards you with rapid development and release-often cycles and support for multiple platforms.
And to prove that even Windows Apps’ look and feel is “sexy” I’ve added some screenshots. Compared to other business apps (some still do have ugly 16 Bit Icons from the 90ies) my Xojo Apps never have been accused for being ugly, slow or unproductive.
Back to the original questions.
I am not a multiplatform power user, so I will only talk about available technologies
Office Automation is supported only under WindowsExcelApplication
PowerPointApplication
WordApplication
The Xojo IDE looks like a Mac application
The tool looks like a Mac application and it hurt your productivity ?
DirectX
DirectX is not implemented in Xojo ?
The laughing corner
At last, here a sentence to laugh with:
Xojo is lacking in performance on Windows
Buy a faster machine ? [remember: this is to laugh, not anything else nor rude].
Did you try other technologies IDE, say Eclipse or NetBeans IDE, lately ?
You have to be an expert far before trying to place a simple line of code. YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT WITH XOJO.
And don’t get me wrong: Xojo is not the best software in the world; it have some misses here and there.
Those are some nice looking interfaces Thomas - nice work!!
[quote=49161:@Phillip Zedalis]Russ, my point was that in order to ABSTRACT the low level toolkits they have to use common controls across all platforms. If Windows has a new shiny control it does not help if Mac does not have it in Cocoa.
Yes Mono runs on Mac but it supports WinForms and some XAML stuff. Even if it did support everything you aren’t honestly suggesting they drop Cocoa and move to .NET/Mono for everything are you? If you are not then it does not matter where .NET runs, the controls are not a 1:1 match which ruins the abstraction.
So if you do see .NET controls come out for Xojo they will just be less flickery more modern versions of what is already available.
When I read Gary’s post talking about Windows woes, professionalism and looking modern I think METRO, TILES, FLAT UI, etc. Maybe I misread Gary but what I hear is Windows whats some love. To get those things I think its best for a third party not Xojo because they are not cross platform ideas at the moment. That’s what I mean by lowest common denominator.[/quote]
Actually what I mean was simply supporting the modern objects. Which are:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/bg182878.aspx
One could certainly “emulate” those controls using a CustomControl. But thats not what I’m talking about.
How is that on the Mac we get Cocoa and a subset of “native” look and feel with the IDE (for example), but on Windows, its an approximation of what a Windows GUI is suppose to look like based on 1998 Windows?
I’m not asking for XAML 100% support I’m saying that if you support (at the basic level) accessing .NET components, you can most certainly get partially there – right now you can’t, with Xojo on Windows, create an app on Windows that utilizes the Windows toolkit (easily) like you can on the Mac… if I’m wrong about that, lets discuss.
No, I meant “least common denominator”. I was referring to a previous post use of the term, not in a mathematical sense. I believe that for a cross platform tool, the developer must come up with a basic configuration that they can support, also known as a minimum configuration required.
I’m actually surprised that the Mac people don’t seem to understand the problem that the Windows user are having. I know I read many posts about Realsoftware/Xojo needing to get the Cocoa version out sooner than later because of the Mac store and Apple’s intention to drop support for Carbon.
Go figure.
[quote=49225:@Emile Schwarz]Back to the original questions.
The laughing corner
At last, here a sentence to laugh with:
Xojo is lacking in performance on Windows
Buy a faster machine ? [remember: this is to laugh, not anything else nor rude].
[/quote]
It’s that sort of comment that makes me realize when I make comments here the level of understanding is varied.
To answer your question… “buy another machine” – if I’m doing a SQL Server query with ADO using an OleObject and its taking 50 and 70 times slower running than its C# counterpart code (as an example). Am I suppose to purchase new machines for all my customers…
Look, the issues with Xojo on Windows are varied. The complaints I’ve illustrated above are salient and can be demonstrated.
I’ve said though, that a lot of those problems CAN be reduced from a developers perspective, IF you have the ability to extend your application to .NET components on Windows (i.e. Being able to call DLL’s that are .NET based).
Why? If there’s a performance issue with doing ADO in Xojo, I can use the toolset on Windows to create a DLL that will allow me to write a faster component to work around that problem. Further, if I want to utilize some of the GUI elements discussed her, having access to .NET components can allow for this at some level.
Gary
It seems theres an assumption that we don’t understand the issue. We do.
We simply cannot undertake everything at once - there’s no magic infinite pool of money to hire qualified engineers nor infinitely large pool of qualified engineers. And thats not necessarily an answer anyways http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
Our priorities are what they are
[quote=49296:@Norman Palardy]It seems theres an assumption that we don’t understand the issue. We do.
We simply cannot undertake everything at once - there’s no magic infinite pool of money to hire qualified engineers nor infinitely large pool of qualified engineers. And thats not necessarily an answer anyways http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
Our priorities are what they are[/quote]
Norman, I’m certainly not saying you don’t understand the issues. But as a customer (and I’m sure I’m not the only Windows customer) I’m voicing what I believe is a lack of attention that the Windows side.
Gary