[ThisGuy]

Thought some of you might enjoy this:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles676/

[Hash]

Very objective article. I agree 100%. Usually, PC users tend to be quite objective, because in PC world you always have benchmarks for everything - graphic cards, total systems, etc. Therefore, PC users are quite used to use of something material (real), not perceived benchmarks for judgement.

This article shows this. From hardware side, they accurately state that now Mac components are pretty similar or same as PC ones.CPUs are slower.

The difference is only the perceived OS use. Thats important for mac users and doesnt mean much for the rest of the world.

[DaedalusDX]

Originally posted by Hash:
Very objective article. I agree 100%. Usually, PC users tend to be quite objective, because in PC world you always have benchmarks for everything - graphic cards, total systems, etc. Therefore, PC users are quite used to use of something material (real), not perceived benchmarks for judgement.

This article shows this. From hardware side, they accurately state that now Mac components are pretty similar or same as PC ones.CPUs are slower.

The difference is only the perceived OS use. Thats important for mac users and doesnt mean much for the rest of the world.

The idea of a Mac OS X for x86 still irks me, but this article does bring up a great point about the situation with IBM. Using that as a trump card to control IBM is something i hadn't though t about.

We need better hardware. No doubt about that... this all leads up to that.

[Socially Awkward Solo]

You guys do understand how Apple makes money currently right?

[Gul Banana]

Hey, let them have their delusions
Some people need more than a superior operating system and integrated designs to justify the expense to themselves. Personally, I don't, but if it doesn't do people harm to believe that Apple's pricing is reasonable given their hardware, leave them their peace of mind.

[clarkgoble]

Apple really is in a bad situation, in terms of being between a rock and a hard place. Sales the last quarter haven't helped matters.

To go x86 with say a Clawhammer or even Athalon, Apple has to figure out a way to emulate existing code easily. That's not trivial. Anyone try Virtual PC recently? The shift from 68040 -> PPC was nowhere near as difficult due to byte ordering, registers and so forth. Even considering the time spent in Apple's code which would be x86 native, that is a whole lot of time spent in interpreted code. And if you end up comparing Excel or Word on XP and OSX on the same hardware, with one interpreted. . .

Further if Apple goes x86 they in effect bring in the clones. That's not necessarily a bad thing. However expect prices for OSX and iApps to then increase to make up for what Apple loses in hardware sales. (Although I'd expect Apple to continue to sell aesthetic, high quality machines)

If Apple stays G4/970 then they have the problem of at best staying in the middle of the performance curve, but charging more for it. Unless they can offer something that XP or Linux can't eventually they will continue to loose ground. Further the economies of scale and Apple being a small market means they'll have a much harder time competing in the price/performance race.

They also face the problem that at any moment, the big boys they depend on could pull the plug. Just look at how Quark has affected Mac sales. And that is a hated company who produces rather poor code. Consider if Microsoft, Adobe or Macromedia stopped developing. You could say you'd surive. But would the platform?

Don't get me wrong. I think OSX is the superior platform by far to either Linux or XP. But in terms of hardware Apple has gone from being the technological leader to trying desparately to play catch up.

I truly hope Apple makes it. First off OSX really excites me. It still has some UI problems, but they are nowhere near as bad as XP or even worse Linux. (Although I like the new KDE) If the rumors of future technologies coming to OSX are true, we are in for a lot of excitement. Part of that is Apple learning to use their own technologies. (Appleworks anyone?) The big part is figuring out how to get cheap hardware that performs at least as well as x86 hardware. The really big part is figuring out what they can do better to differentiate themselves from the pack.

[himself]

The article is more objective than most of the Apple-based editorials by PC editors, but the PC bias is noticably there. It does reveal a few good points I haven't heard before (not that I've heard everything that has been said on the topic previous to this article), like Apple using Marklar as it's trump card against IBM and Microsoft, and at the same time playing IBM against MOT and MSFT, and playing MSFT and Intel/AMD against IBM... it does get kind of complicated, not unlike your typical daytime soap opera. And while they do point out how MOT is the primary limiting factor on the Macs progress, it doesn't detail how much MOT affects this, as far as implementation of newer/ faster hardware standards goes (faster system busses, DDR that works, and other technologies that require faster data busses, at the least). While apple may be trying to leverage some of it's influence against IBM to produce this chip for them at a lower cost, I sometimes can't help but imagine that Apple may have approached IBM about producing something similar to the 970, while IBM may have been entertaining the idea as well. Who knows.

Also curious... Apple has always been considered an excellent sofware developer... Microsoft may average out to be a mediocre developer at best, and they control the entire industry. With Apple beginning to charge for some of it's previously free iApps (as the rumors seem to indicate), and then charging for .Mac, and it's movement into the high-end, professional level software development, I'm beginning to think that Apple may be transitioning itself to a primarily software based model (ala MSFT) within the next decade or so, while possibly spinning off its hardware into a separate division (it has been suggested many times before).

Otherwise, it's going to get harder for Apple to justify charging for it's once free software and services, and at the same time charge a premium for it's hardware products, when those apps were before condisdered to be �subsidized� by the price of hardware.

Of course, this is all speculation, but I am very curious as to where this will all go.

[sushiism]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mod/plexi/completion.htm I'm sorry but HAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHAAH totally the crackbaby of the computer world, even a BBC micro is better looking than that

[ewiser]

Apples biggest problem is Return on investment. It is hard for companies to make product's for their small market share due to ROI.
Going to a X86 chipset would allow Apple to use standard processors and enjoy the price cuts that go along with it.
An interesting case is Lindows.com M$soft wants to shut this idea down of being able to use the windows API without windows. If Lindows wins their case Apple could build the use of windows api into OSX letting you be able to just load and run a window program into your OSX machine with out having to use Windows OS.
I look at the past and what happened to the betamax it was first to market and was a better video tape system,but because VHS has more marketing clout behind it at the time. Sony lost the battle of the market place and came out with VHS tape machines. Apple has to play the ROI game and use the prevailing hardware. Perhaps going to more of a software company is in their best interest in the long run.

[JLL]

Originally posted by ewiser:
Going to a X86 chipset would allow Apple to use standard processors and enjoy the price cuts that go along with it.

A P4 is more expensive than a G4.

[pliny]

I think a move to x86 is extremely unlikely, in the range of 0%. I think Apple will continue to ride out the lag in CPU by offering slight bumps across the board until the 970 reaches production and by introducing new software and digital lifestyle devices. The chip situation now is what it is and that's that. The 970 ramps up later this year, Apple are not going to ride out this shrinking timeframe by switching suppliers and forcing a recompile on all developers.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by pliny:

...and forcing a recompile on all developers.

That's the KEY! Developers just went through the transition from OS 9 and previous to OS X, and they were loathe to do that... now forcing them to do it again less roughly two years later just to switch to x86 (in many cases it wouldn't be a "simple recompile")... I would be willing to bet nobody would do it.

The platform (Mac OS X) would then die. Nobody who is advocating Apple moving to x86 seems to address this.

[voodoo]

Apple will never go over to x86. Ever.

No more than M$ would go over to PPC. Even if PPC was xMHz faster.

[Vanquish]

*maybe* we'll know a bit more in a few days...

[Fotek2001]

No more than M$ would go over to PPC. Even if PPC was xMHz faster.

Microsoft offered Windows NT 4 for Power PC chips as recently as 1999.

[tdgrmsn]

Originally posted by Vanquish:
*maybe* we'll know a bit more in a few days...

Not likely based on Apple's general complete absence of any forward-looking statements/hints/info. I personally think this costs them greatly when selling into larger organizations, as those generally want a longer roadmap than Apple's last big mystery announcement. Of course I don't buy for such an organization, but even as a lowly consumer I find the lack of any solid roadplan a bit obnoxious. But I seem to put up with it. Such a harsh mistress...

[dru]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Apple will never go over to x86. Ever.

No more than M$ would go over to PPC. Even if PPC was xMHz faster.

Microsoft Windows NT was available for (non-Mac) PPC through v4.0. No one cared so they stopped development. It was available for Alpha too. No one cared so they stopped development. It was available for MIPS, in fact it was developed first on MIPS. No one cared so they stopped development.

[hudson1]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Apple will never go over to x86. Ever.

No more than M$ would go over to PPC. Even if PPC was xMHz faster.

I can definitely see them going to x86 but in a controlled fashion.

What better way to do this than develop an x86 version of OS X Server? The risk of losing hardware sales is low. How many xServe boxes are out there now anyway? The software recompile issue is much smaller as there aren't that many apps that are used on pure servers. The x86 server market already has a long history of trying alternate OS's to what Microsoft is peddling. I have no idea if this is what they are going to do or are considering doing but, yeah, I can see Apple doing this.

[pliny]

Originally posted by hudson1:
I can definitely see them going to x86 but in a controlled fashion.

What better way to do this than develop an x86 version of OS X Server? The risk of losing hardware sales is low. How many xServe boxes are out there now anyway? The software recompile issue is much smaller as there aren't that many apps that are used on pure servers. The x86 server market already has a long history of trying alternate OS's to what Microsoft is peddling. I have no idea if this is what they are going to do or are considering doing but, yeah, I can see Apple doing this.

Why differentiate the line that way? As a stopgap measure until the 970 reaches production in some months? It's not going to happen.

[Seamus]

My room-mate *supposedly* has a build of 10.1 for x86 sitting on his desk at the moment. He has yet to install it and show it to me. I somehow doubt its veracity.

[hudson1]

Originally posted by pliny:
Why differentiate the line that way? As a stopgap measure until the 970 reaches production in some months? It's not going to happen.

I'm not saying it's going to happen. But to answer your question, I don't think this has anything to do with IBM's upcoming chip. If I were to attempt to differentiate the line, I'd do it with OS X Server as it has the lowest risk of hardware cannibalization, a market that uses multiple OS's, and limited software needs.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by dru:
Microsoft Windows NT was available for (non-Mac) PPC through v4.0. No one cared so they stopped development. It was available for Alpha too. No one cared so they stopped development. It was available for MIPS, in fact it was developed first on MIPS. No one cared so they stopped development.

No.

NT was made for CHRP. It never took off. M$ pulled out of CHRP because they realized that platforms don't matter. Control of the Net is what matters.

Besides. NT 4 was useless. Nothing worked on NT 4. Nothing important anyway.

NT 4 on CHRP ran even less apps (because of the ol' recompiling catch).

[zerologic]

Originally posted by JLL:
A P4 is more expensive than a G4.

How much is a 1.25 ghz P4 compared to a 1.25ghz G4 ? even a 2.0ghz P4 is cheaper I'd guess.

0

[alex_kac]

I plan on buying one maybe two XServes. I'm a Mac fanatic, but I also run x86 boxes. If Apple offered an x86 XServe, I'd jump at the chance just because I know the speed of the CPU would last me a lot longer for my needs than a PowerPC.

[clarkgoble]

Apple has always been considered an excellent sofware developer... Microsoft may average out to be a mediocre developer at best, and they control the entire industry.

I'm not sure I buy that. For what they do, both NT and XP were quite good. The problems on MS' side were more a design decision about interoperability over security - a poor decision.

On the Mac side, compare Appleworks with MS Office and tell me Apple is the better developer. Both companies have crap. While MS stuff often has flaws, their genius has been to give people what they need for functionality. Apple often has cool stuff that they can't integrate into a real-life work flow that well.

And, say what you will about its problems, Visual Studio is still the best IDE out there.

[JLL]

Originally posted by alex_kac:
I plan on buying one maybe two XServes. I'm a Mac fanatic, but I also run x86 boxes. If Apple offered an x86 XServe, I'd jump at the chance just because I know the speed of the CPU would last me a lot longer for my needs than a PowerPC.

What do you need the servers for? The Xserves runs circles around x86 servers in many situations - mainly I/O.

And remember that most x86 servers have a PIII in them.

[JLL]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
On the Mac side, compare Appleworks with MS Office and tell me Apple is the better developer.

Shouldn't you compare AppleWorks with MS Works?

[Don Pickett]

Apple makes over 90% of its profit from hardware. OSX x86 ain't ever gonna happen.

[MacManMikeOSX]

will a hardware enginer tell these idiots that CISC and RISC archs. are truely not comparable.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Besides. NT 4 was useless. Nothing worked on NT 4. Nothing important anyway.

That's as pathetic as saying nothing works on OSX, what a stupid and outright blatantly wrong statement.

[alex_kac]

Originally posted by JLL:
What do you need the servers for? The Xserves runs circles around x86 servers in many situations - mainly I/O.

And remember that most x86 servers have a PIII in them.

Mainly database and web application serving.

Yes, that's my point - I want the XServe engineering with a high end Pentium CPU.

I want something that can handle the easy stuff above with plenty of room to scale for the next couple years with more things I may add to it. Right now a Dual Xserve can do it just fine with no problems. But I am concerned with its ability to keep going for a couple years with new and more power hungry apps.

The fact that the XServe I/O and subsystems are really geard for my type of apps is what makes me yearn for it, though.

For my workstation/laptop, I personally prefer the PowerPC architecture, however, because I can fit more power into those devices with less to compromise than comparable x86 devices.

[alex_kac]

Originally posted by MacManMikeOSX:
will a hardware enginer tell these idiots that CISC and RISC archs. are truely not comparable.

True, at the engineering level they are not. But none of the current CPUs are really pure forms of either. PowerPC and Pentiums are really combinations of the two - leaning one way more than the other.

In any case, I don't give a care about the arch as much as I do about a processor's ability to run the apps I need at the level I need it to.

The G4 currently has plenty of power for apps. If I had bought a dual 1Ghz CPU a year ago for serving - it would be great. But to buy one now...when you have competing CPUs going at much higher clock rates with hyperthreading, etc... that really do make database/web apps faster.

[JLL]

Originally posted by alex_kac:
Mainly database and web application serving.

Yes, that's my point - I want the XServe engineering with a high end Pentium CPU.

I want something that can handle the easy stuff above with plenty of room to scale for the next couple years with more things I may add to it. Right now a Dual Xserve can do it just fine with no problems. But I am concerned with its ability to keep going for a couple years with new and more power hungry apps.

The fact that the XServe I/O and subsystems are really geard for my type of apps is what makes me yearn for it, though.

For my workstation/laptop, I personally prefer the PowerPC architecture, however, because I can fit more power into those devices with less to compromise than comparable x86 devices.

Our single processor Xserve is killing a Dell 1650 when running JBoss.

Why do you think that a Dell would handle future apps better?

[mfessenden]

Originally posted by Person Man:
That's the KEY! Developers just went through the transition from OS 9 and previous to OS X, and they were loathe to do that... now forcing them to do it again less roughly two years later just to switch to x86 (in many cases it wouldn't be a "simple recompile")... I would be willing to bet nobody would do it.

The heck with that...the USERS aren't going to stand for it. We just went through a two-year tranistion, and for some people, things still aren't working right!

[clarkgoble]

If you offered both PPC and x86 systems then that would be less of a concern. Of course you probably would end up with some idiot who bought a x86 system because he thought it was faster and couldn't figure out why he had to choose between speed and backwards compatibility speed.

Ideally what you'd have is dual chips. Say a high speed Athalon and then a 1.5 GHz PPC. In practice I'm not sure that is even possible due to a whole slew of things. If they could pull it off though. . .

[Riemann Zeta]

The x86 and PPC architectures are not as radically different as everyone seems to believe. However, there are differences, and that is important. These differences are the reason that Apple will NEVER develop an x86 version of OS X. Doing so would cost them millions of development hours and billions of dollars, all to have an operating system built mainly upon emulation. In order to convert OS X to x86, Apple would have to convert--or worse, emulate--all of their proprietary technologies (e.g. Quartz, QuickTime, etc...) to x86, recompile OS X to work with all x86 boxen, which entails completely rewriting the boot code for OS X and, most importantly, create a PowerPC 75xx architecture emulator for x86. Obviously, this would be a huge, ultimately disasterous project.

The steps described above are similar to what Palm is doing with Palm OS 5.0. Palm has recoded their entire OS in C++ and compiled it for the ARM v4 architecture. However, they also have a 68000 emulator in the new OS. Interestingly, the emulator is the most central part of Palm OS 5. Developers must compile new apps in 68000, only to have their code emulated by the new OS. The only reason that Palm can get away with this is the massive performance differential that exists between 68000 chips and modern ARM chips. Such a performance differential does not exist between modern 75xx architecture chips and x86 chips--especially considering the vector/matrix coprocessor of the G4.

[khufuu]

Originally posted by JLL:
What do you need the servers for? The Xserves runs circles around x86 servers in many situations - mainly I/O.

And remember that most x86 servers have a PIII in them.

eh? I haven't seen a PIII in a server for quite some time. Get outta that cave you're in...

[khufuu]

Originally posted by MacManMikeOSX:
will a hardware enginer tell these idiots that CISC and RISC archs. are truely not comparable.

You haven't actually heard of the word 'throughput' have you??

[wataru]

Originally posted by Riemann Zeta:
Apple will NEVER develop an x86 version of OS X.

Umm, I think it's common knowledge that they did.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by khufuu:
eh? I haven't seen a PIII in a server for quite some time. Get outta that cave you're in...

I think you're the one in the cave, there's a massive reason why P3s are still the rage with servers - no such thing as a dual-P4.

[Graymalkin]

Ok this thread has finally reached the retard state that these threads always do.

It is technically possible for Apple to get OSX working on any processor architecture they want to with some caveats. Most of you don't seem to know or at the very least remember that OSX's Cocoa environment is essentially NeXT's OpenStep environment. Cocoa and OpenStep are source compatible to a very high degree, this means a program written for OpenStep using only AppKit level objects will likely compile with few if any changes on an OSX system. The Darwin system at the low level is easily ported to different processor architectures as well. The question of drivers for the hardware is an entirely different proposition so I'll let it go until later. With both Darwin and Cocoa, as well as the Java environment, ported to some processor architecture (say x86) you would have a pretty decent OSX environment. If Marklar isn't just some rumor site pipe dream it would pretty much consist of these three parts.

To be even cooler OpenStep had the ability to run what is called a fat binary. A fat binary is a single binary image that contains multiple compiled versions of an executable. If you compile a fat binary for PowerPC and x86 architectures for instance you could drop the .app bundle onto an OpenStep/x86 system and it would run just as well as if you dropped the bundle onto an OpenStep/PPC system. People don't seem to remember that when you write to an API and stick to instruction agnostic code (no custom assembly routines) your software will easily recompile on any system with the given API.

That is only issues of technical ability, practically a move to x86 would be retarded. Despite the ability to have fat binaries and a portable base system it requires money to support any environment on a particular ISA. Different instruction sets and processor familes have very different low level characteristics. There's some applications that are really dependant on the way a particular compiler optimizes some high level code. Some apps need to be profiled on different architectures so the developers can tweak sections of the program to work better on a particular platform. This costs money. A good example would be an application accelerated to use AltiVec on the G4, a developer would need to go through the code and switch out those G4 optimizations for compatible instructions (SSE2 for instance) on the target system.

Therte's then an issue on hardware support. I really hate this argument by pro-x86 people because it is so ridiculous. If OSX ran on an x86 chip hardware drivers would not magically appear for it. Drivers are written to the platform (OSX, Linux, Windows, Solaris) primarily and the actual hardware than runs secondly. A PCI SCSI card that ran on say Windows, Mac, and Solaris would need three entirely different drivers. Each driver would need to talk to the particular system's driver kit to enable software to access the hardware. The low level code that does the actual heavy lifting of the driver however will be pretty similar in some cases. All three systems run with PCI compatible hardware so anything that issues PCI instructions can be reused. The same goes for ASIC control on the PCI card itself. The difference and difficulty of writing a driver lies in talking to the OS's driver API to get the device to work with that OS. The processor architecture of the OS rarely if ever comes into play unless you need to talk to the system's memory controller rather than a periphrial controller. Ergo, OSX/x86 would have as many drivers and as much hardware support as it currently has. The only difference between an OSX/x86 system and OSX/PPC system would be the memory controller and the processor. The PCI, AGP, Firewire, and USB devices are all architecture agnostic as long as the interfaces they expect to be on the system are there.

It is also pointless to consider using Carbon and Classic in an x86 port of OSX. Carbon exists to provide functionality for older MacOS programs, porting it to a new architecture wouldn't make much sense unless you wanted to make it a target API. Classic just won't run on a non-PPC system. The question of emulation yet again is pointless. You can efficiently emulate x86 instructions on a PowerPC chip because the PPC has a metric buttload of GPRs to stick the x86 instructions in. A PPC can effectively run the x86 instructions as fast as they can be loaded and translated. The reverse proposition is not quite so fast. An x86 chip only has a handful of GPRs to mess around with so it would need to spend a extremely large portion of its time loading translating and caching PPC instructions until it had enough code to actually execute something. A Pentium would be executing a PPC program at around a tenth of the speed of a native one. An emulated system isn't useful unless it can run almost on par with a native system.

I won't even discuss third party support of such a move or the commoditization of Apple hardware, I think those points are fairly obvious. The fact a project like Marklar might exists isn't to move the OS to a new platform but to make sure the company has the OPTION of doing so. By maintaining that option they can leverage folks like Motorola to get their thumbs out of their rears. Since the lessons of NeXT seem to be forgotten by so many, I'll try to reiterate. Selling an OS without hardware that runs it exclusively means you have to sell ten times the software to make up for lost revenue in hardware. In a world where a majority of consumer and business computers run your direct competitor's product (Windows) you need to have something it does not. If you cannot come up with that one feature a multi-billion dollar company can not come up with and provide everything they provide, the market will slash your throat.

[Graymalkin]

Originally posted by DVD Plaza:
I think you're the one in the cave, there's a massive reason why P3s are still the rage with servers - no such thing as a dual-P4.

Except for the Xeon. Go back to your cave.

[JLL]

Originally posted by khufuu:
eh? I haven't seen a PIII in a server for quite some time. Get outta that cave you're in...

Maybe you've heard of a little computer company called Dell. They sell servers that are named PowerEdge, and they all use PIIIs or PIII Xeons.

[Metzen]

Originally posted by zerologic:
How much is a 1.25 ghz P4 compared to a 1.25ghz G4 ? even a 2.0ghz P4 is cheaper I'd guess.

0

Can't find any $$ on a 1.25GHz G4, but a 1.0GHz G4 costs $296US

That's on par for about a 2.6GHz P4 or a XP 2600+ from AMD

[undotwa]

Wouldn't Apple be able to implement a ROM chip in their machines which the OS requires to be present to boot?

Cocoa is extremely scalable, portable architecture. With a simple recompile 95% of Cocoa applications for Mac OS X will be able to run on x86.

Carbon I don't know. Probably a bit more difficult. But I would like to get rid of Carbon and Classic.

Apple could then release Cocoa for Windows which developers can write programs which run on both Windows and Macintosh.

[stew]

Originally posted by undotwa:
Carbon I don't know. Probably a bit more difficult. But I would like to get rid of Carbon and Classic.

What's wrong with Carbon?

[Graymalkin]

Apple could then release Cocoa for Windows which developers can write programs which run on both Windows and Macintosh. [/B]

This idea was called OpenStep. How are you going to sell Mac hardware if you've giving away the real advatange of OSX (the software)? The answer is you wouldn't.

[Jeff Jones]

Well, the discussion Mac vs. Wintel goes back as far as to the first predictions that Apple is dead. Perhaps even further. There are two things I would like to add. Firstly: Perhaps computers are, and hence should be treated like, tools. The argument from a Mac point of view is the same as for having a picture of your loved ones on your desk or for having a "quality pen" - you want to have a place of work (be it for job-work or for home-work) that you like. You want to enjoy being there - which does indeed make sense, since you spend a lot of time at it.

And secondly: At least in my experience, having worked on Windows for more than ten years and on the Mac for the last four years, the Mac makes things easier. I find myself more productive on the fruit machines. From little thinks like always having the O.K.-button in the lower right of a window to bigger things (in my opinion) like the omni-present menu-bar and the ease of use (especially in OS X) - I think it's just more "fun" to work on a Mac.

In a Wintel-world, everything is about Megahertz. Why? That I really don't know. Perhaps for the latest in games, but to the average user I can't see why I would need a 3 MHz Pentium 4. And for those who think a P4 is faster in crunching DVD video until if fits on an SVCD - forget it. In the end it comes back to preference. I prefer the Mac for a number of reasons. One of the reasons Wintel users are always "bitchin'" about the Mac is that they just can't understand how a computer can enchant it's users like the Mac does. Well, try one for a while and you'll probably understand!

Mac OS on a (any) Intel-machine would basically do two things: a) It would dilute the distinction between the two systems. It would NOT mean, that you could have the best of both worlds. b) It would make it significantly harder for Apple to respond to the demands of their users. The Mac is a complete concept and a complete product. Taking it apart is like selling a BMW with a Ford engine. A complete system is what Apple's users want, and that's what they are getting. Period. And I for one want it to stay that way.

[hudson1]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
This idea was called OpenStep. How are you going to sell Mac hardware if you've giving away the real advatange of OSX (the software)? The answer is you wouldn't.

Giving it away is one thing. Selling an x86 OS X Server for, say, $1000 (or more) is another. As Graymalkin clearly stated, drivers are a huge issue. Overall, though, drivers would be a far smaller issue for OS X Server compared to any desktop OS. Carbon? Apple could get away without it on Server.

These are some of the reasons that I think that *IF* Apple wants to test the waters with a commercial x86 offering, Server would the way they'd do it.

[ja]

Toy Story


1 Mac OS X on x86

2 Clones and DIY hardware

3 Loads of paid-for iapps [inc an OpenOffice/iOffice, iBrowser] and whatever else is necessary for life support without Microsoft

4 Software subscription via .Mac

5 Loads of handheld and desktop toys [iPods, pads, teleconferencing picture frames or whatever]


... perhaps perhaps ...