One of the great debates in the tech world that rears its ugly head every few weeks is whether or not Apple should port Mac OS X to Intel. The rants and raves echo throughout the halls of the Mac world, and sometimes in the PC world, too. I am of the opinion that this is not a rational business model for Apple for a variety of reasons, and that it is utterly anathema to what makes Steve Jobs tick.
Of course, the debate still rages on, and that means I have an excuse to take another look at the issue. The following is an imaginary conversation with a PC Drone that is loosely based on the many arguments I have personally encountered by this crowd. Hopefully, this will shed more light on the subject for some people.
TMO: What is it you don’t like about Macs?
Drone: They’re too slow, and too expensive. I can build my own [very cool] PC for, like, [US]$800.
TMO: What would that have that a new Mac wouldn’t?
Drone: [laughs] Try a 2.4 GHz P4, and a faster bus. That makes it fast!
TMO: Why would you want to run Mac OS X on this machine?
Drone: It’s Unix, man. That’s cool. I’d have a terminal, everything would look really cool, and I hear that Mac OS X gets hella uptimes.
TMO: Hella?
Drone: You know. Hella. As in "lots."
TMO: Oh, right. Hella uptimes. So you heard that Mac OS X is stable? Where?
Drone: I lurk at some of the Mac sites. I even post in some of the forums. I had to change my name, though, because I used to flame Mac users a lot. [laughs] Anyway, I just kept reading about how stable Mac OS X is, and then I have this friend. He’s a Mac user, and he said it was true. He’s the one that showed me how awesome Mac OS X looks. That Dock thing is way cool! The magnifying thing? Man! It’s like the Windows Task Bar, but cooler!
TMO: Did you know the Windows Task Bar was actually inspired by the NeXT Dock, which itself evolved into the OS X Dock?
Drone: What?
TMO: Never mind. So if you think Mac OS X is so cool, why don’t you buy a Mac?
Drone: I told you. They’re too expensive. And too slow. I gots to have muh spppeeeeeeddddd! [laughs]
TMO: What do you know about Apple?
Drone: What? Uhhh… Everyone know about Apple. They make Macs and copied the Mac OS from Windows or something. Oh, and the iPod. I bought an iPod for my PC. Had to add a FireWire card to it, but man, I keep all my downloads on it. 20 GB! Hahaaaa! Napster was [very cool], but now I use Kazaa. And I think I have this other software that kills all the spyware. [laughs]
TMO: You know that downloading music you don’t already own is piracy, right?
Drone: Whatever.
TMO: Right. Do you know where Apple makes its money?
Drone: Yeah, on Macs. That’s a stupid question. [laughs]
TMO: Perhaps, but if Apple makes its money on Macs, why do you think the company should port Mac OS X to Intel?
Drone: Dude, they would sell millions of copies of Mac OS X to people who would run it on their PCs. It’s Economics 101, Mr. Professor. You Mac people are really slow. [laughs] Microsoft sucks, that’s why me and all my friends get our Windows from the warez sites. [laughs] Everyone wants something else. You aren’t going to publish this are you?
TMO: No, don’t sweat it. So, would you buy a new Mac if it ran on Intel?
Drone: If it was cheap. Like Dell. "Dude, you’re getting a cell!" [laughs] I’d probably just keep building my own machines, and besides, Apple would be slow to bring new stuff out, like they are now. Dell, they do it way better. Even Gateway gets [stuff] out faster than Apple.
TMO: So where would Apple makes its money in your scenario?
Drone: Dude, I told you, from selling Mac OS X to people like me!
TMO: Do you mean people like you and your pirate friends?
Drone: Yeah.
TMO: Do you not see the irony in what you are saying?
Drone: Huh?
TMO: Never mind. You also said Apple makes its money by selling Macs.
Drone: Yeah, so?
TMO: If it’s the hardware that supports the company, how could Apple afford to develop Mac OS X for your machine when you aren’t buying hardware?
Drone: Microsoft does it. Apple could just be a software company like Microsoft. You know, make money on software, and Mac OS X runs even better than Windows does.
TMO: That’s partially because Microsoft has to support all those cheap build-it-yourself PCs, and that makes Windows extra buggy. Mac OS X runs well because Apple also makes the hardware.
Drone: So?
TMO: Do you think Mac OS X would continue to work well if Apple had to support all those hardware configurations?
Drone: Dude, why do you have to make such a big deal about this? I just want to run Mac OS X on my PC! It’s not that hard. I heard that Apple already has it running on Intel, anyway. Everyone know about it: Meklar, or Marklar, or Marker, or something. [laughs] That’s a stupid name! I AM THE MEKLARS! [laughs]
TMO: OK, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Apple can port Mac OS X to Intel. Have you thought about how many copies of Mac OS X that Apple would have to sell to replace the revenue lost to everyone buying beige boxes?
Drone: Beige boxes?
TMO: You know, PCs made by Dell, or your own do-it-yourself box.
Drone: Huh?
TMO: Look at your case?
Drone: Oh. Right. Beige. [laughs] That’s pretty funny.
TMO: [waits]
Drone: Oh, uhh… I don’t know. A few million? What difference does it make?
TMO: Apple brings in about US$1.5 billion per quarter. If the company lost US$1 billion in hardware sales per quarter, it would take 7,751,937 copies at US$129 per copy to make up that same revenue, assuming each and every one of them were sold for full retail price by Apple. That’s more than 10 times as many people as are buying Macs right now. Do you think that many people would buy OS X for their Intel machines?
Drone: How should I know?
TMO: Well, you’re the one professing to know what Apple should do.
Drone: Whatever, man.
TMO: How about support?
Drone: What?
TMO: Do you have any idea how much it would cost to support all of those hardware standards out there?
Drone: Microsoft does it.
TMO: Microsoft charges 2-3 times as much for each copy of Windows as Apple does for Mac OS X. Microsoft also deals in many tens of millions of copies of Windows every quarter, orders of magnitude more than Apple sells Macs. Microsoft makes almost as much in profits in one quarter than Apple grosses in a year, in part from the company’s much higher charge for Windows coupled with the millions of corporate subscriptions out there; and that profit comes after employing thousands for support, and many more thousands of engineers, far more than Apple employees. Even with all those resources, and all that money, Windows is still buggy, bloated, and represents a remarkable security risk. How can Apple compete with that?
Drone: [blinks] Dude, I just want to run Mac OS X on my PC. Why do you have to be such a [jerk]?