by TonyCooper » Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:09 am
Hi George,
The OS is more tightly bound to the BIOS then in Wintel systems... That is all I am saying. They build an OS for 1 manufacturer and 1 BIOS. A much easier task then building for a myriad of clone MB and BIOS, and the thousands of peripheral components.
The amount of the loan was not the point I was trying to convey. The point is that MS bailed out Apple when Apple was sinking. And even more important then the cash infusion was the agreement reached where MS would continue to support Office for the Apple. I'm talking about 1996-1997 time frame when MS was in the heat of the monopoly battles in both Europe and the US, and Steve Jobs was just returning to a very distressed Apple that had seen it market share drop from 20% to less then 5%.
Sidebar The NeXT box was a wonderful computer... I loved that spreadsheet program! Lotus Improv! Years ahead of its time. I still have a copy of it for Win 3.1 and every now and then try to make it run on my XP system.
I didn't go research any of this before posting... so it may have been 150M and not 200... there is such a tangled web of cross pollination in this industry it is difficult to recall all the details of every transaction from a memory of something that occured 10 years back.
And it doesn't really matter... If you are happy with a MAC I say great... Like I said they are great boxes and Apple is a great company... and Steve Jobs is a great fellow with vision.
With Regards to Apples OS and BIOS from a marketing perspective; do you see any Apple competitors? Any Apple Clones? Nope... Cause the BIOS is proprietary and must be licensed from Apple. And Apple made it so expensive to license to manufacturers (the Bios) that it stifles competitors. IIRC, when Jobs returned he pulled the license off the market so I don't even think you can buy manufacturing rights anymore. (from memory again)
All in all, not a bad business model, but it keeps the Apple standard from gaining large market share as they are the only fish in a small (5% market) pond.
Not so with Wintel based computers - clones and Bios are everywhere.
IBM long ago opened up the standard in an effort to get it major support. They succeeded in capturing the standard but lost out to the many clone competitors that were more nimble in the market place. Compaq being the notable first, Dell now holds that position. Now a (95% market share) BIG Wintel pond exists where IBM is no longer even a small fish (in personal desktops and laptops).
And right now the major cash cow for Apple is the Ipod. Steve Jobs genius at work again.
I know I'm late to this thread, but no one has mentioned the only really good reason to pick pc over mac. GAMES! I can't be the only one on this forum who enjoys games, but I might be the only one to admit it 
Buford, unfortunately I have a budget and space problem, if I can only have 1 I'll take a pc everytime