In his latest Byte of the Apple column for BusinessWeek Online, Charles Haddad suggests that Mac users shouldn’t cry for the passing of Mac OS 9, eulogized by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his keynote address to attendees of last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, Calif. Haddad’s comments come in a new column entitled Shed No Tears over OS 9’s Demise.
Haddad noted the grim parallel between the oversize Mac OS 9 box laid to rest last week in a silver casket and what might have happened to Apple, had Jobs and Co. not resuscitated the company with innovative and enthusiastically received new products over the past few years. “Without a couple of splashy hits, Apple would have been a goner,” said Haddad.
Haddad said the population of Mac users migrating to Mac OS X “represent a good beginning,” and reminded readers that Apple is now the largest worldwide manufacturer of desktop computers with UNIX installed, thanks to the year-old operating system’s UNIX underpinnings.
Haddad also mentioned OS X’s hotly anticipated “Jaguar” update, first unveiled during Jobs’ keynote last week. “With OS X, the best is yet to come,” Haddad said, hearkening the return of spring-loaded folders, hardware-accelerated 2D graphics, and other changes that are coming with the new system release.
That, combined with iChat, better cooperation as a corporate citizen with Microsoft-dominated networks and mail servers, and other changes, “will make OS X a must-have system,” said Haddad.
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