Apple, Windows, and the Future.

Someone posted a link to Will Apple Adopt Windows?, and I bit - but why I bit is a little interesting, so I thought I'd share what I wrote here:

Don't trust Dvorak on this one. First of all, he's too quick to drink his own Kool-Aid, and second, he has only passingly acknowledged Apple's history of proprietary hardware. Apple has never tried to corner the market on computing, it's focused on quality. OS X is not something that they will turn their back on, and I will say this - I fully expect my next laptop to be an Apple.

Now, MS hasn't really released a mainstream 64 bit operating system, which has Intel selling oodles of old chips, but since they are posterchildren of Six Sigma, they are finding it harder to stay ahead of new kids on the block like AMD because the money spent on [t:R&D] isn't coming back as quickly. Six Sigma is all about refining processes to make money. Thus, Intel has been supporting Linux (even paying heavily in legal defense against Public Enemy #9, SCO, as well as advertisements). They need to sell new processors to pay for R&D. Wintel has leprosy. That Apple and Intel got together demonstrates something interesting: First, they got in where IBM already was - a feat worthy of note. Second, they've been pushing Linux. Third, MS still is putzing around with Service Packs and security updates.

Apple and many other manufacturers are focusing more and more on the future. And the future, if you are reading this on a mobile device, is in front of you. Establishing the iPod brandname is one of the more brilliant business maneuvers that Apple has done. I've seen a home grown Linux GSM phone, I have a Simputer (which I have to get repaired because I was naughty with the USB port), and I've seen Microsoft play footsie with the mobile phone operating system market - but [t:Symbian] (http://www.symbian.com/ ) and other OSes are far more prevalent *in your hand*, and all the OS vendors and Apple know it.

Windows? It's probably no mistake that MS hasn't been putting out any new OSes over the last few years (a few people could argue that, but they are only a few people which is the point anyway). Look at your camera, look at your phone, look at your MP3 player... *those* operating systems are the ones that are to be watched; and *those* operating systems are brilliant because the average person doesn't know or care what OS it is. They just like it when it works.

Personally, I see a future with Microsoft Windows falling under a BSD style license. When that happens - IF that happens - I think you'll see Windows on an Apple. Not before. And that will be so that more money can go toward the OS war of the future, which has been quietly starting for the last 3-5 years. Microsoft will probably survive - love them or hate them, they excel at making money (but didn't excel with Money).

The future is mobile. It's not a PC operating system. But considering it now, PC Magazine is about... PCs...