Get ready for the Mac pirates Apple

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 15 April 2008 05:19

Opinion and Analysis

Would Apple selling Mac OS X to PC users cannibalise Mac sales? Probably - but not as much as some may think. Part of the attraction of owning a Mac is the experience and the elegance of the hardware – software combination. Everything works together seamlessly and users love their Macs in a way that PC users could never appreciate.

Would a Mac clone provide as seamless an experience as a Mac? Probably not; but why should Apple care if it gets users on to its system and turns them into genuine Mac customers down the track? Microsoft has made converting pirate Windows and Office users into genuine paying users a admittedly imperfect but effective art form.

In the final analysis, the options for Apple are fairly clear.

Apple can fight tooth and nail to keep its exclusive franchise on Mac OS X and watch as more Psystars spring up throughout the world and Mac clones start appearing in little stores and market stalls of Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and elsewhere. Or Apple can accept the fact that it has the best personal computing operating system in the world which has outgrown its limited range of premium priced hardware.

Apple may still feel that it doesn’t have to choose to offer Mac OS X to the world. However, it may find that a worse option is letting software pirates make the choice instead.