[no subject]

As for shifting the Mac to iAPx86, I still don't think you understand: nobody
is going to leave Windows for OS X.  NOBODY.  Why:

 - OS X does not run Windows software.  If it did, Microsoft would break the
   compatibility.  Microsoft is constantly breaking their competitors products.
   They did it with QuickTime, and they did it with OS/2 (Win32s).  Even if
   they did not break the compatibility (big if) people would criticise it for
   being too slow (they did it for Win3.x support under OS/2, they are doing
   it with classic support under OS X).  Finally, if everything ran smoothly
   in compatibility mode (very big if) no self respecting developer would write
   software for OS X.  Windows would have a larger supported user base, simply
   by merit of it being supported by OS X.

 - Existing MacOS applications would not work under OS X/iAPx86.  The only way
   it could is if Apple spent a lot of time and a lot of money developing an
   emulator (along the lines of VirtualPC, only for PowerPC hardware).  The
   classic environment from OS X probably won't work because it probably isn't
   an emulator.  Either way (virtualized hardware, or emulator) it will take
   too much memory because you are now running three very large operating
   systems (OS X, Windows, and MacOS).  And it will be slow, because you are
   running truly emulated hardware.

 - Binary confusion.  So you go to the store or, more likely, the mail order
   house to pickup a piece of software.  Now you have to ask: is it OS X, or
   Classic MacOS, or Classic Windows.  If you are told it is OS X, then you
   ask whether it is iAPx86 or PowerPC.  (Even with full virtualization and
   emulation of the classic environments, speed is a concern.)  If you are
   really picky and want Coca instead of Carbon, you have another question.
   Yes, even for OS X applications.  There are two reasons why applications
   wouldn't be supported on both architectures on one CD: reduce piracy,
   reduce support costs (if you have used Unix to a large degree, you would
   understand that something which works under Linux/iAPx86 won't always
   work perfectly under Linux/PowerPC; ditto for NetBSD).

 - OS/2 did not fail due to IBM's poor marketing, it failed because of
   Microsoft.  It is difficult to sell a product if your competitor has a
   good hold on the market, then tells everybody that Project X is going to
   wipe out the competition.  It does not help when glowing product reviews
   end with, "but this isn't something you would use in your home."  IBM did
   not say that, CNN did (on Warp 4).  It doesn't help when the biggest
   criticisms of your product (memory and disk requirements in the case of
   OS/2) are not only ignored in the competitors product -- but customers
   would gladly upgrade their systems to work around it.  Simply put, if OS X
   was ever ported to the PC it would be ignored or get bad press.

 - Apple would have a hard time preloading OS X on anything but their own
   machines.  Even then, there would be issues (most likely infighting
   between the PowerPC and iAPx86 divisions) such as IBM faced when trying
   to preload OS/2 on its own machines.  (They did it, but it was rare.)

 - Branding.  Apple's "good" name would not last if they shifted to Intel
   based processors.  Existing Apple users would view Apple as yet another
   PC company, and existing PC users would view Apple as yet another PC
   company.  Linux users would view OS X/iAPx86 as being yet another Unix
   with a closed licence.  *BSD Unix users would probably view OS X as
   another proprietary version of Unix with big system requirements.  (BTW,
   Solaris 8 is available free of charge if you want a professional Unix
   environment on your Intel based PC.)

Face it, Microsoft controls the Intel architecture.  Linux has a small chunk
of the market only because it is free.  Other OSes have an even smaller chunk
of the market for the same reason, or because there are really people who
dare to 'think different'.

OS X on the Intel would simply kill Apple if for no other reason than it
being the same sort of revolution that you argued against.

Byron.