Entry 290, on 2006-02-23 at 15:39:23 (Rating 3, Computers)
PC Magazine's columnist, John Dvorak, is at it again! He regularly writes articles which are probably there more for entertainment than information, and that's fine as long as everyone knows that. I'm sure he isn't as clueless as his material suggests, so he must be producing this stuff for shock value more than anything else.
His latest nonsense involves the theory that Apple will shift to using Windows as the operating systems on its computers instead of Mac OS X. He cites several things which could be construed as indicating the change, but could equally easily be interpreted as meaning many other things as well. I guess I'm just adding credence to his ranting by blogging about it, but I really just felt that I had to!
Why would Apple use Windows when they already have an OS which is superior in many ways? Possible reasons would be to get compatibility with existing Windows hardware and software, and to eliminate the cost of developing and maintaining their own OS. Dvorak thinks Apple is a hardware company, which is partly true, but a major part of the hardware's appeal is the beautiful OS that goes with it. Macs have sufficient peripherals and software for almost any user, and I would have thought that the cost of developing the OS has already passed its peak, so that doesn't really make a lot of sense.
In the past when Apple have tried a less innovative approach, the company almost failed completely - it was only the return of Jobs and his "think different" attitude that brought it back to the healthy state it is in now. To survive Apple have to stay on the edge, producing a complete solution (hardware, OS, software) which is better than the competition. Producing something which is really just a pretty PC wouldn't be good enough.
I'm very confident Apple will continue to produce a complete solution. In recent years they have become more active in software development, not less. I look forward to the day when Microsoft Office file translation is good enough that we can use less Microsoft software. If Apple moved to Windows I think I would have to change my career, which wouldn't be easy after working with Apple products for about 25 years!
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