Apple Leopard....

I remember the key note by Steve Jobs a few years ago about migrating to Intel CPUs. I watched it on Quicktime and it was a good show. Fast forward a year or two and Apple devised a scheme where users can run Windows on their Macs. Very cool indeed. Of course along the way, Mac OS was described as much better, faster, quicker, prettier etc. than windows. With the latest incarnations of Windows and Mac OS it is interesting to see that Windows will still run on a Mac but Mac OS will not run on a PC. Why is that? A quick search on the web will reveal that it is not a technical issue. In fact is it a choice Apple has made. Each Mac has a chip in it that is examined by Mac OS installation software. If the chip is there, the machine is a Mac, the software will install. If the chip is not there, the machine is not a Mac, the software won't install. Why would Apple do such a thing? Development costs to make Mac OS really compatibile with all the PC accessories out there? May be, but could be remedied by working with hardware manufacturers, after all Mac OS is better, faster, quicker, prettier etc. than Windows, so manufacturers would love to do this work. Seriously, manufacturers would do this development as much of the drivers would be portable from the Mac platform, plus Max OS running on a PC would spur additional PC sales. There are other reasons perhaps, but only one comes to my mind and that is that Apple is afraid. What are they afraid of? They are afraid that once Mac OS runs on a PC, people all over the world will find out what has been only argued to this point. The crux is pricing of Apple hardware. It may be better, it may be faster etc. etc. Once Mac OS runs on a PC, we would not be relying on comments from Apple or Apple zealots. We could spend $149 or whatever it is and put it on our PC and find out for sure. Surely there is something to think about when an entry laptop running windows is $300 and one running Mac OS is $999. So here is a business opportunity for you...devise a little card or USB gizmo that plugs into a PC and allows people to install Mac OS on their PCs. The work on this has already started on the internet, but so far it is a painful process. For now, judging by Apple's actions to lock Leopard to the Mac hardware, we perhaps got another point about Apple's belief about how strong their hardware offering is and it is not an encouraging vote of confidence from Apple.