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Peeve Farm
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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Tuesday, February 26, 2002
23:22 - Should Apple Sell PC Software?
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2002/nf20020227_9415.htm

(top) link
This BusinessWeek article suggests that the idea of Apple making Windows versions of its key multimedia software-- iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto-- seems compelling at first but has a number of crucial pitfalls which would cause it to fail.

The first is that Apple's software is not only optimized for the PPC platform, but is written in such a way that it might not even be possible to port it efficiently to Intel. Okay-- I'm not sure I buy that, but it sounds good.

The second is that Windows ports would lack the polish and quality and feature-richness of the Mac versions. Without a guarantee of FireWire hardware, iTunes wouldn't be able to sync to an iPod; but on the Mac, it can. All right, this holds water-- in the cases where Apple publishes simultaneous Mac and Windows versions of a piece of software, the quality does suffer in the Windows version. Users of QuickTime for Windows can attest to this, as can users of WebObjects under NT.

The third reason, however, which the author touches upon only briefly, is that what Apple sells is the entire package-- hardware and software-- and that selling Windows software would entail Apple reinventing itself as a software vendor that happens to make machines too, rather than a computer maker that creates great value-add software.

This last point, expanded, is what I think is the most critical one. Think about it for a sec. Why do people buy Macs? It's for the integration, the cool design, and the software. If that software were available for Windows, why would someone want to pay the extra money for a Mac when he could put together a $500 Windows machine from spare parts at Fry's and install Apple software on it?

This is exactly the same refutation of the usual recurring brainstorm that people have: that Apple should move over to Intel. Why? Well, because then they could take advantage of all that supposed extra speed in the Pentium line (which is definitely debatable) and make computers so much more cheaply than they do now with their proprietary architecture. Hey, they could even run Windows! Okay, well-- why is it a flawed idea? Because if Apple were to make what amounts to a Wintel box, it still wouldn't be any cheaper than a comparable Dell or Gateway; and the entire point of buying a Mac-- the hardware that's completely controlled from front to back, the integration of the software UI with the hardware features, the software that only runs on the PPC platform-- would be rendered moot. Why would someone buy a Mac that was just a dressed-up Wintel machine? SGI tried making otherwise undistinguished NT boxes with custom graphics cards, and they almost got competed out of the workstation business. Their only value proposition lies in proprietary hardware with proprietary software, in a configuration where they can control it all and leverage their control into genuine performance advantages. It's the same deal with Apple.

Besides, if the Mac OS were ported to run on Intel hardware, all the existing Mac software would be rendered useless-- it would have to be rewritten and recompiled. You'd be starting over from scratch, almost exactly where Be was; and look what happened to Be.

I've always felt a sort of eerie derisive revulsion whenever I see something like this get suggested, because I know where it would lead: it would start down a slippery slope of failure, going from "Healthy hardware/software company" to "Struggling software company" to "Moribund Web portal and e-mail service" to "Once-revered name and miscellaneous properties hoping for someone to buy it". We saw this happen to Amiga and to Be; we're seeing it happen with Sega. A part of the same process has happened with Netscape. And I'll be damned if I see Apple start down that road. The only reason a company would voluntarily do it is if it knows it's on the winding but one-way path to Hell, and Apple isn't there. They're healthy, they're profitable, and there's no need for them to change their business model just to chase an elusive phantom of "Windows people who might like to use your software and whom you might convert through it".

Stay the course, guys.

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© Brian Tiemann