[OS X TeX] Macintouch report on TeX versus Word

[Alain Schremmer]

On Jan 20, 2009, at 7:05 PM, Alex Hamann wrote:

>>
>> Else, we will not "always be a minority": MS will eventually  
>> succeed in doing to LaTeX what it tried to do to Java and sure did  
>> to Basic. It is only a matter of time.
>>
>> And then we will be nowhere at all.
>>
>> Regards
>> --schremmer
>>
>
> Well, I always thought I was a pessimist.... I still do not think  
> you are right, Competition to MS is stronger now than it was 5  
> years ago. I now often see Pages running on Macs and LaTeX proves  
> resilient. OpenOffice is getting a lot better and spreads to more  
> platforms. If something or somebody causes the death of LaTeX, it  
> will need more than just MS to achieve that.

Funny, I always thought I was an optimist … I still do not think you  
are right. Macs are an infinitesimal part of the market to begin  
with. OpenOffice was so bad to begin with it sure couldn't get worse.  
And, on the Mac, it still is clunky. Not to mention NeoOffice. I  
don't think LaTeX is going to die, just that it severely risks  
becoming a quaint hobby for the very few. Like, say, polar bears.  
They won't die. There will always be a few in zoos.

Regards
--schremmer