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Dell We'd Sell Mac OS X
euphonaesthesia writes "In this article from Fortune, Dell CEO Michael Dell mentions that he would offer OS X to customers if Apple were so willing. The author speculates also that Apple would probably demand certain specifications. Having OS X would probably require a higher price point--this both Apple and Dell would probably like."
Chevy: "We'd love to sell Mercedes"
Apex: "We'd love to sell Marantz"
FP for that ass!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
37
In a row?!
The question is who of the big PC manufactures would not offer OSX if givin the opportunity?
You are all a bunch of idots.
"We want Microsoft to provide us with cheaper copies of Windows XP, so we will threaten to switch to OS X but not actually do it."
They've done this before with switching to AMD--they've announced many time that they were "considering" it, but as soon as Intel lowered their prices, Dell backed off.
Apple contracts Dell to build the new x86 Macs, and licenses Dell as a Mac reseller. Everything still has the Apple logo, but Dell gets a cut.
It would probably end up bearing both the Apple and Dell logos, and it would be very clear that you were getting a "Mac by Dell" rather than the real thing. Apple would also, of course, make them do all their own support. Granted, Apple would probably never even agree to anything like this, because of the risk of tarnishing their brand. There is a reason people buy PowerBooks instead of Inspirons or Latitudes, and it isn't just OSX. Everytime somebody has a problem with their "Mac by Dell," it would reflect just as badly on Mac as Dell, which would be unacceptable.
Unlike the switch to Intel, which is simply moving their brand in a different direction, letting Dell sell computers featuring OSX would actual water down their brand, which I don't think they are willing to do.
This could be really fascinating to see. Ultimately Dell and the like don't want to be selling commodity hardware. It takes a lot of resources for very little margin. They'd much rather focus on selling fashionable high end machines like their XPS systems.
So, OS X, could be sort of the bridge to getting the PC makers away from the commodity market. If you want a cheap bare bones PC, you get your wintel XP box. If you want something that's going to be high quality and last you a few years, you get yourself a macintel box.
The question that remains is whether Apple is willing to sacrifice some hardware sales to broaden the base of their OS support. I kinda doubt they will because their bread and butter really is making nice hardware. It's beneficial to them to have an exclusive lock on the apple faithful as far as that goes.
In the end, what I really hope for is being able to buy an Apple computer with OS X and be able to run my Windows games under that environment rather seamlessly. Then I can run OS X all the time, play my windows games when I want to, and then down the road hopefully mac games will come out and I can drop Windows all together.
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Sez you. I don't mind that everyone's been in there. Everyone's been to Disneyland and it's still fun. I'm sure there's still plenty of fun to be found in Paris.
If you can't built your own computer better and cheaper than Dell, it's time to turn in your geek badge.
But I can't get the volume discount that Dell gets on its parts.
I have priced building my own versus purchasing, and even with using Froogle and always choosing the lowest price per part, it will always cost Dell less money to build.
And how do you figure warranty value? Most companies offer a 3 year replacement warranty, but buying the part from a reseller gets me a year at best.
The catch is that Dell doesn't truly intend on going through with OS X based systems. They are basically trying to get MS to lower their OS licensing prices.
Remember when we had something like that when Dell said that it will have AMD based systems?