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Gates clearly understood that he wanted a non-exclusive agreement.

To sell to a market that didn't exist. He was smart to want to keep it anyway, but he was lucky that IBM didn't want it. He was not negotiating from a position of power.

I'm questioning the benefit. There's a significant tradeoff with emulation: Performance.

It would be on the same processor, so not so bad. Think of the old Twunk16.

Apple didn't have a choice. It had to use emulation. It also knew that, despite anything that it does, Apple's users would slavishly suck down Stevie's Kool-Aid and upgrade.

It wasn't exactly emulation, and most applications ran faster under it due to the better memory handling offered by the parent OS. And after switching, and ending up with a world-class OS, they got a lot of converts from Windows.

Define "competition".

Define role first. Desktop OS, can't beat OS X. Server OS, Linux is ahead in many ways, and OS X is more easily managed. Network infrastructure, way behind IOS and any UNIX. Cluster? Forget it, Linux, OS X and other UNIX rules. Going beyond 2003, embedded, they're still trying to get it to work right, behind established embedded OSs including Linux (especially real-time ones). Palmtop, doing pretty well actually, although the interface needs more work (still looks like Windows shoehorned into a palm). Phone, behind Symbian and others.

My best wishes go out to Apple, but I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.

Apple has historically had a problem in that they cannot fulfill many orders for new hardware when it's released due to processor shortages. They lose a lot of sales because of it. This time they won't.

No, people buy Macs primarily because of an aesthetic and one-size-fits-all mentality that isn't present in the PC market.

People buy Macs for a variety of reasons, such as better OS, easier to use, easier for a newbie to maintain, no problems with malware, low power consumption, quiet operation, quality of construction, and, yes, they do look better on the desk.

Meaning, the only thing that Apple really gains is performance parity; which isn't enough to drive their sales.

PPC and x86 have been leapfrogging in performance for years. What Apple really gains is a reliable volume supplier of chips with a competitive long-term processor roadmap that will likely never leave Apple out on a limb again. They also gain the ability to switch to a second supplier (AMD) if their current one flakes out on them.

Let me guess, if it wasn't for those pesky suits that run businesses Microsoft would be a big underdog.

To sell to a market that didn't exist. He was smart to want to keep it anyway, but he was lucky that IBM didn't want it. He was not negotiating from a position of power.

I'll leave it to unbiased minds to decide whether Gates was negotiating from a position of power. All that I'm going to say is that IBM didn't have an operating system for the 8088 processor, didn't have time to write one of its own, and Gates had one. If that didn't give Gates a position of strength, I don't know what else would. Either way, the so-called "dumb lawyers" at IBM signed a non-exclusive agreement. And, if you think that IBM would give away such a plum deal without careful thought, you're delusional.

It would be on the same processor, so not so bad. Think of the old Twunk16.

Emulation -- or a combination of emulation and JITing -- is never as fast as native execution.

It wasn't exactly emulation, and most applications ran faster under it due to the better memory handling offered by the parent OS.

BS. They were running on faster hardware. Of course it was faster. You can't compare the performance head-to-head with the older hardware with newer hardware and OS. That's like saying, "Gee, for some odd reason, I can run DOS apps faster on my 4GHz processor under emulation than on the original 8088 that they were coded for..."

Server OS, Linux is ahead in many ways, and OS X is more easily managed.

We were discussing Windows Server 2003. So name the ways...

Apple has historically had a problem in that they cannot fulfill many orders for new hardware when it's released due to processor shortages. They lose a lot of sales because of it. This time they won't.

I doubt, seriously, that they're going to have a problem getting too many orders. Apple isn't failing to sell Macs simply because there are too many customers who waited too long to get a Mac, got tired of waiting, and got a PC, instead. No, they're failing to do so because there aren't enough customers.

People buy Macs for a variety of reasons, such as better OS, easier to use, easier for a newbie to maintain, no problems with malware, low power consumption, quiet operation, quality of construction, and, yes, they do look better on the desk.

Macs are boutique computers. Suitable for people that buy plastic furniture, wear goatees, and drink lattes with soy milk.

PPC and x86 have been leapfrogging in performance for years. What Apple really gains is a reliable volume supplier of chips with a competitive long-term processor roadmap that will likely never leave Apple out on a limb again. They also gain the ability to switch to a second supplier (AMD) if their current one flakes out on them.

See above. Apple isn't suffering from too much customer demand. The problem is too little demand.