The reason that Apple can't let go of the hardware side of the business and focus on selling OS X is simple.. they can't generate even a fraction of the revenue they currently generate otherwise. Think back to the early days of the PC industry when Microsoft just made MS-DOS and a crappy version of BASIC. They were a tiny company selling an operating system and tools. Even licensing it to everyone in the early glory days of MS-DOS (circa 1985) they were still an itty-bitty company by comparison to today. You just can't make enough money selling an OS alone. Why do you think Linus didn't even try?
No, Microsoft got rich by creating applications on top of their OS that were better than their competitors (by hook or by crook, as we all know), and by bundling things into the OS so that it became ever more feature-rich. This created lock-in, which ultimately allowed them to raise the price of the OS to the point where now, years later, they probably do almost break-even now on sales (versus Windows R&D costs). So much for monopoly profits. Microsoft's cash cow is not Windows, it's everything they've built ON Windows.
Apple doesn't start today from that position. Yes, OS X is feature rich and comes bundled with really great stuff, but they can't make enough from the sale of that alone to forego the rest of their business. What are they going to upsell customers to.. iLife?
Not that the potential isn't there. Jobs could recreate Microsoft's success if they follow a patient strategy of first getting the OS out there on a wider basis, and then building the higher-level stuff where they can generate margin, and cultivate a healthy 3rd party base to fill in the gaps in their product line (like MS does). Once they have that in place, then they can afford to make the OS available to run on anything and everything (like Microsoft does Windows). At that point, Apple can be an Insanely Great software company that competes head-to-head with Microsoft. But, that's years away, if ever.
Will people run OS X on non-Apple hardware? Heck yes.. if they can find a way they will. I'd love to be able to boot my Dell into Linux, XP or OS X depending on my mood. Slashdot users (which constitute 0.0001% of the computing world) will all be doing that someday. It actually doesn't hurt Apple really.. because they won't forego enough revenue on a bunch of geeks to make it worth the effort to go after us, and in fact, they would be stupid to irritate a bunch of people that might help build all of those killer OS X apps that they want.
Will Dell probably ever sell Apple clones? Only when the aforementioned economic conditions are in place to enable Apple to generate enough revenue from each additional user to make it worth their while. Until Apple can generate $10 for every $1 in OS revenue they generate (like MS does), then you aren't going to see that happen.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason that Apple can't let go of the hardware side of the business and focus on selling OS X is simple.. they can't generate even a fraction of the revenue they currently generate otherwise. Think back to the early days of the PC industry when Microsoft just made MS-DOS and a crappy version of BASIC. They were a tiny company selling an operating system and tools. Even licensing it to everyone in the early glory days of MS-DOS (circa 1985) they were still an itty-bitty company by comparison to today. You just can't make enough money selling an OS alone. Why do you think Linus didn't even try?
No, Microsoft got rich by creating applications on top of their OS that were better than their competitors (by hook or by crook, as we all know), and by bundling things into the OS so that it became ever more feature-rich. This created lock-in, which ultimately allowed them to raise the price of the OS to the point where now, years later, they probably do almost break-even now on sales (versus Windows R&D costs). So much for monopoly profits. Microsoft's cash cow is not Windows, it's everything they've built ON Windows.
Apple doesn't start today from that position. Yes, OS X is feature rich and comes bundled with really great stuff, but they can't make enough from the sale of that alone to forego the rest of their business. What are they going to upsell customers to.. iLife?
Not that the potential isn't there. Jobs could recreate Microsoft's success if they follow a patient strategy of first getting the OS out there on a wider basis, and then building the higher-level stuff where they can generate margin, and cultivate a healthy 3rd party base to fill in the gaps in their product line (like MS does). Once they have that in place, then they can afford to make the OS available to run on anything and everything (like Microsoft does Windows). At that point, Apple can be an Insanely Great software company that competes head-to-head with Microsoft. But, that's years away, if ever.
Will people run OS X on non-Apple hardware? Heck yes.. if they can find a way they will. I'd love to be able to boot my Dell into Linux, XP or OS X depending on my mood. Slashdot users (which constitute 0.0001% of the computing world) will all be doing that someday. It actually doesn't hurt Apple really.. because they won't forego enough revenue on a bunch of geeks to make it worth the effort to go after us, and in fact, they would be stupid to irritate a bunch of people that might help build all of those killer OS X apps that they want.
Will Dell probably ever sell Apple clones? Only when the aforementioned economic conditions are in place to enable Apple to generate enough revenue from each additional user to make it worth their while. Until Apple can generate $10 for every $1 in OS revenue they generate (like MS does), then you aren't going to see that happen.