On 9/17/05, Sid Boyce
Speculation indeed, but I think Apple are after 2 things, a greater margin on their x86 boxes and more unit sales, the second of these seems to put them back where they were with Power, Apples for Apple loyalists. Taking Sun as an example, their x86 boxes aren't shifting Solaris x86, they are largely shifting Linux, but at least they bring in revenue which Apple won't be able to emulate unless they will also support Windows -- MS definitely won't on those boxes.
I can just see a Dualbooted Mactel with Windows/OSX.. the user has no problems with anything while booted into OS X and when in Windows their machine gets taken over with spyware and whatnot an the lose all their data as a friend had happen to him a couple weeks ago. I'll bet that slice of the drive is reclaim by formating it again into HFS+ :) In any event. I think OS X and Linux are going to benefit greatly from the absolutely HUGE requirements of VISTA. With the cost of living going up because of petrol costs.. I don't think your average Joe is going to go buy an uber badass new machine just to run VISTA. :) I do think they'll be more inclined to try Linux on their machines and to give a look at machines like the Mac Mini which will probably have one of those 64 bit DuelCore Yonah cpu's in it. ;) So all in all the last half of the decade could be the nail in the MS coffin. -Ben -- Atheism is a non-prophet organization.