Drivers, drivers, drivers
11 April 2006
I keep seeing the same stupid article in major tech sites that should really know better, i.e. people either predicting or hoping for Apple to release OS X for white box PCs. There has been an epidemic since Apple previewed "Boot- camp", a boot loader for the new Intel Macs that can boot Windows. Here is another one:
> "If Apple wants a significant number of users to sample OS X, Boot Camp just won't cut it. Instead, it's going to have to get off the fence and start selling OS X to PC users, rather than restricting it to the Mac. I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this, as it would dramatically increase its revenue and market penetration. Is Apple not confident that it can compete with PC vendors based on hardware design alone, should users have the ability to run OS X on a standard Dell or HP machine?" Source: `Bunk Camp: Apple gets it wrong by Asher Moses, CNET.com.au`_
"It would dramatically increase its revenue and market penetration" is actually back to front, it would it fact dramatically reduce its revenue.
As I have said before on this blog, Apple make money from their hardware and lose it on their Operating System (OS); so it does not matter how many people install OS X, if people are not buying Apple hardware then it is pointless. Indeed, putting Apple's loss-making OS on whiteboxes would be sapping demand from the highly profitable hardware business.
But on a more fundamental level, I believe that Asher Moses has never even seen a Mac. "I don't see any valid reason why Apple isn't doing this," - to misquote Tony Blair, there are three reasons: "drivers, drivers, drivers".
Mac OS X supports about 20 Macs that you can buy, and thats it. OS X does not support the million different ways you can setup a PC. Windows drivers will never work and Linux drivers cannot legally be used by Apple without GPL-ing the Apple's own Mach Kernel.
So to try out Asher Moses' business plan, Apple would have to get thousands of drivers made at huge expense, who would pay for it, and how long would it take? The Linux kernel team have been gathering drivers since 1991 and Windows have been getting manufacturers involved since at least 1995. Apple would not be able to get even a representative sample of drivers for many years.
After all, the manufacturers will only produce drivers for their latest and greatest hardware, and the Apple OS X team that are actually doing programming is less than 100 people.
Boot-camp will probably sell a few more Macs
Despite what Asher Moses and others say, boot camp, the dual boot-manager for new Macs, is a clever idea. After all, Apple sells many Macs to Linux users who then reformat the hard-drive and install Linux.
Why? Because the hardware is fantastically well designed. Apple hardware is very comfortable to use in an ergonomic sense but also looks fantastic. You also know that all the parts inside are top-quality, unlike with many PCs from the major retail chains that have a big headline processor and crap everything else.
Apple is betting that some Windows users will agree and will buy the machines, or get their work to buy the machines for them. If just a small fraction of a percent of Windows users take up this plan then it will be a huge windfall for Apple.
