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Macs Won't Boot Into Mac OS in 2003
Magnus Olsson writes "Apple announced at Apple Expo in Paris, that they are dropping the ability to boot into Mac OS after January 2003. It will still be possible to access Mac OS via the Classic environment under Mac OS X." Apparently, eWeek was right, and the final nail is being driven. So, where's mol for Mac OS X?
Are the markets comparable? When you buy into Apple (for better or worse) you know up-front that you're getting Apple hardware, specified, designed, and built by Apple. As long as they don't expire their old OSes, it seems fair.
If Apple tried to leverage their monopoly to control new markets, perhaps by saying that come 2003, only Apple scanners would work, or HDs from Apple's partner companies, that would be unfair.
And really, that's what Microsoft would be doing, using their OS monopoly to dictate to the hardware companies.
Now, I don't like controlled markets like that. It's why I use PCs with AMD CPUs and why I run Linux. But if I went Apple, I couldn't help but go into it eyes open.
That said, I think Apple should provide OSes for free, at least to proven owners of Mac hardware (to prevent providing it free to people running emulators or something.) Not only could they use it to support their hardware business, but it'd encourage everyone to upgrade more quickly, boosting the market-share of their latest OS, always important to get drivers written for it, etc.