Resistance is nearly futile.

Three years after Apple Computer Inc. introduced OS X, smaller newspapers have hard decisions to make: upgrade to Apple’s OS X, stick with software that is becoming more outdated by the day or move over to a Windows environment.

The new OS, Apple maintains, has secured a firm foothold in the marketplace. The vendor said more than 9.5 million users are now using the operating system, double the amount in January 2003. More than 10,000 applications have been written to take advantage of the Unix-based software.

“OS X is incredibly robust and fast,” said Chris Bourdon, Apple’s OS product manager, adding that many of the features of the software were engineered specifically to support graphics-oriented customers such as newspapers.

“We’re at a point with the fourth major release of OS X, Panther, where we have such an incredible array of technologies in OS X that we feel the transition is nearly complete for Apple’s customers,” he said.

Spend a lot of money

Smaller newspapers aren’t so sure.

“If we want any of the new features offered on the new software, we have to spend a lot of money to make it happen,” said Susan Mattos, vice president and general manager of the family-owned Mattos Newspapers Inc. in Newman, Calif.

The publisher recently upgraded to version 9.2.2 and now faces the possibility it might be “forced” to upgrade to OS X, Mattos said.

If it doesn’t upgrade, the publisher, which owns Newman’s West Side Index (Thursday, 1,950) in Newman, The Gustine (Calif.) Press-Standard (Thursday, 2,000) and Tuesday Review (Tuesday, 6,500) distributed in both towns, is concerned it will be unable to find suitable software or technical assistance from Apple or other vendors.

“It truly is a no-win situation,” Mattos said.

As with many smaller publishers, the biggest drawbacks to upgrading are financial. Mattos uses five Macintosh computers to support its newspapers and commercial work and all of them would have to be replaced to run the new OS. In addition, Mattos said staff would have to be retrained to learn the new software.

“The larger chain newspapers seem to have an easier time (upgrading) because they have more revenue to spend and tend to keep all of their equipment up to current versions,” she said.

Opening Windows?

The Press Enterprise in Bloomsburg, Pa., meanwhile, is evaluating whether to drop its Macintosh allegiance altogether and move to Windows. That’s a fundamental shift in an industry still dominated by Apple software and hardware.

 “The migration to OS X is a big issue,” said Ken Eyerly IV, associate publisher of the Press Enterprise, (daily, 20,990; Sunday, 20,190). “We are now investigating whether we should upgrade to OS X or instead go all-PC because of the costs involved (with upgrading).”

Eyerly said if the paper decides on new computers, PCs might likely be more affordable for the family-owned paper than purchasing new Macs and OS X-compliant apps.

“OS X is not backward compatible and with the prospect of Apple stopping its support of (prior operating systems) it might make more sense to switch,” he said.

Currently, the paper uses software from Harris & Baseview for editorial and apps from Brainworks Software Inc. for ad management.

Eyerly hopes to make the final decision this summer.

Even as Mattos and Press Enterprise evaluate their next steps, the weekly The Gunnison (Colo.) Country Times (Thursday, 2,770) didn’t think twice about upgrading to OS X.

“We saw OS X as an alternative to (having to purchase additional office-related) third-party software,” said Stephen J. Pierotti, The Country Times’ production manager. The paper migrated to the new software just after its initial release in 2001.

To accommodate the costs associated with the upgrade, Pierotti said the newspaper switched to OS X-packaged apps such as Mac Mail, iCal and Address, to handle e-mail, planning and personal contacts, respectively.

It also elected to refrain from upgrading some of its other software, preferring instead to rely on OS X’s ability to run legacy apps in classic mode.

To that end, despite growing stability issues, the newspaper is continuing to use QuarkXPress 4.1 instead of Quark Inc.’s latest version, 6.0.

“Cost is definitely a factor while looking at the OS X versions of Quark and Adobe, but more of an issue than whether or not it will run on OS X is whether or not it will run with constant, stable and predictable results,” he said.

“We see the same results of Quark crashing at least once a day. But the rest of other OS 9 apps like Adobe Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 continue to run stable.”

For now, at least, major Apple app vendors such as Quark and Adobe Systems Inc. are providing support for both OS X and OS 9. Apple also maintains message boards for OS 9 users.

Harris & Baseview, which released its OS X apps in 2002, still provides technical assistance to customers using OS releases going as far back as OS 7.

“We still have some of our legacy products running on incredibly old machines - Classics for example, from original installations 15 years ago,” said Peter Cooper, director of marketing.

Alyson Williams, marketing director at Digital Technology International, understands users’ discomfort.

“For most newspapers (upgrading) requires new hardware, upgraded versions of almost every single application and maybe even some additional training,” she said. “Because of this, newspapers might need to time an OS upgrade to coincide with a system upgrade or new installation.”

As a result, she said, newspapers will extend the life of their existing systems running on OS 9 until a new system implementation or upgrade can be accommodated.

Facing the inevitable

Whether smaller newspapers opt for OS X or move to a Windows environment, industry analyst Kevin Slimp said publishers would have to upgrade  software to stay competitive.

“Newspapers should continually assess and upgrade both hardware and software,” he said.

Moreover, Slimp said that Panther’s release might ultimately help publishers remain loyal to Macintosh.

“Several publishers of Windows-based publications have indicated to me that they see real reasons to prefer the Mac environment for publishing purposes with the release of OS X.3 (Panther).”