OK webmail, so no LaGrande-style locking. But since you seem to know absolutely about as many secret things as Steve Jobs himself how will you technically prevent Mac OS X from beeing installed on PCs then?
You can't. Even if you lock in hardware, a hack of the firmware will do the trick.
Remember that the guys in the company do their job for the pay check. The guys that hack stuff up, do it for the challenge.
There is only so much money can buy even in the world where everybody seems to tell you otherwise!
Hacked OS X on Intel will break every time an OS update is released, and with an average of 9 every 18 months, that'll be really irritating.
But it might make some people switch. I switched to Mac after 12 months of running MacOS on my Amiga 4000/40 (the jump to a PowerMac 604 7600/120 was impressive!).
You can't. Even if you lock in hardware, a hack of the firmware will do the trick.
Remember that the guys in the company do their job for the pay check. The guys that hack stuff up, do it for the challenge.
There is only so much money can buy even in the world where everybody seems to tell you otherwise!
Most likely true, but I doubt Apple is worried about the small number of sales it will lose to hard core hackers who want to run OS X on unsupported hardware, with whatever headaches that might entail.
Furthermore, I am not entirely certain that there will be a significant financial gain to buying, say, a Dell and running OS X on it versus buying an equivalently speced Apple.
Suppose that you are looking towards the low end (e.g., iBook, Mini, low end iMac), so say an average price of around $900. Apple's gross margins are generally between 25-30%, while Dell's gross margins are generally between 15-20%. Dell is known for cheap machines and minimal R&D (note that R&D costs are not factored into margins, and thus do not affect them), but at the end of the day they both use the same low cost Asian manufacturing companies. Now they will also be using the same hardware components, so at first glance you would expect an equivalently speced Mac to cost about $90 more than a Dell, at the price range we're talking about. But Apple's margins do not count OS X as a cost (since they do the R&D themselves, so the cost per additional machine shipped is close to 0), while Dell's margins DO count Windows as a cost (since they have to buy a license from MSFT for each machine). Even assuming Dell gets a generous 50% volume discount over the normal OEM Windows license cost, that's still an extra $40-50 per machine, so the Dell cost advantage will drop to $40-50 at most on a $900 machine. I don't know about you, but I would readily pay an extra 50 bucks on a $900 machine to get a real copy of OS X and run on supported hardware.
Of course, if Apple chooses to use better materials in its machines, or if they design compact (but more expensive to manufacture) machines (e.g. Mini), then the premium may be more than 50 bucks in the <$1000 range, for two machines having the same processor, RAM, drives, video card, etc. But in that case, the machines aren't truly "equivalently speced"...at the end of the day you are still getting what you pay for (or not getting what you don't pay for).
Of course, this is all theoretical, based on the historical numbers. Who knows what could actually happen. It will definitely be interesting to see how pricing shakes out when the switch to Intel happens.
Furthermore, I am not entirely certain that there will be a significant financial gain to buying, say, a Dell and running OS X on it versus buying an equivalently speced Apple.
Sure, I second that. But there are also a lot of people who already have a PC. They could then buy a Mac, or... install this Mac OS X for Intel hAck3d v3rsi0n that they'll find everywhere on p2p networks.
But as you said, pehaps this will finally make them come to Apple computers, a bit later.
OK webmail, so no LaGrande-style locking. But since you seem to know absolutely about as many secret things as Steve Jobs himself how will you technically prevent Mac OS X from beeing installed on PCs then?
Nothing. Mac OS X will be installed on non-Apple PCs and fairly quickly despite their best efforts. Problems with a hacked version won't help their cause either. The best thing they could do is a full x86 release. The genie is already out of the bottle.
Quote:
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Apple is trying to miniaturize everything. I think it's about damn time computers got smaller. Why a tower when you could have a modular design for maximum compactness?
[/B]
Expansion card slots, hard drives and optical drives without the firewire/USB 2.0 penalty. For consumers who don't need such things and don't upgrade it's great. I'm more interested in a fast system that's quiet myself.
Comments
OK webmail, so no LaGrande-style locking. But since you seem to know absolutely about as many secret things as Steve Jobs himself how will you technically prevent Mac OS X from beeing installed on PCs then?
You can't. Even if you lock in hardware, a hack of the firmware will do the trick.
Remember that the guys in the company do their job for the pay check. The guys that hack stuff up, do it for the challenge.
There is only so much money can buy even in the world where everybody seems to tell you otherwise!
But it might make some people switch. I switched to Mac after 12 months of running MacOS on my Amiga 4000/40 (the jump to a PowerMac 604 7600/120 was impressive!).
Originally posted by skatman
You can't. Even if you lock in hardware, a hack of the firmware will do the trick.
Remember that the guys in the company do their job for the pay check. The guys that hack stuff up, do it for the challenge.
There is only so much money can buy even in the world where everybody seems to tell you otherwise!
Most likely true, but I doubt Apple is worried about the small number of sales it will lose to hard core hackers who want to run OS X on unsupported hardware, with whatever headaches that might entail.
Furthermore, I am not entirely certain that there will be a significant financial gain to buying, say, a Dell and running OS X on it versus buying an equivalently speced Apple.
Suppose that you are looking towards the low end (e.g., iBook, Mini, low end iMac), so say an average price of around $900. Apple's gross margins are generally between 25-30%, while Dell's gross margins are generally between 15-20%. Dell is known for cheap machines and minimal R&D (note that R&D costs are not factored into margins, and thus do not affect them), but at the end of the day they both use the same low cost Asian manufacturing companies. Now they will also be using the same hardware components, so at first glance you would expect an equivalently speced Mac to cost about $90 more than a Dell, at the price range we're talking about. But Apple's margins do not count OS X as a cost (since they do the R&D themselves, so the cost per additional machine shipped is close to 0), while Dell's margins DO count Windows as a cost (since they have to buy a license from MSFT for each machine). Even assuming Dell gets a generous 50% volume discount over the normal OEM Windows license cost, that's still an extra $40-50 per machine, so the Dell cost advantage will drop to $40-50 at most on a $900 machine. I don't know about you, but I would readily pay an extra 50 bucks on a $900 machine to get a real copy of OS X and run on supported hardware.
Of course, if Apple chooses to use better materials in its machines, or if they design compact (but more expensive to manufacture) machines (e.g. Mini), then the premium may be more than 50 bucks in the <$1000 range, for two machines having the same processor, RAM, drives, video card, etc. But in that case, the machines aren't truly "equivalently speced"...at the end of the day you are still getting what you pay for (or not getting what you don't pay for).
Of course, this is all theoretical, based on the historical numbers. Who knows what could actually happen. It will definitely be interesting to see how pricing shakes out when the switch to Intel happens.
Intel's profit jumped 16% amid strong demand for its Centrino chips used to power notebook computers. Revenue rose 15% to $9.23 billion.
It is nice to be going to a company that can make a profit with their chip division.
Originally posted by bigmig
Furthermore, I am not entirely certain that there will be a significant financial gain to buying, say, a Dell and running OS X on it versus buying an equivalently speced Apple.
Sure, I second that. But there are also a lot of people who already have a PC. They could then buy a Mac, or... install this Mac OS X for Intel hAck3d v3rsi0n that they'll find everywhere on p2p networks.
But as you said, pehaps this will finally make them come to Apple computers, a bit later.
Originally posted by Cosmos 1999
OK webmail, so no LaGrande-style locking. But since you seem to know absolutely about as many secret things as Steve Jobs himself
Nothing. Mac OS X will be installed on non-Apple PCs and fairly quickly despite their best efforts. Problems with a hacked version won't help their cause either. The best thing they could do is a full x86 release. The genie is already out of the bottle.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Apple is trying to miniaturize everything. I think it's about damn time computers got smaller. Why a tower when you could have a modular design for maximum compactness?
[/B]
Expansion card slots, hard drives and optical drives without the firewire/USB 2.0 penalty. For consumers who don't need such things and don't upgrade it's great. I'm more interested in a fast system that's quiet myself.