Aw man! Another promise broken!
I wasn't going to reply, but...
Originally posted by pgwalsh
I seem to recall the wealthiest company in the US is mainly software only. MS? In addition people like Apples computer designs. So I still see people buying Apple hardware. A) Some people don't want to build there own. B) Not just another beige box. They wont make the same margins, but they may sell more OS units.
Yup, but MS has a monopoly. Oil companies make a lot of dough, but I'm not going to abandon my day job and start digging, which is pretty much what your advice would be, judging by this statement.
As has been said, Apple would be going in from scratch, and as I pointed out, would INSTNATLY have to switch 50% of the market or more in order to see no drop in income.
Picture the scene - Apple allows OS X to run on non-Apple hardware.
All the IT departments, students and current Apple users who are cash conscious (and judging by this board, there's a lot of 'em!) but intel hardware and load it with OS X. That's a LOT of lost revenue.
Over the first month, Apple convert 10% of current windows/linux users to OS X, thereby selling 10% more OS X boxes. Software income is up 15-20%. Woot.
HOWEVER, they've lost practically all of their hardware cash cow. Say hardware income is down 70% (to be conservative).
Those numbers spell a drop in share price, which spells Apple's doom...
Argue with that, don't argue by saying "People will still buy Apple hardware" and "Apple can be the next MS".
The point is that it would take well over a year for your little fantasy to play out, and in that time Apple would have been buried by its stockholders.
So we're back to my oil analogy. If I hit oil within a month, excellent. However, chances are I'll have to wait years to hit the oil.
In the meantime, how do I feed myself?
This is a great point!... Whatever happen to Document?
This is as lost on me as my Atari reference on you
😉
Tell that to the stockholders. They're not going to be the end all, but they could use about 25% more market share.
See my point above. Market share != profits if you're only talking about marketshare for your less profitable product.
What? May you explain this?
Ataris (and Amigas) ran on 680x0 processors, and while it was possible to leverage this to run partial emulators, it didn't mean that Mac OS could easily be run on either of those machines, due to different architecture.
The same would be true, I suspect, if Apple adopted Intel-based CPUs - they wouldn't use the same architecture as existing Intel-like machines, and hence OS X would not load on them - only on Apple machines.
Processor != Architecture
Nothing is guranteed that IBM can and will continue to develop the G5 at any given pace. Intel is a different story because that's the core of their business.
I couldn't agree more, and hence my comment about keeping options open. However, Apple didn't move to Intel or AMD during the darkest days of Moto, and I don't see them doing it now. IBM is coming back in a big way chip-wise (just MHO), and I doubt Apple's agreement with IBM would even let them use Intel or any other non IBM or Moto chip unless IBM messed up BIG and breached their contract.
<edit>
Actually, I could agree more. Intel seems to have no idea where it's going in the next 2 years. It has a rough idea, but no published plans that seem to hold water for any length of time.
IBM, on the other hand, is very sure where it's going. Whether it GETS there, of course, is another question, but just because a company has a proven track record, it doesn't mean it's a given that the track record will continue.
Enron used to be a stamp of reliability
😉
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I have a magical crystal ball called "reason" and when I cast my +2 Logic spell on it, I can see into the future...
I "know" this precisely because I didn't fall foul of confusing the two "paths" outlined in this thread.
If you read my post again, you'll magically know this too.
In short - Apple can either run OS X on existing hardware (increased marketshare of software, decreased profits and stock price), or it can use Intel in its Powermacs (cheaper processors, increased profits, dip in stock price as Intel is yet ANOTHER platform change). The second one WOULD NOT MEAN that OS X would run on EXISTING HARDWARE.
I partially agree with this. I agree that as long as we have OS X. However, I'd like the hardware to be a lot cheaper and to be able to build my own machine. Just because.
Yup, and that makes you a marginal target market.
Apple are closely guarding production of their hardware, while keeping their software as open as possible. This tells me that Apple values its hardware revenue much more than its software revenue.
There's that crystal ball again!
🙂
They have options as I recall.
We all have options. I could start throwing knives at my flatmates. That's an option.
Doesn't mean it makes any sense...
[/b] What's wrong with OO. Why would you want to kill an office app. that conforms to industry standards and is free. It has it's quirks, but it's an alernative to MS.
It'll never happen. That's why we support OO.
This is precisely my point. Jeez, you really don't get the whole "irony" thing, do you?
In fact, it's not even irony!
My point is that, as you said, options are always available. Just because something is physically possible (OS X on Intel or MS Office on Linux) and there might be benefits in it for the company concerned (OS X gains wider market share, MS kills off its competitor OO) that doesn't mean it makes sense to do it.
In closing, and to sum up (AGAIN), yes, both paths are options, yes both paths are possible.
And hopefully you can now see by my sleight-of-hand mathematics above, that Apple would have to pull a miracle out of the hat in order to remain afloat while indulging in either course of action.
Long term, yeah, it would work. But it would kill Apple in the short term.
Them's the breaks, kiddo. You can't make it through shark-infested waters by looking at the safe water you're in now, looking at the safe water on the other side of the sharks, and ignoring the sharks.
Yeah, when you get to the safe water, you'll be safe. That's long term. If you die short term, who cares about the long term payoff?
