THANK YOU, ROSS KODNER
This is not a sarcastic “thank you”. This is not a tongue-in-cheek “thank you”. This is a sincere “thank you”.
There has lately been an intermittent and indirect dialog between Ross Kodner and the community of lawyers who use Macintosh computers in their offices. Ross spoke his mind (wrote his mind?) about the position of Macs in law offices, and the status of the Mac operating system. A number of Mac-using lawyers took umbrage to Ross’s comments, and Ross responded. In his response, Ross confirmed his dedication to the Mac market, and offered several examples of that support. He also suggested (loudly and strongly) that Mac-using lawyers should focus on supporting the development of Macs in law offices, rather than knocking those who (like Ross) would dare question the benefits, strengths and use of Macs in law offices.
I certainly don’t agree with everything Ross said, but I do agree with his comment that “Until Mac lawyers can separate their own personal identities from the computer hardware they use, and learn to accept criticism of their beloved platform, they’ll never be taken seriously”.
Representatives from PowerSoft Innovations Corporation occasionally attend legal technology conferences; when we do, we make every effort to get the attention of legal technology experts who attend those conferences. Yes, we set up a booth to show off our LawStream software, but often the greatest value from our marketing efforts comes from the knowledgeable experts who comment on our software. If we hear informed and constructive comments from people we respect, we act on those comments. Ross Kodner is informed, knowledgeable, and constructive. Whether or not he says things we like, he still says things that are valuable to us.
With any luck at all, the Mac-using legal community might listen to what Ross says about Macs in law offices, and take steps to improve the status of Macs in law offices. That kind of action would be much more helpful than criticizing the critics.
I’m looking forward to the day when Ross has an opportunity to let me know his view of LawStream, and I hope his comments will be as frank and as helpful as the comments he has offered to the Mac community about OS X and Macs in the law offices.
Bill, thank you for being a voice of reason on this issue. And more importantly, thank you for being one of the true pioneers and innovators in the Mac legal software world.
Lawstream is an exceptional application, equal to practice management systems on the Windows side of things. What OS X needs is more companies like yours – either exclusive OS X legal application developers, or for your Windows counterparts to see the value of OS X development.
My prediction is that Vista’s successor, Windows 7, will NOT fully address all the negative elements of Vista. As such, it will represent yet another market opening for Apple to push more strongly into various business vertical markets, including legal.
Smart and forward-looking legal software publishers should anticipate this by gearing up their OS X development efforts. OR, at the very least extend their “supported environments” to include support of their apps running in a virtual machine under OS X.
Thanks Bill – your comments and reasonableness are appreciated – you’re just the kind of voice the Mac legal market needs. I hope that Mac lawyers appreciate not only the fact that Lawstream exists, but the efforts you make on the segment’s behalf.
Cheers,
Ross
[...] Regarding my recent Technolawyer article (see my blog post on this from last week), Bill posted a comment on his Lawstream blog, mostly in support of my assertions and acknowledging (finally! someone!) my pro-Legal Mac [...]