Since Apple WWDC last June where Jobs announced that they are moving to Intel processors (I had a VIP invitation to the keynote but I could not attend so my VP of Engineering went instead, I hope that I get one for the keynote speech in Mac World in January and I finally see Jobs from the first row) I have had this theory that, eventually, we will see Mac OS X being licensed and running on Dell or other hardware. The reason I have this theory is the following:
- Apple has been improving their OS so much recently that is now worth switching (in spite of their initial failure with the "switch" campaign, apparently now they got more than one million Windows users switching to Mac OS) to it (I was about to actually buy my first Mac but I want a notebook and I decided to wait till the Intel ones ship since the speed improvement will be more noticeable there as they still run G4s).
- Apple has been adding more and more Mac OS application of their own in spite of similar applications already being available, their own browser, their own Power Point and Word knockoff, iLife, an email client, now Aperture, they are only really missing a good spread sheet of their own. Why will they invest so much on software of their own when software accomplishing similar tasks was already available unless they are planning to gain market share by licensing the OS?
- The move to Intel is more than just speed. The fact that now runs on Intel will allow an emulator using virtualization technology on a Intel box running Windows or Linux do a very good job running Mac OS as well. And actually the opposite is also true, you will be able to run Windows on top of Mac OS much more efficiently so they might actually go the opposite patch and allow Windows to run in Apple machines as speculated here
- An OS with a higher market share will also protect their iPod and iTunes franchise by increasing the number of Mac users that are less likely to switch other music platforms
So today I came across this article that claims that Apple has got a patent that will prevent people from installing Mac OS in other hardware that is not Apple. The link to the patent is broken so I cannot read it but this might not actually disproved my theory, as the article already points out, the fact that Apple says one thing it does not mean that they will do the exact opposite (think video iPod).
CD
