Mac moves designed to give Microsoft migraines

MACWORLD SHOWED US that Jobs is running the old migration-to-the- PC-idea up the familiar flagpole. While the eventual target for such a strategic move is the erosion of Microsoft's desktop OS market share, the nearer-term targets for Jobs' words are manufacturers and tier-one OEMs such as Dell, and HP.

Industry watchers will remember the various dual-boot wars between IBM's OS/2, and flavors of Windows - 3.1, NT and Win95. Microsoft concluded those wars victoriously, fighting tooth and nail to bury OS/2 and, aided by IBM's ham-handed support, succeeded smartly.

An X86 Mac Would Be Desirable For Many
MS scenarios analysing potential conflicts between an x86 MAC, and Windows platforms raise far different and more dangerous threats to the virtual Microsoft monopoly on desktops, than IBM ever did with OS/2. Apple, unlike IBM, knows a thing or two about ergonomics, and customer satisfaction, and poses a genuine threat that Microsoft cannot brush aside easily.

Mac OSX is also technically more desirable than Windows XP since it has welded the highly desirable Mac interface onto an extremely stable and mature unix back end. The unix kernel inside the Mac OS on a standard PC poses a threat not only from the ergonomic perspective, but also threatens the entire marketing thrust of the Microsoft operating system strategic directions, that are leading users into a spiral of more intrusive and proprietary man-machine-business interfaces.

Notably, from a corporate security focus, unix based systems are also reputed to have far fewer problems than Windows based systems.

So the only significant remaining Microsoft selling points are arguably their .NET related proprietary strategies, along with any applications that Microsoft holds back from porting to the Mac platform.

Mac X86 Adoption Has Two Major Barriers
Before Apple can stand toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the corporate desktop, a deployment strategy needs to be established. Apple needs to win OEM support to deliver Mac OSX on standard PC hardware from Dell, HP, IBM, Toshiba, and others. But before Apple can even address deployment two lynchpin issues need resolving. Can AMD deliver hammers in volume? and... Will Dell sell AMD Hammers? If the answer to both these questions is yes, then you can bet that Mac will make a stab at the market.

Technically, it's reasonable to assume Apple has a functional port working today on some early AMD-nVidia gear, with the rumours of Apple tending towards a Hammer-nForce platform-standard doing the rounds. Technically the kernel port to Hammer is not a huge issue, and Apple already has had a lot of success with eMac employment of nVidia technology. So you can bet that as the hardware matures, so will the OSX port.

Is ATI A Wildcard? ATI OSX support for an X-86 Mac is likely to be less of a technical issue, than a marketing agreement issue. You can bet that ATI will try to join the Mac X-86 party - if there is one. In fact I wouldn't doubt that ATI has annoyed Intel to pursue AMD chipset support in part, specifically to cover the possibility of an hammer-based Mac OSX.

OEM Support Costs May Rise Slightly
OEMs in consideration of delivering Mac OSX or dual-boot PCs sporting both XP and OSX, will be most concerned about their capacity to support a diversity of clients - which unavoidably adds some costs. But with drivers coming primarily from the integrated chipset vendors like nVidia, these concerns are modest. The primary support costs will be related to call center templates, and training/hiring second and third-line support staff. Apple could offer to underwrite some of the support costs indirectly through advertising promotional programs, but the potential surge in sales of 64 bit PCs could aid in the resumption of an economic boost on new cycle of an industry-wide corporate PC refresh.

Applications Aren't A Big Issue
Application software is generally not a problem, with Apple already sporting great versions of most popular office applications. Microsoft will undoubtedly try to leverage it's control of the MS-Office suite to sap Apple x86 implementations, but Apple has a weapon that MS fears tremendously - Open office. If Apple opts to ally itself with Sun's commercial or freeware based Open office applications, users could largely retain their capabilities to interact with MS-Office, while saving money, and denying MS their office-software revenues. MS could potentially be stupid enough to deny itself Mac OSX software revenues.

The area where Apple needs significant work is in the integration/migration strategies for organizations using Exchange. Microsoft has the exchange noose around a lot of corporate necks, and it remains to be seen whether Apple chooses to fight or fit-in with Microsoft groupware strategies.

The Redmond World Domination Plan?
The remaining questions that Apple will need to address are the longer term business architecture visions that Microsoft has been so busily scheming on about. Perhaps Apple would do well to paraphrase former heavyweight wrestler-cum-politician Jessie Ventura, after governing the state of Minnesota taught him a thing or two about overextending oneself. After trying his best to "fix" public education systems, Jessie finally admitted to a painful epiphany saying, "There are some things that governments just don't well". Perhaps the same can be said of companies that try to leverage their OS products to control everything they touch.

The idea of a business OS that didn't have pretensions of taking over the world might be refreshing! µ