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Date:      Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:19:25 -0800
From:      "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To:        "Shane Ambler" <Shane@007Marketing.com>, "FreeBSD Mailing Lists" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
Subject:   RE: I quit
Message-ID:  <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNGEAHFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <BE08917D.219AD%Shane@007Marketing.com>

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Shane Ambler
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 1:40 AM
> To: FreeBSD Mailing Lists; dkelly@hiwaay.net
> Subject: Re: I quit
>
>

> Out of interest - it was microsoft that stopped Mac OS X for
> intel being
> released. Many don't remember or just don't discuss - when
> apple bought out
> NeXT - it was running on intel hardware and the first
> developer release of
> OS X included an intel version

Don't put too much credence in this - an intel version isn't much
good to anyone if it only runs on one single motherboard model #
in the world.

 - then came the publicity deal
> between MS and
> Apple - MS agreed to continue development of office for mac and bought
> $150000 in Apple stock and Apple agreed to drop all the
> lawsuits against MS.
>
> The intel version has never been heard of since.
>

This is really stretching it.  Microsoft has little to fear from
Apple bringing out an Intel version of MacOS X, they are much more
afraid of Linux.

There's really 3 major overriding problems that Apple would have to
overcome before doing an intel port of MacOS X:

1) It would lose them immediate sales of Apple hardware since
a good number of Mac users would stop buying PowerPC gear.  This
is particularly true in corporations.  Most corporate IT departments
cannot stand any gear that doesen't meet the corporate cookie-cutter
standard, ie: Mac gear, and even if they have users who are rabid
Mac users, if they could field MacOS X on standard Wintel hardware
they would do so in a second.

  Perhaps in the long term they would make up lost revenue on
hardware sales by increasing their market share, but there would
be an immediate short-term sales loss.

  And also keep in mind most Mac gear still goes through local
Mac dealers, it's not sold online like Dell/HP/Compaq/IBM/Gateway pc
gear, if you were a local Mac dealer and all the sudden you had
every corner cloner shop undercutting you on sales of Apple
Macalikes, you would probably tell Apple 'screw you buddy, I'm
going to start selling Wintel clones'

2) Apple selling MacOS X on Wintel gear puts it in direct competition
with the corner cloners selling Wintel boxes with RedHat preloads,
and they are going to lose big time there.  Not to mention the
inevitable Macintosh applications that will run on Mac hardware and
need to be rebuilt for Macalike hardware, due to stupid bugs and
such.

3) If your a conspiracy theorist consider what would happen if
Apple were to abandon IBM processors and start using Intel
CPU's.  Intel nearly got nailed on antitrust violations itself,
remember, and it was only because Intel was very eager to negotiate
with the FCC and readily submitted to all kinds of restrictions
that the entire matter was quietly swept under the rug.  (unlike the
Microsoft fiasco which did a lot of damage to Microsoft's image,
and emboldened the Europeans to nail them)  Intel almost certainly
would not want to see this as it would increase their market
share to unhealthy levels, to the point where they would be at
serious risk of an antitrust lawsuit despite their previous
cooperation.

It is in Intel's interest to see processor competition for PC
hardware - quite obviously not a huge amount - but enough so that
they are safe from accusations of monopolistic practices.  Apple
could not move to Intel in a production capacity without good
cooperation from Intel, and Intel wouldn't want to cooperate
with them because they wouldn't want them to move to Intel chips.

> The fact that they maintain the intel version of darwin means they can
> release an intel version at any time.

The fact that they maintain it is because they want to get free
development time from the open source community.

>
> But then maybe they want their bases open so they can change
> their hardware
> to intel - they fell out with motorola and now get the G5's
> from IBM.

This is a fantasy.  Apple makes more money in one year than
you, I, and most likely everyone else on this list will see
in a lifetime.  Yes, their annual sales are dwarfed by Microsoft's -
but they still have money coming out of their arseholes.

There comes a time when the money made by an organization
doesen't translate anymore into the tangible things it means
to you and I - like food, a home, a car, some free time, etc. -
and simply becomes a meaningless number with a bunch of
zeros behind it.  So what - the other guy has more zeros
behind his take than you do - both of you have so much money
that you could spend the rest of your life boffing every
Sports Illustrated model that poses in the swimsuit edition
if you felt like it.  It becomes nothing more than a game
for all of these people.

> And
> there have been times before OS X when they looked at getting
> the Mac OS
> running on intel hardware - it was between intel and motorola
> before they
> changed to the RISC based PPC.
>

Times change.  There was a time that Apple was seriously in
danger of collapsing.  They have got past that and now have
their annoying little niche dug in the industry, it's a
comfortable niche for them and the industry has come to the
realization that they can't be dug out of there, so the
industry has given up trying to do it.  But, if Apple is stupid
enough to try climbing out of that niche they are going
to get squashed - because they are still an annoyance to
a great many people in the industry.

Ted



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