MaxThink

Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Dec 13, 2007 at 10:17 PM

>An interesting question is whether DOS was actually more congenial to the development of powerful outliners than Windows. Even without knowing anything about DOS, I think I can “feel” the DOS logic in MaxThink. Grandview, MaxThink, and Brainstorm were all originally DOS products and the latter two retain to different degree remnants of their heritage. It may be that their origin in DOS is not only their weakness but their strength.

But Ecco was a great ouliner and a Windows app…

I would tend to think that it has more to do with MS presence, Internet and “free” software:

1- The Outliner/PIM market was much more dynamic and creative when MS Office did not include (free) Outlook.
2- Software prices have dropped due to good quality open-source/add-based/cheap software. When users complain that $39.95 is too much for a software, it is sometimes difficult to find incentives for development. 10-15 years ago paying $99 for a piece of software was a good deal, now it is either free or < $40 (giveawayoftheday, bitsdujour, etc)