I've resolved myself to moving the beach one sand grain at a time. My method of evangelism to my colleagues is one of enthusiasm and excitement. They've grown deaf to the “Windows sucks” refrain, and have grown to live with it as one would a chronic limp. Instead, I'm showing them what I've been doing on my Macs, and how easy it is to transition between OSes. (How the heck is that spelled, anyway?)

I think that we're going to see the boundaries breaking down as more and more young engineers and designers come into the market. They're incredibly tech savvy, and ruthless in their demand for excellence in their hardware and software. This is the playing field that Apple is most comfortable on. Windows seems to know only inertia and FUD.

Thanks again for the replies. A little validation now and then is nice.

No, I think the entire computing ecosystem is Microsoft's to fumble. Vista is mediocre at best and Windows 7, actually 6.2, is more of the same. I think the only things Microsoft has going for it right now is complacency and commodity hardware.

People are comfortable with Windows. It's “good enough”. I only know two people who genuinely like Windows and one of them works for Microsoft. The rest of us tolerate it.

Several weeks ago my sister was complaining to me about her computer. My response was, “Buy a Mac.” But she'll never do it because she doesn't want to learn a new OS. I get that response from a lot of people.

The other problem is hardware. Apple doesn't sell cheap hardware and Microsoft is capitalizing on this with their laptop shoppers commercials. If you do a side by side comparison between Apple and other brands you'll find that Apple computers are competitivly priced. But people don't do that. They see the $500 HP and the $2,500 Apple and pick the HP because they're looking for “good enough”.

Also, Apple doesn't have a strong workstation option. Their video card offerings in the Mac Pro are weak.

If people would realize that two things are true then Microsoft would lose significant marketshare in a short amount of time:
-You get what you pay for.
-You can teach an old dog new tricks.

“What I want is for my favorite modeling software to get to the new world ahead of the other guys, so we can benefit from the head start.”

I heartily concur.

Professional 3D is Microsoft's ball to fumble, and I'm very confident they will drop it sooner or later. Apple's work on Snow Leopard might skew that more toward the “sooner.” What I want is for my favorite modeling software to get to the new world ahead of the other guys, so we can benefit from the head start. There's a whole market to be made. It'll be like a frontier land-grab, and the late arrivals will look like fools.

If SolidWorks would go OS X, I'd be surprised if Apple didn't assign a few of their talented peeps to making sure that SolidWorks takes advantage of all the amazing core APIs of OS X.

The new Snow Leopard is going to be a stunner. I have a strong hunch that the murmur from the 3D modeling community (from folks like you and me) will rise to a din when people begin to understand the power available to both the user and developer.

As much as I shudder to think about it, PTC may have an advantage in the OS X race, given that they were never really on Windows anyway. That kludge of Unix-on-Windows that made it so ridiculous could pretty easily be switched over to Unix-on-Unix. I just wish I wasn't so underwhelmed with their software.

Your thoughts?

Solidworks is a Microsoft platinum partner which means they're joined at the hip.

Could SW successfully port to OS X? I believe they could, but until Microsoft's market share has a very significant drop it ain't happening.

If SWx would enter the OS X market, they'd rule it with an iron fist for at least a decade.

How would we go about downloading the 2010 Beta as a Stimulus Package user?