MacWindows?
John C. Dvorak has an interesting theory. It’s wild. It’s way out there. It’s partially nutty and more than a little insane.
But it’s just crazy enough to come true.
For the record: I doubt it. But it makes for interesting grist for the proverbial mill.
Column from PC Magazine: Will Apple Adopt Windows?
Apple has always said it was a hardware company, not a software company. Now with the cash cow iPod line, it can afford to drop expensive OS development and just make jazzy, high-margin Windows computers to finally get beyond that five-percent market share and compete directly with Dell, HP, and the stodgy Chinese makers.
To preserve the Mac’s slick cachet, there is no reason an executive software layer couldn’t be fitted onto Windows to keep the Mac look and feel. Various tweaks could even improve the OS itself. From the Mac to the iPod, it’s the GUI that makes Apple software distinctive. Apple popularized the modern GUI. Why not specialize in it and leave the grunt work to Microsoft? It would help the bottom line and put Apple on the fast track to real growth.
February 19th, 2006 at 10:36 am
There’s no point to an Apple computer without an Apple OS. There’s no way this could work. I would think they’d drop the computer altogether before doing this.
February 19th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I just can’t see the point of being yet another PC machine manufacturer, when Jobs seems so commited to the superior Mac OS. A tweaked Windows OS just seems counter-intuitive to the Jobs philosophy.
February 19th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Could you imagine all the GNOME and KDE programmers who would suddenly jump ship to play with an open sourced OS X, though?
Dvorak might be nuts, but it’s a fun game to play, isn’t it?