I'm no assembly wizard, so I don't know if it's reasonable to expect OS X native (especially if they're actually using AltiVec) apps to run at near-native speeds while being emulated on another platform. It seems like you'd suffer a significant slow down just from the emulation, not to mention the lack of the 128 bit goodness of AltiVec.
So why are your customers trying to emulate an application that is OS X only? (They must be, why else run an OS X emulator?) It must be because it's actually an important function within their organization. If that's the case, why pay somebody to sit around watching a progress bar? If you can run even 50% faster by running on a Mac you can save a ton of time, and time is money, by just buying a Mac.
I recently pondered upgrading from my 604e to a shiny new G4. I began considering things like what I use my computer for, how much I get paid to do it, and the kind of performance increase I hoped to get with the new machine. It's hard to know for sure in advance, but it looks like the new machine would pay for itself inside a couple months. It seems like similar considerations would indicate that trying to emulate a G4 running OS X is a waste of money, since the lost time will add up month after month after month. In the long run, no emulation is very cost effective. That is, if you're actually emulating something that's neccessary to your job function, and doing so on a regular basis. (But I say this without having shelled out any money for emulators. Maybe for some minor tasks it pays off, but what minor task can only be accomplished by emulating OS X?)
So I agree with Mr. Wizard that emulating OS X is a lost cause in terms of making him any money. Maybe next year.
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I'm no assembly wizard, so I don't know if it's reasonable to expect OS X native (especially if they're actually using AltiVec) apps to run at near-native speeds while being emulated on another platform. It seems like you'd suffer a significant slow down just from the emulation, not to mention the lack of the 128 bit goodness of AltiVec.
So why are your customers trying to emulate an application that is OS X only? (They must be, why else run an OS X emulator?) It must be because it's actually an important function within their organization. If that's the case, why pay somebody to sit around watching a progress bar? If you can run even 50% faster by running on a Mac you can save a ton of time, and time is money, by just buying a Mac.
I recently pondered upgrading from my 604e to a shiny new G4. I began considering things like what I use my computer for, how much I get paid to do it, and the kind of performance increase I hoped to get with the new machine. It's hard to know for sure in advance, but it looks like the new machine would pay for itself inside a couple months. It seems like similar considerations would indicate that trying to emulate a G4 running OS X is a waste of money, since the lost time will add up month after month after month. In the long run, no emulation is very cost effective. That is, if you're actually emulating something that's neccessary to your job function, and doing so on a regular basis. (But I say this without having shelled out any money for emulators. Maybe for some minor tasks it pays off, but what minor task can only be accomplished by emulating OS X?)
So I agree with Mr. Wizard that emulating OS X is a lost cause in terms of making him any money. Maybe next year.