New and Noteworthy: Member of original Mac team rebukes new book; 2005: The Mac's year for market share gain?; more

Member of original Mac team rebukes new book Last week, we noted a Wired News interview with Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Mac team, about his new book, "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made." In the interview, Hertzfeld made the following comment about another member of the original Mac development team, Jef Raskin: "The only real negative reaction I've gotten is (from) Jef Raskin. Jef's recollection from what happened is just different from everybody else's and my book doesn't give his version of things. In Jef's version of things, Jef designed everything, but he just didn't. My book confronts that. I think he wishes my book didn't exist."

Jef Raskin has since responded to this statement in a letter to MacFixIt, in which we states:

"The reason I am unhappy with portions of the book are demonstrated even in this short remark of Andy's. He says that I lay claim to 'everything' in the design of the Mac.

"I will always be proud of having created the Macintosh project, and championing it through its early years. But I never said that I 'designed everything,' nor do I now. At MacWorld in Boston, he heard me say to the audience that the Mac was a team effort. In many published articles I have said the same and I've just said it here so your readers can read for themselves my position on the subject.

"I am sorry that Andy persists in 'confronting' an imaginary Jef Raskin he has made up."

2005: The Mac's year for market share gain? Macworld UK speculates that Apple could see significant advantage selling Macs in 2005, driven by the success of its iPod product. "Speaking to Knight Ridder newspapers UBS analyst Benjamin Reitzes said: 'We believe that fiscal year 2005 could mark the year when the iPod story 'hands off' to the Mac story.'" More.

More offices "open up" An eWeek article notes that as organizations sought ways to control IT costs in 2004, IT managers increasingly considered open-source alternatives like Firefox and OpenOffice.org. The article also notes Apple's strong, primary presence in the desktop search arena: "Before this year, most search technology was focused on the Internet. However, when Apple Computer threw down the gauntlet with its July announcement that the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4, code-named Tiger, would have a new content indexing and search engine called Spotlight, some of the focus shifted to desktop search capabilities."

Previously on MacFixIt

• Mac OS X 10.3.7 (#3): Firewire warning; fixes; problem reports; more
• PowerBook keyboard sticking/popping: More on the apparent cause
• Odds and Ends: Knowledge Base Updates

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