[antiRepublicrat]

The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple is writing "open standard" software, and making the hardware platform it has to run on proprietary

What proprietary hardware? Okay, in the server the environment reporting chip is proprietary, but for the rest the important parts are industry-standard. Now the OS is tied to their hardware, but if your data formats are open you really don't have to care that much.

Data is important. Hardware and software comes and goes.

[tacticalogic]

What proprietary hardware?

The hardware with the Apple logo on it. What else does OS X run on?

[tacticalogic]

Data is important. Hardware and software comes and goes.

It's all temporary. Data formats come and go too. Data interchange problems are temporary. If there's enough need to interchange the data, it'll be taken care of in the software eventually.