Mellel's Newsletter (#26)

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Ori Redler
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Mellel's Newsletter (#26)

Post by Ori Redler »

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MELLEL'S NEWSLETTER #26 -- 31-July-2007
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In this issue: A nice special offer, some details about Mellel 2.5 (and 2.2.7), our mystery product and, well, again about the Apple situation.

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You can read this newsletter on the web at:
http://www.mellel.com/newsletter/NewsLetter26.html

Older newsletters can be found at:
http://www.mellel.com/newsletter.html

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What's in this issue:
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Mellel News:
[1] Want to save some Money?
[2] Mellel 2.5 on the way
[3] But first, 2.2.7
[4] Our mystery product...
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What's going on:
[1] It's that thing again

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Mellel News
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Want to save some money? -- We thought you'd say so. Well, here's the thing: You've probably heard about our provocatively priced handsomely tanned, action packed 5 Pack (AKA SOHO/Family pack). Right. It usually sells for 99 USD (that is, for less than 20 a copy). Now, we've decided to go behind our accountant's back and lower the price by 20 percent and offer it for 79USD only.
There's one catch, though, we can only keep this for one week, from Tuesday, July 31 to August 7... He's getting back from Barbados on the 8th...

To purchase an update <http://store.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi ... e=FivePack>

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Mellel 2.5 on the way -- And you thought we're just lazing around. We're not, honest! Mellel 2.5 is on its way, and will bring with it some wonderful stuff. First and foremost, cross references. You know, those little things you can insert in the text to say "see in page 25" or "See figure 8" and so on.
Little as they are, cross references are fairly complex beasts, and present some interesting problems that need solving, which takes a bit of time... To compensate for that, although I cannot get too much into details, we'll have several unique features in our cross referencing.

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But first, 2.2.7 -- To keep you happy while 2.5 is simmering, we plan to release a nice mini-update. It's free for all current users (who need not upgrade right now).
We plan some nice improvements in the way tables work and some neat new features, which we'll keep under our wide brimmed hat for... Well, for about a week. We'll keep you posted.

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Our Mystery Product -- We also plan to release in the near future a nice little application -- free for all. The application will is called PakaPaka Studio and, while we'll keep it shrouded in mystery for the time being, I can assure you that it will produce nothing that is useful, and that would be the reason for its usefulness... :-)

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What's Going On
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It's that thing again -- Well, Apple did it again. Forget about the iPhone hoopla, the really interesting story is the Mac.

During the last quarter, Apple sold 1,764,000 Macs, which means that the number of Macs sold more than doubled compared with Mac sales of 3 years ago. The Macintosh market share is now at its highest in a decade. Looking at market share from an Internet point of view, Market Share tells us that the Mac went up this year from 4.29 percent to 6 percent, which is currently pegged slightly higher than the Windows Vista market share.

But this tells only part of the story. Less tangible and less quantifiable changes tell an even more impressive story. Anyone who works in the field, whether in stores, marketing, selling, producing software, or simply works in a Mac related job (such as a Mac programmer or support person) will be able to tell you how many of his clients are 'switchers' and how much more Mac-related stuff is going her or his way.

My ISP provider, for example, used be petrified when the word "Mac" was mentioned in a support call. Mac? We don't know what to do with those strange, inexplicable machines! Help! Now, they've improved from becoming petrified to being slightly scared, and they've also got a "Mac team" ready 24/7 (A "Mac team" means people trained to say "Safari" instead of "Internet Explorer" when appropriate...). The same thing is happening with stubborn sites and services (where the popularity of Firefox also helps), and companies hoping to bring a new technology into the market are now at least considering (and many of them even act to bring) a Mac version.

The best attestation to the change, perhaps, is the acceptance of Macs as a desirable contribution to a mixed computing environment and the marked easing in the pressure to "standardise" (i.e., drop the Macintosh and switch to PC) at work. At last, one can use a Mac and (almost) be an equal-rights citizen in computerland. We're not completely there, but we're certainly well on our way.

Market Share <http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5>
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