Who Paid for Porting NX to Mac?

One of the questions I've left with the UGS PR department (and as yet unanswered) is, "Is the Mac market large enough to pay for porting and supporting NX on the Mac?"

Instead, the ThinkSecret blog provides the answer more readily: Apple itself committed to purchasing a large number of NX/Mac licenses. Apparently it already uses NX on Unix for design work.

"...this arrangement may mark one of the first times that Apple's own commitment to purchase a product has influenced a developer's decision to offer Mac compatibility."

Which speaks badly for the Mac market to sustain high-end CAD, like NX, on its own.

Yet may give the CAD Mac market a booster shot -- for UGS customers, anyhow.

And would explain why the first port of NX was to PowerPC Macs, and not to Intel Macs.

Comments

[macFanDave]

It's a pretty minimal gamble for Apple to use NX (and TcEng) on Macs. The downside is that Apple could lose some productivity during the transition. The upside is enormous! Macs can now be considered in environments that had been closed heretofore. Even modest success would be a major win for Apple.

Personally, I'm looking forward to using Interface Builder instead of UI/Styler. I'm sure that's going to take some time, though.

[Anthony Frausto-Robledo]

Oh Ralph! when are you PC guys ever going to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, the main reason you think the Mac market isn't big enough to sustain this or that, is because you speak it so.

You may be right. But regardless, such FUD Pie making only aids the self-made prophesy. For everyone who takes a bite of your FUD confection surely ensures that this goodfaith effort by UGS is misplaced.

But this is all academic. Much like the declarative, specious and fear-mongering of the past, developers who join the foray that is Mac OS X enjoy surprisingly positive results.

Need I remind all that this commentary has taken place before with such companies as Alias (Maya), Pixar (RenderMan and RenderMan Server), @Last Software (SketchUp), Informatix (Piranesi) and the recent IMSI (TurboCAD Mac)?

Yet all have enjoyed success and surprising results. Why should UGS differ in this case? And no, the fact that Apple is an existing Unigraphics customer does not qualify as a good enough cause for concern.

[Robert Levitt]

Having trained on UG 15 back in 2001, and switched to a Mac in 2002, I'm glad to hear UGS made the decision to port to Mac. Now, if they could port Solid Edge to Mac and reduce the price to under $500....

[C!]

This is a very good move from Apple and Ugs, creative people will have a very nice CAD soft on there hand, this will change the world ...... ;---)))

PS: how much for NX by the way?

[ralphg]

For all the NX/Mac enthusiasts: if you have to ask how much NX costs, then you can't afford it.

The software has a price similar to that of small Korean automobiles.