According to Fortune Dell has signalled interest in including and selling MacOS X in their computer systems. They also put an eye on AMD, and it seems that Apple never talked to AMD about their x86 switch. Read the whole article here.
Dell is Interested in MacOS X
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Dell is afraid that the Mactel systems that’ll be sold by Apple will eat a bit of his pie. Dell makes pretty good quality systems but they are not of the asme standard design/quality of Apple machines.
Jobs would love to eat away at the high end systems that Dell sells to power users… now they can buy one computer to do it all… from Apple. (and with virtualization on the horizon…)
IMHO Jb
1 step further to runnning OSX on my custom made box this can only be a good thing i will be the first to run out and buy a copy as long as I dont have to spend AU$4700 on apple hardware. Before anyone pipes up saying apple will never allow this any method they put in place will be cracked within 24 hours and apple knows this. This is just a stragic move to apple as a software company. I say the sooner they allow dell to lience the sooner they will be a real threat to microsoft.
AMD is terrible for video editing/encoding, so there was no reason to talk to them.
“Dell is afraid that the Mactel systems that’ll be sold by Apple will eat a bit of his pie.”
Perhaps they just want to get Intel and Microsoft worried. Get better deals. Or perhaps they really tired of Windows for some reason or the other – perhaps like the long-delayed Longhorn. Anyway, interest doesn’t mean that Dell is going to announce June next year that all its desktops would be slapped on with Mac OS X.
“interest doesn’t mean that Dell is going to announce June next year that all its desktops would be slapped on with Mac OS X.”
Thats exactly right it doesnt mean that ALL desktops will be run MAC however apple would be stupid to pass this up. Every little bit counts and apple would be smart to allow dell and other companies to do this.
…and once it does, like many said before me, Apple will become a software-only company, there’s just no way around this. And ultimately, IMHO this will be a good thing for Apple. 🙂
AMD doesn’t suck in audio/video encoding. It proves you don’t need a gazillion GHz to encode. Even with lower clock speed, you can get close to Intel’s higher speed encoding times.
Also, these days, the diff in encoding speeds are so trivial that its stupidly laughable. AMD 3000+ v/s AMD FX 55 will have a 30 sec diff in encoding speed but this is negligible in the real world.
AMD is real good in gaming and many other business apps. Cornering the gaming market would be a good move by apple as this is a big market. That would seriously put MS under pressure.
But Dell is in the el cheapo market. Associating with Dell may lower Apple’s quality by making lots of HW compromises to fit the price range. This may be bad for Apple.
Even though Apple products cost more, they’re of good quality. eg. buying a pimped out Mitsubishi Eclipse v/s buying a Porshe.
*Dell would manufacture all hardware strictly according to Apple’s design specs (maybe some mobo chip by Intel manufactured under licence from Apple and priced accordingly)
*Dell would pay royalties for hw design and os
*Apple would not take any risks setting up larger manufacturing facilities(there are some moments in Apple’s history where it couldn’t meet the demand) and quite nicely developed worldwide supply chain
*(optional) Apple would only allow Dell to sell these systems in the areas where it hasn’t established itself quite well
Or perhaps, as said above, Mike only intimidates Bill?
As much as AMD has much better desktop processors today, it doesn’t seem like Apple will be releasing something from this generation. Apple is looking at the Pentium M and it’s successors which are much more efficient on power.
More than that, Intel has the best ability to supply Apple and Intel provides a full platform rather than just a processor. Apple doesn’t want to have to either make the chipsets themselves ala PPC and they probably don’t want to have to shop around for them either.
The most important point, though, is that every other major manufacturer uses Intel parts. The majority of PCs in the world use Intel parts. If Apple went with AMD processors, sure they might do better, but they might also do worse. Intel is safe because it’s what everyone uses. Apple doesn’t have to justify that an Athlon 3000+ is as fast or faster than the Intel 3GHz part that everyone else uses.
Intel is safe and as much as people like to say how much better AMD is, the advantage is marginal at best and even Slashdot says that Intel’s forthcoming products look to mop the floor with AMD and fix people’s complaints about the Intel processors.
I agree with the above poster. AMD certiantly makes superior desktop chips, but for Apple Intel is simply a safe bet. AMD’s financial ground has always been a bit shakey.
So Dell who justified not using AMD processor because the, “market does not demand them.” Wants to sell MacOSX eventhough it has a even smaller market penetration than AMD’s share. This is the biggest pile of hipocrasy i have ever heard. I am not knocking MacOSX merely pointing out some of the business morales that mikey Dell doesn’t posses.
OSX only has a smaller market share because of the demand for the specific hardware it has to run on. There are many in the market wishing for a cheap solution to use osx and i am sorry the mac mini just doesnt cut it. People want expandable solutions that have the ability to grow with them rather than some hardware than cannot touch that is still more expensive than building a high end machine yourself.
It’s not that big of an announcement. Dell will sell anything that businesses are willing to buy. Dell would sell crack if businesses bought it and they could sell it.
That said, Dell is always playing games with its vendors. Witness its long-running and unconsummated romance with AMD and its current fling with Linux. If the public will buy enough of it, Dell will sell it.
All it has to do is save Dell money, relative to the cost of sales. How much does Dell make selling Linux? I’ll bet the amount isn’t as much as the discounts Dell got from Microsoft on Windows Server 2003.
Remember, we’re talking about billions of dollars here.
…can’t believe people are still talking about how someone will crack whatever Apple puts in place to prevent OS X from running on just any hardware.
Won’t happen. At least not in 24 hours to 3 months. They will do something at the hardware level, customized chips perhaps, that will prevent the OS from booting (in combination with certain hardware, CPU id ranges or something).
Now, that is not to say someone won’t find how it is done in the binary boot code of the OS, but it won’t take 24 hours to find it.
Anyway, no way Apple will ever give up their premium hardware business. They could not partner with Dell without destroying themselves.
In response to Tuishimi’s
“Won’t happen. At least not in 24 hours to 3 months. They will do something at the hardware level, customized chips perhaps, that will prevent the OS from booting (in combination with certain hardware, CPU id ranges or something). ”
Just like they did with the PPC lineup? Ever hear of the Mac on linux project? All I have is one word for you: virtualization.
Hmmm. JLG tried 5 years ago to GIVE BeOS to PC vendors if they would preinstall it. One only has to wonder what might have been if the major PC makers would have taken him up on the offer.
Yeah, well, the problem is that if Darwin runs on bare x86 hardware, then osx-i will run on bare x86 hardware.
All you’d have to do is install Darwin, then install the appropriate packages over Darwin. I’m pretty sure that works for Darwin PPC (haven’t tried, though).
Since Darwin’s code is open, you’ve got control of the kernel. With control of the kernel, you can trap for pretty much anything, including a hardware copy protection check.
It’s not simple, but it’s not that complicated either. I’m guessing that the mod will be something like the one needed to turn XP Home into XP Pro (or NT workstation into server, for those that remember the old days). It might even be as simple as removing a line/cli call from an installation script, which is how people bypass specific hardware checks today.
The real issue is driver support. There aren’t good ways around that.
Apple knows that people will crack OS X to run on PC’s. But what % of PC users will do this? Less than 1 percent I gaurentee. It’s only the hardcore geeks that will do this, not the average joe who just uses his pc to check his email and download the newest virus. Hell, average joe doesn’t even know what os x is, or understand that windows isn’t the only operating system to run. It will happen, people will write their own drivers, and most people won’t notice or care. It’s not gonna hurt Apple one bit.
1) Expect them to use OpenBoot Firmware and not BIOS.
2) The motherboard will have to be an PC2000 design.
3) All legacy support on the MB will have to be turned off; ISA(superIO), serial, mouse, keyboard, floppy, & IRQ controller.
4) They’ll most likely use PPC-Mac video cards; they’re already OpenBoot compatable and don’t have the old VGA & Text fallback mode found in x86 video cards.
Darwin can be modified used with Mac OS X; so if you get Darwin/x86 running on your system you’re half way to running OS X. Your bigest problems will be changing the BIOS over to OpenBoot (virualization might help here), and removing the PC video card and replacing it with a PPC-Mac video card (this’ll make the PC unusable with standard x86 software).
Apple doesn’t normarlly go all out to stop people from running their software on other hardware. Mac-on-Linux does work but requires you to have PPC based hardware; the project could be modified to run on the x86. Apple’s normal way of keeping their OS of non-Apple hardware is not just not offer support; if you get it to run on your hardware, then great; however, your on your own and Apple will not talk to you when problems show up.
It’s true what you said. People here assume most folks are like us, hardcore geeks, but in reality most people are very ignorant about what O.S. (or even the PC itself) they use. Most people aren’t worried about what hardware/O.S. they’re running, as long as they can get their job done, plain and simple.
Mac users are so laugably predictable. 2 weeks ago with the rest of the known world agreeded Amd has the best processors ..and now they are crap cause apple can only afford intel? Who makes the least power sucking *pc* atm ?..oh that would be amd..who makes the best multi core..multi cpu systems ?..who has plenty of room to clock higher?….
amd amd amd!!
Who no longer leeds the pc industry and now makes discount Amd compatible cpus?..intel
Was it aandtech or artstechnica who covered osx woeful server performance ?
“Dell is intrested in MacOS X”
And I’m interested in high end Jaguars, Mercedes, etc. I don’t have those and Dell isn’t likely to be getting Mac OS X. So big deal.
intel is safe and as much as people like to say how much better AMD is, the advantage is marginal at best and even Slashdot says that Intel’s forthcoming products look to mop the floor with AMD and fix people’s complaints about the Intel processors.
But like with vendors the AMD/INTEL chase is just that. One year Intel might dominate…the other AMD…back and forth like a tennis match that never ends. Though I would suspect that for Intel’s “tit” that they will be releasing, AMD would of course have their “tat”. Personally, as of today, I think either processor is a good chip [though I use AMD] and I do enjoy AMD throughing Intel some curve balls and keeping them on their toes. As far as performance goes….I have seen both small and large margins so in the end I guess only time will tell.
OHH and btw, never take /. or any news source as 100% true. Just remember that people have “ways” of changing peoples views on a product$$$$$.
Ok, I have to admit I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to run Mac OS X on a more affordable Dell system, but I’m not surprised.
Dell might want to start playing with the idea of making its own operating system though. They could also use Linux, something highly criticised by some people that loose sight of the fact that every OS has its flaws.
Anyway its long been speculated by some people that IBM and Dell would come out with their own Linux distributions; right now I think Dell is more likely to do so. I don’t think Apple will all of a sudden become the major computer company, but what I think will happen is that people curious about Mac OS X will buy Macs, especially if they know they can put Windows on the things if they don’t like Mac OS.
I have no doubt that Dell will lose some customers — at least for a while — unless they can put out an appealing OS of their own, and Windows isn’t going to cut it since most people are already familiar with that OS and many are looking for alternatives.
That’s just my $0.02
“And I’m interested in high end Jaguars, Mercedes, etc. I don’t have those and Dell isn’t likely to be getting Mac OS X. So big deal.”
It’s a big deal for Dell, if people can buy Macs that will run Mac OS X and Windows then they are likely to (at the very least) try Macs and that will take customers away from Dell. The reason why people will be buying these new Intel Macs of course is because if they don’t like Mac OS X the theory is they should be able to use Windows instead.
All I can do now is speculate, I don’t have a magic 8 ball to tell me all the answers like that guy in one of the earlier articles, but I think this will hurt Dell at least a little unless they can offer people Mac OS X on their computers like Apple does.
Mactel boxes won’t use Open Firmware
http://devworld.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/universal…
The dev boxes at WWDC used stock Intel video chips
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/06/09/intel.mac.performance/
Mike
They weren’t afraid of alternate OS’s. In fact, there were vendors that had agreements with Be Inc to sell a PC with BeOS installed. I don’t think it was Dell, but Gateway and HP. Microsoft threatened to pull their OEM deals if they went along with this, and they pulled out in fear. So it would be interesting to see if Apple and Dell could pull of a deal, and how Microsoft responds to the competition.
>>According to Fortune Dell has signalised interested
>>in including and selling MacOS X in there computer
>>systems. He also put an eye on AMD, and found out,
>>that it seemes that Apple never talked to AMD related
>>to their x86 switch. Read the whole article here.
Here’s how it’s done:
“According to Fortune magazine, Michael Dell has publicly shown interest in licensing MacOS. The magazine also uncovered the fact that Apple never spoke with AMD before their decision to switch processors. Read the whole article here.”
Was that really hard?!! (Sorry, I don’t like bad English in news sites; I’m sure many of you can do a better job than I did above)
Apple at some time in the future will be sold to Intel. Intel is sick of MS and would like a more profitable regime.
Intel can then license the MacIntel platform to companies like Dell and HP as an alernative to Wintel.
That’s pretty cool! I foresee a futur where Mac OS X is sold everywhere …
Back to reality, that won’t happen.
PearPC works wonders. There’s no question in my mind that if they already have a PowerPC version emulated on x86, complete with hardware driver emulation and internet access and 3D acceleration, the Intel version will be even easier (and much faster).
Dell is 3 times the size of Apple. An alliance between the two would be huge for Apple’s acceptance in the real marketplace, who just want a good deal on an okay computer that does what they want it to without much fuss.
Do you seriously belive that would happen as long as Steve Jobs is in charge?
<em>Dell has signalised interested in including and selling MacOS X in there computer systems.</em>
Is that a new record for errors in one sentence?
“By John (IP: —.cenara.com) – Posted on 2005-06-18 09:22:36
Do you seriously belive that would happen as long as Steve Jobs is in charge?”
Well, HP is already selling the ipod line for Apple. If they are using DRM in the CPU as has been rumoured, then having HP and Dell manufacture “apple” PC’s under license would be a very smart move for Apple. In this scenario, the OS itself would still be held very close to Apple’s chest. Jobs would never go for all out cloning of Apple hardware. And selling HP and Dell branded mactel hardware is NOT the same as licensing the OS for all third party vendors. But I think he may consider partnering with Dell and HP… only if Apple would control the industrial design from the chip to the case.
Just read the latest reviews on the Dual core chips – Intel and AMD at all of the hardwrae review sites before spreading fudd. Intel was better at Video encoding/decoding with the single core P4’s than any of AMD’s Althon’s inc. FX range and it had been like that for at least 18 months – for gaming and most other benchmarks went AMD’s way. However, since the dual core Athlon X2’s being introduced there is no competition. An example..
“In fact, the X2 4200+ frequently outperforms the Pentium Extreme Edition 840, which costs nearly twice as much. Thanks to its dual-core config, the X2 4200+ also embarrasses some expensive single-core processors, like the Athlon 64 FX-55 and the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz. Personally, I don’t think there’s any reason to pay any more for a CPU than the $531 that AMD will be asking for the Athlon 64 X2 4200+.
If you must pay more for some reason, the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ will give you the best all-around performance we’ve ever seen from a “single” CPU. The X2 4800+ beats out the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 virtually across the board, even in tests that use four threads to take best advantage of the Extreme Edition 840’s Hyper-Threading capabilities. The difference becomes even more pronounced in single-threaded applications, including games, where the Pentium XE 840 is near the bottom of the pack and the X2 4800+ is constantly near the top. The X2 4800+ also consumes considerably less power, both at idle and under load.”
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/index.x?pg=16
Need I say more.
Anon
People (Apple heads?) like to say that OSX will only run on Apple x86 and that no crack will be release or if it is it’s only 1~2 years away from OSX for x86 release.
Well I take it further not only I say that is not going to take 1 year as I say that a crack will be available BEFORE OSX is even released to public, so it will be a 0-day or a -day crack. Of course I’m not the utter genius so if I know this the dudes at Apple also know it… think about it!
I read about Sony, Dell, and Gatway wanting to own OSX on their system somthing like four months ago.