OS X running on PCs..

[pc_convert?]

was there ever a truer word(s) spoken....

 

[arn]

Originally posted by krossfyter
Hey arn...umm im not trying to start something rude here or anything..i was just putting this out for the heck of it. Im not into arguing either so im sorry if my post has come out that way. I just really am curious to hear what you all think..thats all...no ILL intent. Its cool. Now with that said...how do you (arn) figure mac sales would plumment if osx were an option on peecees? Im just curious again. I for one think they(apple) would easily reach 20% market share..but I could be wrong because i dont know much about the bussines side of things. And whats wrong with giving them peecee users an option to have a mac os as oppose to the windoze os? isnt this a good thing? wouldnt this just piss micro$oft off...and isnt that a good thing?

That's cool - sorry if I came off a bit rude...

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=cach...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