The x86 OS X Success Strategy

[ryanweb]

Again about porting OS X to x86 platform:
http://osopinion.com/perl/story/17176.html

[D0ct0rteeth]

begin quote... "blah bla blah blech... apple can't survive .... blah, blah..." end quote...

Apple is successful because they build great computers and have become indespensible in certain industries (ie: print and education)

Porting OSX to other manufacturers (ie: Dell, HP and Compaq) won't do anything but piss off apple support for having to handle support calls on customers installing OSX on Presarios (a sign of the apocolypse)

What I want is a HP pavilion running OSX!!! YAY!! thats going to solve the worlds problems...

You want OSX, buy a mac... this guy is basically saying "i bought a ford, and I just figured out BMW is better; so can I get some BMW seats, and maybe a BMW dashboard..and..."

save us all the trouble and just shoot yourself.. you should have bought a mac..

[Buggy]

Doctorteeth,

Great analogy!!!

I don't buy into the x86 push. Bad idea.

cheers

[Backtothemac]

Why port the most advanced operating system in the world to the oldest computing architecture in use today?

Nuff Said!

[arn]

I posted this a while a back in an old thread... here it is copy/pasted:

-----------

so... here's my take on the OS X and intel and why it would fail...

First - this is assuming Apple would port OS X to Intel for generic hardware (ie.. Dell, Compaq etc...)

1) Apple makes most of it's money on Hardware. For Q4 2001...
$1,450 million total revenue.
Of that "For Peripherals, SW & Other - $248 million"
so 80% of Apple's revenue is from Hardware.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:jCsOCkXvpXoC:www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q401data_sum.pdf+apple+revenue+2001&hl=en

2) Now... Apple ports to intel... and this would eliminate all classic apps... probably some carbon apps (not sure the details), and would require recompiles of all cocoa apps... So, OS X native recompiled apps ONLY would be available for this platform. No Windows apps, no Classic apps.

If this happens... there are 3 groups of people

a) PC Users - these people who weren't intending to switch anyway. You might win some of them over to OS X Intel... but never to Mac hardware
b) PC Users who intend to switch - these people will certainly go with OS X for intel.
c) Mac users - some will stay with Mac hardware for the design... but a fair number will switch to PC hardware (cheaper).

So, hardware sales will suffer from Apple - and eventually it will be improbable that Apple can support hardware production (ie cost and design will exceed revenue)... so suddenly, Apple will become 1billion in revenue a year company instead of a 6 billion in revenue company...

Can Apple make up for all that revenue and sales with OS X for Intel alone? Maybe.... maybe not... but it's definately not a guarentee...

so why should apple gamble? Apple is profitable _right now_

I see two ways Apple would do this

1) Apple is about to go bankrupt... and as a final push, they'll port to Intel
2) PPC falls way behind or gets discontinued altogether.... then they may come out with a Proprietary x86 Apple machine. Designed just for that one model... not for Dell,compaq etc...

arn

[jaykk]

I dont think apple will ever port Mac OS X on x86 chips.. Intel itself is trying to get away from it with 64-bit Itanium, which they had little success. Apple/Motorola/IBM is already well ahead of intel chips with its g3/g4/g5 development. why should apple go backwards with a outdated x86 system?