Re: Apple Computer changes its name

[bieling@terra.es]

BLuRry ha escrito:

> Oh, I didn't say they should quit the hardware business.  I said they
> are in a better position to take on microsoft, who is not a PC
> manufacturer.  :-)  In that market, Microsoft makes almost half of the
> money, the other half is the PC manufacturers.  Apple would be silly to
> try to take on Dell, HP, or Sony.  But if you've looked @ the osX64
> wiki, you might be shocked at how many different hardware
> configurations (especially Sony) have gotten OS X to run with just a
> few tweaks here and there.

Yes, and Apple has not worked very hard to avoid that happening. But
Jobs has stated very clearly that Apple is *not* going to market OSX
for the PC platform. So that's supposed to be just a "side effect" of
the Mac's transition to Intel... (?)

> Combine that with the wonderful work of the Wine and CodeWeavers teams,
> and you have a very capable platform ready to knock loose some market
> share from Microsoft if the Vista product doesn't captivate the
> audience well enough.

I remember very well when in 1981 *suddenly* almost everybody was sure
that an IBM PC was the best way to go to for any serious (small, medium
bussiness) computing. IBM had such a power as a brand, that nobody
else, nor Apple of course had. The market in unison embraced IBM in
such an unbelievably positive (and non justified) way that you know the
rest of the story. MSDOS was there by accident and was not the
motivation towards the PC. It was in fact the other way around.

14 years later, IBM had lost much of it's power as a brand. Microsoft
had gained as much power as a brand as IBM had lost, if not more. The
world was deeply penetrated by Windows 95 then. Up until today it's
been being more or less this way by the never ending series of the
Windows saga.

26 years later, people (many were not even born by then) now like -or
better, can't avoid- seeing the things another way. They know Windows,
but they know too -and are not frightened by it- that Windows is not
the only way to go. They have learned that it's not "got to be Windows
to work", and, sometimes, it's even better if it's not Windows at
all... wow, such a long time to learn that.

The balance of power is changing again ?.
Microsoft is losing the leadership ?.
Office is not anymore a must.
Explorer is not the one and only.
Often servers are better not running on Windows.
Java has got it's place.
Windows Media A/V ? not necessarily.
Microsoft Exchange ? not necessarily.
Windows CE ? not necessarily.
etc. (the list is long)
Windows Vista ? maybe...

Heard about this other OS with all the coolness and power of an open
sourced unix that's got the ease of use of a Mac and at the same time
allows you to run, just in case, seamlessly, natively, concurrently, in
a safe manner, a Windows "in a window" too ?

> If anything, it will be fun to watch if it
> happens.  And if it doesn't, I'm sure Apple will find another cool way
> to make more money.  :-D

Yes, let's see what happens.. :-)

<on_topic>

If I could plug in my Apple II an ARM with some more memory I might run
at least Darwin on it ?

Jorge.