Re: Underwhelmed and Uninformed

If they had told developers that MP macs were coming out so soon, more software could have been made MP-enabled by now. Then, these MP macs would have appealing to more markets in the short-term.

Perhaps. But that would require investing energy into the MP libraries, whereas they should really be worrying about carbonizing stuff, which gives them all the MP benefits under OS X for free. There's not much point in putting the energy into OS 9 specific features now, when public betas of OS X are just a couple months off.

If they had told accessory makers about the new colours, they could have prepared for the transition.

Yeah, I guess so. I have a hard time getting worked up about this one, though. Varicolored components are more interesting anyway. :)

If they had told WebObjects developers and sysadmins that the new G4s wouldn't be able to run OS X Server for a few months, they could have snagged the remaining supply for development and deployment needs while they waited for the update. People are complaining louder now than they would have had they had some warning.

I see this less as a communications issue than a planning issue. It doesn't make sense to not sell any hardware/software combo that Webobjects will run on, especially as they drop prices and promote it more heavily. They absolutely should have made OS X Server run on the new hardware. Barring that, however communication would have helped here.

But the biggest reason for the secrecy is that Steve's a showman, and likes the computer business to be good show business too. There's a reason his other company is Pixar...

Sean