Posted on 06/20/2005 1:08:53 PM PDT by Panerai
If Apple ever decides to let its Mac OS X operating system outside of its confines, the company can count Dell Inc. founder and Chairman Michael Dell as a possible customer.
With the recent news that Apple plans to become a fellow customer of Intel Corp. for x86 processors, Dell has expressed interest in selling Mac OS X-based PCs, he said in an e-mail to Fortune published on the magazine’s Web site Thursday.
“If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers,” Dell wrote in the e-mail. A Dell spokesman confirmed Thursday that the e-mail exchange took place.
Apple, however, is not keen on striking a deal with the world’s largest PC vendor.
“Mac OS X will only run on Macs. Apple has no plans to sell Mac OS X software to run on PCs,” an Apple spokeswoman said in an e-mail response to questions about Dell.
Dell’s interest in Mac OS X raises numerous questions about how such a partnership would work. Dell’s current PC product strategy is famously one-sided: Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system and Intel’s processors for all. Dell executives believe this arrangement allows them to keep their operating costs as low as possible.
However, Mac OS X, with its Unix underpinnings and secure reputation, might pique the interests of many IT managers looking for a low-cost PC that is easy to maintain. And Dell’s position as the industry market share leader could expose Mac OS to a much wider range of users.
(Excerpt) Read more at macworld.com ...
What's with this Apple. They have had soooo many chances to own the market. They will probably pass this one up too.
They can start their own company called Depple to sell pc's and will be out of business in 2 years.
Will they bring back ROMs?
I've been thinking about this off and on since they announced it. That's the only solution I can come up with. Just a chip in the motherboard that acts as a hardware dongle. Can you thik of any other solutions to this?
From what I was told by a co-worker is that a ROM chip will indeed be installed in any non-MAC system that wants to run the OS.
Hmmmmm---and how soon will a company like Phoenix (I think it was--back in the day) "clean-room" duplicate said ROM, thus opening up the MAC-OS to "cloning".
DELL, Doesn't Essentially Last Long.
On top of that, all customer service I understand, is run out of India...
Exactly, once OSX is ported to Intel chips they will have little control - even ROMs won't stop it - I know becuase that's how I ran MacOS on my Amiga computer.
My question is, when MS rewrites Office for the Intel OSX, how long before we see MS-Linux?
Not quite correct - my Dell servers have been running non-stop for 3 years. Desktops have been humming for 2 years without a burp. India/outsourced support is only for first level or non-support level machines. I have the gold Support plan on all the servers, desktops, and laptops I support and that phone number rings in the US.
It WILL happen. Just not for a little while yet. It's one thing getting OS X to run on a intel machine when you own the parts(from Apple's point of view). But getting it to run on some kludged together junk parts POS is quite another.
Baby steps my friends, baby steps.
And when Mac OS X won't run properly because of umpteen-million different configs with every bargain basement computer shop's motherboard, everyone will blame Apple, not the computer manufacturer.
You know, Michael Dell said several years ago that if he were Steve Jobs, the first thing he'd do is shut down Apple.... so I wouldn't consider any advice he gives on the matter to be helpful.
I'll take my Mac that always works, thank you very much.
Because Apple is built as a harware company. They couldn't sell hardware when dell sells bare bones for $200-$500 less. Give a little time to transition, as the "biggest" hurdle to getting OS X on intel machines gets accomplished(when all major OS X apps are written/compiled for intell).
Once that is done, branching out to the rest of the hardware becames A LOT easier for Apple.
bump for later read.
The recently risen-from-the-dead Amiga OS4 is set up that way. It's set up to run on a PPC platform, like Apple's OS. However, it's not compatible with just any PPC system - a single motherboard manufacturer is installing a proprietary BIOS which the new OS looks for on boot-up.
They're doing that to prevent the unwashed masses from playing with the new OS on the cheap - you've got to pay $$$ for the motherboard + OS combo. I guess they like being a weird little niche market.
'gemulator' is a mac-emulator that allow a pc to run mac os, though older versions, but needs a rom or a rom image
if they could sell their $100 OS to WAY more people what is the loss? IF you can keep your Apple hardware faster and more reliable as compared to the cheaper PC alternative, people will still buy it.
Walter Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's tech columnist, seems to think that Apple will be able to make the adaptation of IBM compatible PCs to Macs "too hard." He wasn't specific enough as to how he thought they could accomplish that feat. He just added that Apple wouldn't ever license OSX for anything but a Mac.
The loss is - What happens when 20% of the people who buy OS X can't get it to run/or work with their equipment? OS X isn't mature enough to work out of the box with all the junk people use in their computers. And yes, there is a lot of junk out there. That is why Apple is what it is, quality products. Apple has control over the hardware and software, and it's a whole lot easier to get things to work when that happens.
That is why I am saying that it will simply take time, but it will eventually happen.
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