I've been a bit busy over the last few weeks and I haven't had a chance to share my thoughts on the "new" MacIntel strategy. I've read the posts from developers, VARs and comments from some of the heavy-hitters like Microsoft and Adobe. From where I'm standing I think this is a great move, a win-win for customers and for the industry as a whole.
I feel bad for the Gateways and Sonys of the world. Once those MacIntel laptops/desktops/servers start hitting the market they won't know what hit them. Why? Put it this way, everyone in the industry knows that Apple makes the best hardware systems, period. With Intel now on board and with Apple's superb systems design, there's no way competitors will be able to just ship "white boxes" to the masses. Possible customers will compare their run of the mill "white boxes" to the Macs and once they start doing that, Apple has them right where they want them. Put it this way, why will I buy a Dell, HP or whatever main PC maker is out there if on a kick ass MacIntel I can run Windows, Linux and Apple's crown jewel's; Mac OS X. Did I mention that you'll only be able to run OS X on Apple hardware? Exactly. And if you are thinking that some hacker will try to get OS X working on a regular PC, think again. Do you remember TPM (Trusted Platform Module)? In a nutshell, TPM is DRM on a chip (not software). It can prevent any OS or piece of software from running if not authorized to do so. Sorry Dell and HP. You are not part of this game this time around. Steve Jobs may have had cancer on the pancreas, but he is not going crazy.
Expect the PowerBooks and iBooks to be released in January and March respectively. Shortly followed by the Mac Mini and iMac. By this time next year Intel will have its act together on the server chips and we shall see a PowerMac shipping as well as some Xserves. The Xraids are already on Intel chips, so those are already migrated.
In the next year or so you will not hear anything about an Apple-Microsoft head to head battle. But make no mistake, Leopard - the next version of OS X - will be released right around the same time Longhorn will (Dec. 2006). Once that happens it will like the early 90s all over again. And as far as Linux is concerned, I have one question for you? Why in the world would anyone run Linux when you can run OS X? Why?
That's all for now.
10-4
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