Ryan Cannon on ‘OmniVapor’

Ryan Cannon:

There are many people who want to be inside the development cycle and know what’s going on. They like to feel like insiders. I contend Omni intended to serve these people by pre-announcing, not not chill the GTD market until OmniFocus came out. The Omni Group isn’t that big of a player in the software market. If Apple or Microsoft would have done the same thing, then yes, I could see that as a method of encouraging people to wait to buy their app instead of one currently on the market, but I highly doubt that a small shop like Omni could do the same thing.

Adobe and Microsoft clearly aren’t going to do “GTD” apps. (I suppose it’s possible that the next major release of Entourage might include GTD features, but they’re not going to do a GTD-specific app.) Apple might do some sort of iApp-style task management app, but considering iCal and Mail’s upcoming to-do features, I doubt it.

Plus, with Kinkless + OmniOutliner, Omni is already the alpha dog in the Mac GTD market. Also note that I’m not saying it’s wrong or devious for Omni to do this.

★ Tuesday, 5 December 2006