Apple to go into the operating system business?

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 02 April 2008 16:37

Opinion and Analysis

The early Macs were cute little computers and they looked cool. However, technologically the hardware was no more advanced or powerful than the early PCs. Mac OS, however, was something else. It was more than a decade ahead of Microsoft's DOS. It was mouse driven, WYSIWYG, user friendly and just plain mind blowing. It should have been the operating system on everybody's desk and the one most developers were developing for not DOS.

Aside from the fact that Mac OS was developed for Motorola's architecture and not Intel (something that could be changed as we now know), Apple was more interested in using its software to sell computers than selling the software itself. As Microsoft subsequently proved, there's far more money and market dominance to be gained in selling software.

Apple shares have had a pull back of about 25% off their highs last year. In order to keeping growing at its phenomenal rate, Apple has to find new markets. The iPhone is targeting one of those markets. However, what makes the iPhone unique today is the same thing that has always made Macs unique - the operating system.

At Macworld 2007, Steve Jobs said companies serious about developing good software make their own hardware. And Mr Jobs is 100% right. Apple has probably consistently developed the most advanced personal computer operating systems in the world because it has developed them in conjunction with the hardware that they work on (the same thing applies to the iPhone).

In the case of Macs and PCs these days, however, aside from the elegance of the design of Macs, there is very little that separates the hardware under the hood. In fact, one could even imagine that Steve Jobs has known all along that the move to Intel this time round was really all about the operating system and not the hardware. Perhaps it wasn't about putting Windows on Macs as much as putting Mac OS X on PCs.

Once again, would you pay a couple of hundred extra for the option of putting Leopard on your PC?