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A distant Vista?

Dump MS OS

If I was a PC manufacturer, I would immediately approach Apple for a license to load Mac OS onto my machines.
 
webfusion said:
If I was a PC manufacturer, I would immediately approach Apple for a license to load Mac OS onto my machines.
Click to expand...
Seriously, could Apple do this, given that here are now Intel-based Macs? What about home users? Real competition for MS - that would be fun!
 
Dragon said:
Seriously, could Apple do this, given that here are now Intel-based Macs? What about home users? Real competition for MS - that would be fun!
Click to expand...

To make it an off-the-shelf boxed product for the mass market would be a huge project for Apple, to reduce that mass market by a very strict "compatible hardware" approach would reduce the scale of the investment but still be a huge undertaking (i.e. very expensive) for a much reduced potential market. Also considering that the "mass market" just doesn't upgrade anything in the box they buy from Dell or PC World what is the potential market even for an off-the-shelf upgrade?

The other route would be to offer it as a pre-installed product (perhaps via a "certified" hardware platform) and that would be considerable less expensive however who would pay for that - the PC manufactures i.e. the likes of Dell or Apple themselves?

If it is Apple can they make enough money from the very small margins PC manufactures have to pay for the pre-installed software? It would mean huge new support costs and headaches for Apple and any PC manufacturer who went down that route. (Plus see the "on the day" price comment below.)

If the costs of "hardware certification" were to be borne by a manufacturer like Dell I suspect it just couldn't be made to work given their current business models. (Given the very idea of a "certified" hardware platform is entirely the opposite to how a company like Dell works e.g. their flexibility with components to get the best "on the day" price).

Also then factor in the competition this would cause for Apple own brand of Intel PCs.

All in all whilst of course possible I suspect it is something that is not very likely, at least in the near future.
 
Along the "certified PC platform" idea, how about a reduced functionality version of OS-X, generic enough to run on "most" PC platforms to provide the basic Apple interface and functionality. And remember that OS-X is UNIX underneath - some flexibility is certainly possible. Not like it isn't being done already for Linux...

I doubt it would cut into Apple's own market with this. It would be in the same class of product as, say, Red Hat, or Ubuntu. Niche market.
 
Good points, Darat, here's a few thoughts of my own -

  • Apple have a strong brand once again with OS X and iPod etc., this could be used to market a PC-compatible OS
  • Vista is going to have, what, 7 versions? Couldn't Apple just target the home and media centre versions, leaving the business stuff to MS (excepting the existing Mac lead in certain media-related areas)
  • OS X looks cool!
 
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