What's after X?
In reply to Lloyd's comment...
O wise Boris, what will come of all the projects, products, and software listings when Mac OS reaches 11?
Good question, Lloyd. I can't be bothered right now, but looking up the domain registrations for various osxi variations might be interesting. My thinking is that the name of the OS will remain as "Mac OS X", partly also from copyright/marketing considerations. The X does technically stand for "10", but it can also mean so many other things...
- The *NIX foundation
- Like Agent X, or Windows XP, it has a cool ring to it
- The X in NeXT
Remember, before OS X, it basically didn't have a name...it was just called the "Mac OS". Now people make a distinction, like Mac OS 9, or Mac OS X, but not back in the day. Even further back, we said things like "System 6" or "System 7" -- the word OS wasn't even mentioned.
BTW, eWeek again brought up the subject of Marklar, a.k.a. OS X on x86. I don't think it's a completely outrageous rumour, but it might strain Apple's support infrastructure.
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The reaction is the threat.
Apple's plans to come to x86 may or may not exist, but the real threat with any new move is the reaction from your competitors. Dell was able to take advantage of a switch in Apple Education, and boom - takes Apple's cake.
If Apple moves to x86 with innovative software, how will Dell and Microsoft respond? Not nicely, I'd bet. It could be everything Microsoft needs to say "Oh, gee, suddenly our Mac group isn't profitable any more." and bye bye Office for X, Internet Explorer, any future versions of Entourage, etc. Look at how much turmoil the graphics industry is in over Quark for X, and that's a niche market for Apple's pro equipment.
Apple's forray into anything x86 can best be summed up by metaphor - Sword of Damocles. Everything Apple can or will do in x86 puts them in peril of having their lifeline, Microsoft, absolutely uproot the Mac market and cancel Office. That always can, and always will be able to kill Apple, even with a very advanced Open/Free Office or StarOffice. If Apple does any serious marketing of those products, it won't take long for Microsoft to do the same thing - pull Office.
That's the danger - not that Mac users may freely migrate to commodity PC hardware, but that Apple's biggest ally is also at the top of the PC hierarchy.
I really don't believe in the MS Lifeline theory
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are certainly very pervasive apps. Todays Mac audience are actually NOT held hostage by these apps.
Word documents are becoming somewhat irrelevant -- other than compatibility, there are other ways to make documents, and lots of written material for business is actually moving to the web or being distributed as PDF.
Excel is a big one for businesses, but at the same time spreadsheet applications really aren't that different -- CSV can easily export/import between them.
As of today, Apple has a PowerPoint-killer with Keynote. Many executives have PowerBooks, even if the rest of the corporation is on Win32. Since they don't generally write all of their own presentations, this might cause a trickle-down effect.
Hmmm... How much longer an ally?
Well... two new pieces of software announced today... A browser (Safari) and a presentation package (Keynote) ...
Now... I'm beginning to wonder... While I understood your Sword Of Damocles reference before, maybe Apple is figuring out a way to move in behind Microsoft into the home computer software market. I've always believed if you capture the residential user (and iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, etc. are doing a good job of that) you'll eventually win over the corporate world. People see how well Apple's software works and how enabling and user-friendly it is (I know I have...) and will adopt it at home, then demand it at work.
But then again... maybe I'm just wrong, I mean, I've never owned a Mac. :)
Unless you think server...
That is, x86 XServe, with integrated control via webpages and/or OS X Workstation.
Long been reallized that anybody can build x86 "commodity" servers -- stuff that sets it apart is management software. Ref: Ensim, Cobalt.
So, the hardware being sold (because I agree with you) is the XServe. If people want to buy OSX4x86 to run on their home server boxen...that's fine too, but don't expect any support unless you pay for a contract with Apple.
Pretty sure about this one....
OS X is being marketed up the wazzoo so you can be pretty sure they won't be changing the name any time soon. XI or 11 or whatever they go with will want to lean on the brain trust they have created. Realize that most people don't know that XI is eleven, now feel sorry for humanity as a whole. Sorry, off track here. Focus, focus...
OS X on x86. Not going to happen. Apple is in the hardware biz, not the software biz. If does happen, and this is such a big "if" that it should be enclosed as follows
try
{
if (ContinuingRumoursThatWontDie.AppleMakesOSXForX86())
{
cout << "Evan will eat his hat" << endl;
}
} catch( FurshluggingBloodyUnlikelyException e )
{
cout << "Let it die already!!" << endl;
}
Apple (S.Jobs) is all about control. x86 is all about cheap commodity hardware. These things don't mesh well together. Bring on the IBM silly-con.
Umm.... Let's see here...
If Apple could transform their "biz" into a software "biz" I'm sure they'd be relatively happy to do so. The software business is much higher margin, and moving into supplying a better OS for the x86 world would put them into this ground. It'd be like selling Windows that actually worked to all the x86 companies out there... seems like a relative no brainer to me... Apple probably doesn't grab huge margins on their hardware... but I could be wrong...