The MacEdition Interview: Jerzy Lewak, CEO, Nisus Software

January 7, 2002

There are many software companies in the Macintosh universe that plod along, taking whatever niches are available in the software market, eking out survival and hopefully, profit. Then there are companies like Nisus Software, which look for the profitable niches – as all companies should – but also take on companies like Microsoft head-on. Nisus Writer, the company’s flagship product, competes directly with Microsoft Word, and has for many, many years. It takes a special kind of company to succeed at this, and Mr. Jerzy Lewak, CEO for Nisus, agreed to talk with us about Microsoft, developing for the Mac OS and other things, all from the Nisus perspective.

Q1: Tell me a bit about why Nisus as a software company exists today. What is its mission? What compels it to move forward?

A1: Our mission is to develop software products that enable users’ creativity.

Too many products assume that a user will not need this or that functionality and so inevitably inhibit users from maximum creativity. We all have to make choices and trade-offs; it’s just that we take care to make these products leaving as much to the user’s choice as possible and practical.

Just one simple, old and trivial example which illustrates this principle: Ever since the introduction of our word processor (as a text editor in 1985) we have had a fully editable clipboard. Why would you want to limit users from editing the clipboard?

Q2: Nisus Writer is one of the few word processors left for the Mac (other than Word, of course) that’s being actively updated. What is it like playing in Microsoft space, and what do you think sets your product apart?

A2: Very difficult and harrowing. Our mission, as explained above, results in a different product. One way this comes about is our approach when deciding on upgrades and adding features.

We always ask ourselves how best to achieve the functionality for the user and we try to break out of the standard mold, standard way of thinking, whenever it might inhibit the user. Of course our users are a great help in this and in validating or critiquing our novel features.

Q3: Writer isn’t the only product that competes against well-established players in the Macintosh space. What is it about Nisus (as software, as a company) that enables the confidence to compete in what seems to be a fierce market?

A3: I guess part of that is our persistence despite overwhelming odds, but largely our survival is due to the great support we get from our users who do want a different alternative.

Q4: As this interview is being put together, the new version of Nisus Writer (6.5) is being released, with the primary features being an integrated outliner and a document management menu. Are these features specifically requested by existing customers? Are they considered competitive features meant to make the product stronger against other software?

A4: The outlining feature has been requested for quite some time by many users – although of course not all. The Document Manager was added because it was relatively easy to add and as many of our users are writers with lots of documents, we thought that helping them manage their documents in a way that they can control easily would be very useful.

Q5: Being a Mac OS-specific developer, your relationship with Apple seems critical to the success of Nisus, both the company and the product. How would you characterize your company’s relationship with Apple?

A5: As good as it can be, taking into account that Apple’s main concern is the major developers of very widely sold products.

Q6: What would you consider to be the most beneficial thing Apple does to help you succeed?

A6: Help that they offered (and that we took advantage of) in getting our developers more informed about the new system (OS X) by sponsoring a “kitchen.”

Q7: What is the thing about your relationship with Apple you would most like to change/improve?

A7: I have said this before in other similar interviews and I will say it again.

I think Apple has neglected over many years the development tools that we all need to develop first-class products without making the process incredibly difficult technically, and therefore financially.

For example, if Apple’s baby Claris were to have been created for the sole purpose of developing development tools that could be used cross-platform, there would not be this great difference in the number of available software products on the Windows platform compared to the number available on the Mac platform.

It is very wasteful to have to develop separately for the Mac and the Windows platform. If there was a very good development system for the Mac that, with very little effort, gave you a Windows product, the Macintosh market would be much more vibrant in products. It would help tremendously with companies wanting to develop, with very little effort, products for the Mac that are now only developed for the Windows platform.

Q8: With Mac OS X, much has been made of the delay in native applications from vendors such as Adobe and Microsoft that potentially opened a window of opportunity for smaller software companies. It doesn’t appear that, if such an opportunity existed, Nisus (or just about any company, for that matter) was able to capitalize on it. Do you think the opportunity really existed, and in what way did Nisus capitalize on it? Does it still exist for some categories?

A8: Nisus is developing a native (Cocoa) version of Nisus Writer, from the ground up.

The new system is great in most ways and the development tools provided by Apple are very useful, but the learning curve for such a different system is so steep that it almost defeats the purpose of the new high-level development tools.

So the opportunity you mention is still there, but only for a brief period. How much it will help us small developers remains to be seen, but we are certainly doing our best to take advantage of the new system and what it offers. I don’t see the big players doing anything else other than porting their old products to the new system. That is where we are taking advantage of the opportunity.

Simply porting an old word processor to a new system would not take advantage of the numerous new features and conveniences offered by this new system.

Q9: How does the Nisus marketing machine go about getting the word out on its products? Nisus Writer, popular as it is, isn’t a household name when it comes to the multitude of users new to the platform. [Ed note: Nisus is currently advertising Writer on MacEdition.] Do the free copies of older versions aid in that marketing?

A9: Knowledge about Nisus Writer is mostly spread by word of mouth. Our customers are doing a great job of that!

Our own promotions are limited to what we can do on the Web and through a regular e-mail newsletter to those who have signed up for it.

Q10: The system requirements for Nisus Writer 6.5 are extremely modest (2MB RAM with VM, 35MB hard drive space), especially in this era of bloatware. Is this characteristic intentional? Has it been shown to help in sales?

A10: It is partly intentional and partly a result of more efficient programming over the years. Some of that efficiency comes about through the age of the code. The code goes back as far as 1984. At that time 128KB of RAM and 400KB of disk space was standard! So we had to be efficient in our basic text engine!

Q11: The Nisus Web site mentions that Writer is being rewritten in Cocoa for Mac OS X. This has to be a huge undertaking, given the history of Writer. Rewriting an app is also the least-expected course of action for a major piece of software. What compels Nisus to go to this level of effort? What lesson (if any) should other developers learn from Nisus’s decision to do this?

A11: When we started, we first came out (in 1985) with a text editor called QUED. At that time a free text editor (Edit) was being distributed with development systems, so in retrospect it is surprising that we got a great response to ours.

Yes, to reproduce all the features of Nisus Writer from the ground up is a monumental task. However, if we can utilize the high-end features provided in the new system and the development tools that Apple is providing, then we can produce a much better product, with a more convenient and powerful feature set. It gives us a chance to rethink many of the now-standard features and lets us use our experience to “do it better.” The first version we release cannot be expected to have all the features, but it will have enough to make it really useful and its features will not be just a rehash of existing ones – they will be unique and uniquely implemented.

Q12: What would you say are the top things that smaller Macintosh developers (i.e. not Microsoft, not Adobe) have to be concerned with in this transition to Mac OS X?

A12: I think they should look at their product development to see how they can leverage the features and flavor of the new system to make their products satisfy the needs of the market. This is what we are trying to do.

Q13: What would you say is the most exciting aspect of being a Macintosh development company today?

A13: The customers that we serve. They provide the incentive, and not just financial, to continue developing. They provide the excitement and they provide the reward (when they complement us on our products).

E-mail this story to a friend