Apple, Scully, And Intel vs. Motorola

fsharp writes "I've heard too many comments suggesting that Apple should have moved to Intel (x86). The Register has an article exploring John Scully's recent comments about his failure to move the Mac to x86. Scully critiques his decisions based entirely on hindsight, and in doing so, identifies Dell as a the chief competitor and the way Apple could have slayed this evil dragon would have been to move to Intel early on in his tenure. Not so fast. Hindsight can be 20/20, however it can also be quite myopic if one suffers from selective memory. The article does a good job of examining the options available at the time when Apple rewrote the MacOS for the Intel x86. How safe a bet or great a risk would it have been for Apple to switch, given the quality of chips offered (at that time) from Intel?"

Comments

Re:OSX for x86 NOW

[gdarklighter]

but I'm not going to dump $1500 or so for the priviledge of getting some overpriced, proprietary hardware platform

First off, the hardware is not proprietary. The BIOS, however, is.

Second, you can get a Mac for under $1000.

Lastly, Apple's profits are not from software sales. If they were to start licensing the BIOS out AND port OS X to x86, they'd be sunk. Go back and take a look at how hard Apple got hit the first time they tried licensing the BIOS. Think of how much worse it would be if they had x86 computer companies undercutting them, too. Apple's profits are more from hardware sales than anything else, which is why allowing the production of clones and porting OS X to the x86 makes TERRIBLE FISCAL SENSE.

Re:Ridiculous article

[hype7]

This is all so one-sided. Let's all talk instead about what would have happened, had Apple switched to the X86 architecture, shall we?

I think you're spot on.

There's an exceptional counter-argument to Sculley's regret over at El Reg, entitled "Sculley explains how he missed the chance to trash Apple". I think that pretty much sums it up.

-- james