1984 or Brave New World?

[boneske]

I dont see how porting OSX to x86 will kill their hardware market. I honestly think they will only gain market not loose it. The people that buy Apple right now is because they prefer apple's OS and the hardware over x86. Now the people that only like the OS havnt spent the money because they think Apple's hardware is too over priced.

As for BeOS, what killed them over was giving away their OS. They had the most popular non-windows OS out there and their bank account wasn't showing that because they gave away their OS.

boneske

[Cat]

I think Panther and the PPC 970 may solve many problems. For instance the price performance ratio will improve a lot. Psychologically the MHz myth will also be resolved, since clockspeeds will scale very well with this new line.
People won't view Apple as overpriced anymore. Moreover, with the arrival of a new processor, current systems using the G4 probably will get a price drop, making them even more accessible. From the quite cheap eMac up to the Dual PowerMacs and the XServe, Apple has and will continue to have a very appealing line.
Unlike other computer manufacturers or software companies, Apple values some ideals besides the cult of money and profit: design, ease of use, open standards and open source. Moreover, in all these areas Apple still continues to innovate: look at the new iMac and at OS X. This sets Apple well apart from most other companies.

[binaryDigit]

Originally posted by boneske
I dont see how porting OSX to x86 will kill their hardware market. I honestly think they will only gain market not loose it. The people that buy Apple right now is because they prefer apple's OS and the hardware over x86. Now the people that only like the OS havnt spent the money because they think Apple's hardware is too over priced.

I think many "common" folk who buy a Mac do so because it is presented as a superiour "solution", i.e. hardware and software. If OSX were available for x86 and other manuf. can also ship custom solutions around it, then that would hurt Apple (imagine Dell selling a couple of configs targeted specifically towards OSX, 2.5ghz proccies with 17" lcd displays for $899, it'd be aweful tough for Apple to compete with that).

As for BeOS, what killed them over was giving away their OS. They had the most popular non-windows OS out there and their bank account wasn't showing that because they gave away their OS.

Chicken/egg here. They gave away their OS to try to get the critical mass of market share required to get isv's to start developing software for it. One of the biggest mistakes they made was not offering free development tools (you had to buy CodeWarrior), if you wanted to play, you had to pay. After all, its the apps that drive the sales right, not the OS.

But my point about Be was that they started off as a hardware/software company, ditched hardware, couldn't figure out if they wanted to face M$ head to head, and then just whithered away. NexT sold innovative hardware and software, couldn't sell enough hardware, became a software company, and would have whithered away had it not been for Apple.

[boneske]

It's always good for consumers for businesses to compete. The x86's are so much cheaper because they are competing with other x86 companies. Also what comes with that cometition is speed, Intel and AMD processors boosted their speed in such a short amount of time because they are competing for the same market.

Just think what Apple could come up with if they actually start competing with other companies. Anyways that's my 1.5 cents.

boneske

[Arden]

Apple is competing with other companies. They are competing with Microsoft, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, in some ways Adobe, and a host of other companies. However, they have to compete on a platform basis vs. scores of hardware manufacturers and Microsoft, instead of just Microsoft. Remember, Apple sells more computer than anyone else.

If Apple released OS X for the Wintel platform, they would have to optimize it for a long time to get it to work well. If it worked well on x86-based hardware, however, Apple's hardware sales would drop, which is where they get their money. If they made it work poorly on x86 hardware, they'd be in the same boat as they are now because nobody would want to use a PC to run OS X, and they would be scorned for doing a crappy port job.

IBM had the chipset and the hardware base, and they lost it because they allowed other companies to license their technology, forcing IBM out of the personal computer industry and into chipmaking and whatever else they do. Remember the Apple Clone Wars of 6-8 years ago? If Apple had not dissolved their clone licenses, they probably would have gone under from lackluster hardware sales. Anyway, in IBM's case Big Brother turned into, basically, Dewey (from Malcolm in the Middle).

Do you think Apple wouldn't love to have a 25-40% market share? Just because they are basically the underdog of the platform market doesn't mean they prefer to be in that position. I'm sure Apple would love to be able to expand their market share, they just have to figure out a way to do it that involves perhaps some risk but not as much as, say, rock climbing with no equipment or safety gear.

[binaryDigit]

Originally posted by arden

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If Apple released OS X for the Wintel platform, they would have to optimize it for a long time to get it to work well. If it worked well on x86-based hardware, however, Apple's hardware sales would drop, which is where they get their money. If they made it work poorly on x86 hardware, they'd be in the same boat as they are now because nobody would want to use a PC to run OS X, and they would be scorned for doing a crappy port job.

Actually you point out one of the most important distinctions when talking about Apple going 'x86', are we talking about simply building a Mac around an x86 processor (and keeping the proprietary MB and firmware), or are we talking about targeting beige boxes. Because if we're talking about the latter (which I assume the original poster was) then the whole issue of hardware support rears its ugly head. One of the biggest problems Be had when they moved to beige boxes was getting decent hardware support. OSX would suffer from the same issue. Could the OS hold out long enough to actually get a decent critical mass of drivers to support the equipment that people are running. Remember NeXTStep x86, it ran on a severly limited set of hardware configs. BeOS was better, but still limited. Add to that the support issues raised by all the problems that will arise and it quickly becomes a big mess.

IBM had the chipset and the hardware base, and they lost it because they allowed other companies to license their technology, forcing IBM out of the personal computer industry and into chipmaking and whatever else they do. Remember the Apple Clone Wars of 6-8 years ago? If Apple had not dissolved their clone licenses, they probably would have gone under from lackluster hardware sales. Anyway, in IBM's case Big Brother turned into, basically, Dewey (from Malcolm in the Middle).

Just a point of clarification, I don't think IBM actually licensed their stuff to clone makers (in the ISA era), correct me if I'm wrong here. They simply made the mistake of providing excellent docs on the system (including a full BIOS listing in the tech ref manual) allowing others to effectively copy how the PC worked. They didn't try to license the tech until the PS/2 and microchannel. By then it was too late, the other major players at the time revolted and the rest is history. I do agree about the Mac clones, the whole program was ill conceived and had Steve not nixed it, it would have been an overall loss for the Mac community.

[Arden]

Originally posted by binaryDigit
Actually you point out one of the most important distinctions when talking about Apple going 'x86', are we talking about simply building a Mac around an x86 processor (and keeping the proprietary MB and firmware), or are we talking about targeting beige boxes. Because if we're talking about the latter (which I assume the original poster was) then the whole issue of hardware support rears its ugly head. One of the biggest problems Be had when they moved to beige boxes was getting decent hardware support. OSX would suffer from the same issue. Could the OS hold out long enough to actually get a decent critical mass of drivers to support the equipment that people are running. Remember NeXTStep x86, it ran on a severly limited set of hardware configs. BeOS was better, but still limited. Add to that the support issues raised by all the problems that will arise and it quickly becomes a big mess.

Either way, Apple would have quite a hard time getting their cats to run on all the "beige box" hardware. As it stands, PC makers and hardware makers have to optimize their stuff for Windows because that is what their customers use, and since Windows is so prevalent Microsoft can't possibly optimize for everything. That's one of the problems with software programming: getting it to run correctly on all systems.

However, Apple would have to rewrite OS X to be compatible with all manners of PC hardware. Considering the problems they have optimizing it for only one platform, all the different Macs out there, porting X to Windows and getting it to run correctly would be a massive undertaking, and almost impossible to make run correctly on every system, since it is much more of a low-level process than games or other applictations. I could be wrong; other OS's, including all the *NIX's, run well on most PC hardware. However, that's the problem I see Apple confronting in porting to x86.

Just a point of clarification, I don't think IBM actually licensed their stuff to clone makers (in the ISA era), correct me if I'm wrong here. They simply made the mistake of providing excellent docs on the system (including a full BIOS listing in the tech ref manual) allowing others to effectively copy how the PC worked. They didn't try to license the tech until the PS/2 and microchannel. By then it was too late, the other major players at the time revolted and the rest is history. I do agree about the Mac clones, the whole program was ill conceived and had Steve not nixed it, it would have been an overall loss for the Mac community.

Whether they licensed it originally or not, I don't know; they lost control nonetheless. My original point still stands; if Apple were to lose control what their OS ran on, they would become either software-only (like Microsoft) or they would fade into the background on hardware (like IBM has).

[binaryDigit]

Originally posted by arden
...
However, Apple would have to rewrite OS X to be compatible with all manners of PC hardware. Considering the problems they have optimizing it for only one platform, all the different Macs out there, porting X to Windows and getting it to run correctly would be a massive undertaking, and almost impossible to make run correctly on every system, since it is much more of a low-level process than games or other applictations. I could be wrong; other OS's, including all the *NIX's, run well on most PC hardware. However, that's the problem I see Apple confronting in porting to x86.
...

Basically the development effort is to port Quartz (since Darwin is already ported). The effort to support the various hardware configs falls upon the device drivers. Usually you get the manuf. of the device to write the driver. Apple will probably be forced to do some of this themselves (most likely they'll end up paying the manuf to come out with an OSX driver). These drivers are everything and are the key to hardware compatibility (much more so than any other aspect of the OS). Apple should be able to leverage the existing *BSD and Linux drivers (to varying degrees) to jump start this effort.

As for other *nix systems running "well" on "most" PC hardware, well yes and no. None support the incredible breadth of hardware available and that Windoze supports. If you have "common" devices and don't mind drivers that may not fully exploit "special" features, then the state of support on these systems isn't bad.