Posted on 11/05/2005 8:27:47 AM PST by Panerai
Silicon.com provides a speculative but interesting piece of the possibility of Apple (again) licensing the Mac operating system to 3rd party PC manufacturers and brining back Mac Clones.
The article also recaps the history of Mac licensing from an early suggestion by Bill Gates for Apple to do so in 1985. Although the Apple management team resisted his advice initially, the seed was planted and the rambling clone licensing saga spanned the tenures of four Apple CEOs.
The first faltering steps were taken by John Sculley; Michael Spindler ushered in the first clone agreement and Gil Amelio took the scheme to his heart.
The first Mac clone appeared in 1995 and lasted until Steve Jobs return in 1997. At that time, Apple terminated the program, claiming that the clones were not expanding the market and cannibalizing high end Mac sales.
Apple and Steve Jobs, however, have insisted that Mac OS X will remain on Apple branded Macs, despite being approached by a number of PC manufacturers asking to license Mac OS X.
After watching Gates invest in Apple to keep it afloat in the past, I'm convinced he wants them to clone because it helps Microsoft win antitrust issues in the U.S. and abroad to have such competition.
Odds are that licensing would make OS X more valuable and the hardware less valuable (i.e "why should I pay more for hardware incompatible with anyone else's when I can still run their great OS on this standard PC?"), so the question to me if I were running Apple would be "Can we make a net gain?" I guess they don't think it would be. Then again, they goofed up big time in the 80's and allowed Microsoft to gain its near monopoly.
Will never happen. (Not as long as Jobs is in charge).
Didn't happen an Apple with Jobs, didn't happen at next with Jobs, Jobs canceled it when he returned to Apple. Jobs hates clones. Almost killed Apple pre-jobs.
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