8.6 - Mac OSX for Intel
One of the more interesting (to me) issues the OSX community is considering these days (it is March 2006 as I write this) is the choice available to Apple to allow OSX to run on hardware other than that actually produced by Apple. With OSX's ability to run on Intel processors, upon initial consideration, you'd think that the availability of such a huge potential market (in other words, all PC users) would have the folks at Apple chomping at the bit to release OSX "for everything." Well, that's not happening — that's one thing we do know.
Since it isn't happening, it seems reasonable to examine whatever reasons there might be to not do it. First, Apple sells computers. More to the point, they sell, comparatively speaking, very expensive computers. You can buy a "commodity" PC for about $200 if you work at it; Apple's "bottom of the line" machine, the Mac Mini, is currently $600 at the entry level (and can cost quite a bit more if you start adding RAM and up the CPU speed a notch.) So clearly, Apple's making a lot of money selling hardware. It it fairly easy to see that if we could buy for say, $350, what apple is selling in terms of capability — same number of ports, wifi, etc. — Apple might sell fewer units. Apple hardware is very good hardware, reliable and it tends to be pretty to look at... but is that enough to get Joe or Jane average to part with several hundred extra dollars? It's an interesting question, and I think it is clear that some people will pay more for the brand name and/or the "look", but will enough people do so is really the issue here.
Secondly, because Apple makes the hardware, the types of configurations out there that must be supported by Apple's OSX are known: They'll either have hardware options Apple sells, or they won't. There are no other permutations, and that means the "ecosystem" of hardware drivers required is very, very small compared to the entire subset of all PC hardware out there. So Apple can legitimately offer solid support for their hardware (and generally speaking, they actually do.) This is a comfortable situation: Apple's never going to have to deal with someone who bought a PC clone from Taiwan or Korea or Boston and tell them "not on the list of supported machines, sorry." I'm sure that appeals to Apple technical support people, if no one else.
Now we get to the counter argument, an argument that I support. I believe that the following points make more sense in both the business domain, where Apple's primary concerns lie, and in the customer's usability domain, where the customer's primary concerns lie, than the "don't ship OSX for PC clones" argument.
Apple makes OSX, and that puts Apple in a position to dictate just how far "off the reservation" a PC clone could be allowed to go before it becomes non-supported. They could implement this in an active manner (in other words, develop an Apple certified machine program) so customers could know they were buying supported hardware, or they could do it in a passive manner and just list what they will support and point out that the presence of any other hardware presents a risk that the machine will not work as advertised, voids any promises of fitness, and will not be supported. By providing a public specification of what is required of the clone hardware, Apple can ensure that the size of the hardware ecosystem remains manageable, and can, if it so desires, expand that ecosystem if and when it pleases. These choices are obvious and practical, and I believe that they soundly dispose of the "ecosystem" argument.
Next, We assume that Apple makes money off the hardware, and I think one can assume that assumption is correct (if it isn't, then the argument tilts even more in favor of opening OSX to generic hardware so Apple can make fewer machines.) So, the qestion is, is there an economic benefit to selling OSX into a wider clone market? The answer is not only yes, it is a resounding yes. here's why: OSX is a done deal. It's in the box. That means that the cost of developing it is over with, and that every copy sold for $150 should be making about $145 for Apple, certainly no less than $140 even if they made the worst deal in the world for packaging and CDs. If they sell OSX as a download, it'll make about $149.00 for them. In other words, it's pure profit, baby. Selling a million copies of OSX for clones would result in an immediate income stream of about one hundred and fifty million dollars. But a million copies is an absurdly conservative estimate. 25 million copies is probably a more reasonable guess, and I still think that's on the extremely conservative side. We're talking about a lot of income, here. Now, Apple — as a company — has a couple of obligations. The first one is to the stockholders, and in that area, Apple should simply endeavor to make lots of money in a legal and sustainable way. There is nothing illegal or unsustainable about selling OSX for PCs that I can think of, which pretty much takes care of that. The second obligation is also sustainability with regard to the corporate structure, simply in order that Apple is able to continue to do what it's expertise has equipped it to do, which is make OSX and various hardware. But let's consider that they don't actually make hardware. My Mac Mini came from overseas. "Apple" didn't make it, a bunch of day workers in China made it. In other words, while they designed the hardware, they did not build it. Changing the number of Macs manufactured won't hurt Apple unless the income from the sales of OSX into the clone zone, as it were, failed to make up the difference. And that, as they say, seems most unlikely. So there doesn't appear to be a sustainability issue in the corporate culture / operations sense, either.
Apple's got a certain reputation that usually, and most obviously, pops up when people refer to an Apple computer as a "yuppie" purchase. This is because of the price. You spend more (a lot more!) for an Apple than you do on a PC, at least out of the store. Would selling OSX into the clone market alter this perception? Would that be a bad thing? This is the least clear question, but personally, I don't think it would be bad. Because this is about "branding" and emotional issues, your milage may vary here. As a point of argument, I consider this of negligable importance. The quality of OSX will not vary on this issue, and it is the quality of OSX that is of concern to me, not the equivalant argument of "I have band name sneakers and yours came from Wall-Mart."
From the point of view of the Apple customer, the benefits are clear. For those who choose to buy Apple hardware, the difference is only that there are far more OSX users, and so the amount and degree of support from the software development community will surge on sales into the clone market. The resulting wave of software can only benefit them. For those who choose to buy a clone and then populate it with OSX, this is a brand new opportunity, and as someone who runs Windows, Linux and OSX I can tell you flat out that these people benefit directly. Also, for those who are simply on a shorter budget and not really concerned with "image", the (much) less expensive availability of OSX will bring them into a better world that they otherwise were shut out of, and that is entirely a good thing. Also, this world will contain more software than we who use OSX have access to now, because there will be far more developers involved, so they're not getting what we have now, they're getting something better!
Keep in mind we're not just talking about all the Windows users in the world, we're also talking about all the Linux users, all the unusual OS users (Amiga, Be, etc.), we're talking about darned near everyone who has, or is considering buying, a PC of reasonable compatibility. That is an insane amount of systems that could be running OSX by, say, next week. Apple stock would go through the roof, and Microsoft's would probably fall like a stone. Inasmuch as I own Apple stock and not Microsoft's, you can guess what I'm rooting for.
Oh, and one last thing, as Jobs likes to say: Hackers have made OSX available for everyone anyway, available if you simply do a little detective work. So the question isn't if you can run OSX on your clone (you definitely can), the question really is, will Apple lose all that potential income and leave a bunch of people without support? I know I wouldn't miss this opportunity, were it up to me.
So that's how I see it. If you have counter argument, by all means, use the link at the bottom of the page to send it along, I'm all ears (eyes.) If I agree that your point has merit, I'll add to this essay with my comments on your thoughts.
Have a comment for me? Click here.
