Clone Wars.
So often when deconstructing a work of silly punditry, the Macalope will log on later to see that there is a response, a comeback, a retort.
And he will sigh.
Because they're always really lame.
Can't the brown and furry one just let the air out of a piece without having to spend an entire week on it?
Well, such was his initial reaction upon finding that ZDNet's Jason Perlow had posted a response to his piece from Monday. But to his delight, he found this response was different. This was saucy, with a piquant flavor and none of the usual bitter aftertaste so many of the Macalope's other sparring partners have left him.
The Macalope's frown? Turned upside down.
In response to the pointy one's point that the legs of the Mac cloning biz might be short and stumpy, Perlow replies:
What, amputees aren't entitled to have fun? You got a problem with veterans who had half their limbs blown off in the OS wars?
See what he did there? He riffed on the Macalope's bit. It's almost unheard of. A tip o' the antlers to you, sir!
But I guess Macalope likes to get his point across using inflammatory and tasteless metaphors.
Inflammatory, yes, but as a gourmand such as yourself should know, taste is subjective.
I believe the good Macalope is again confusing harmless PC hobbyists doing things in the privacy of their own homes with the activities of a struggling upstart computer manufacturer, whose business practices are under very close examination. Not once have I advocated people actually go out and buy systems from companies like Psystar. Yet.
Fair enough. Whatever freaky hermaphroditic PC action people are into at home is their own business.
But I have said, continuously, that Apple could significantly expand its market share by allowing Mac OS X to run legally on other hardware platforms, particularly to leverage and entice the efforts of the Open Source community working on Linux and similar systems.
The horny one would argue with you about how significantly cloning would expand market share. But, more importantly, market share is not the most important metric. If it comes at the cost of profit, it's not much of a prize. As a matter of fact, it's the kind of "prize" that can put you out of business. Remember, we have precedent.
The Macalope was there, Jason, and maybe he remembers it a little differently than you. In his recollection, it went down like this:
- Technology pundits say Apple must license or die.
- Apple licenses and has its lunch eaten.
- Steve Jobs returns, kills licensing and returns the company to profitability.
OK, there are some details left out, but that's the Reader's Digest version and the Macalope's seen nothing other than your unsupported assertions to the contrary that would belie this historical truism.
But, who knows? Maybe you're right. Clearly Apple's doing something wrong, huh?
Not everyone thinks the Apple industrial design ethos fits their ideal of cool or sexy, mister smart antlers.
The Macalope doesn't argue that you and many others want more choice -- everyone loves choice -- but our fundamental disagreement is over whether it's in Apple's interests.
Oh, and "mister smart antlers"? Awesome.
Don't you know anything about Godwin's Law?
That was actually the Macalope's point -- that you were flirting with it.
Incidentally, the most hysterical example evah of Godwin's Law was executed by a former ZDNet blogger you might have heard of.
Well, Jason, the Macalope can't say it hasn't been fun because it has. He looks forward to our next bout.
Mythical beast and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope writes about all things Apple for the CNET Blog Network. Read more at The Macalope: An Apple blog. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
It's great that Slashdot/ZDnet/ArsTechnica pundits and posters say they'd rush out and buy OS X for 'general' PCs if Apple would change their licensing terms. That's just peach keen.
It's got nothing whatsoever to do with a business case though, or real data. And that's what will be needed for Apple to literally bet their company on a change like this.
I've never seen one of these posts that ends with something along the lines of "... and here's my business case that proves this would maintain or improve profitability. [links to document]"
Until real numbers backed up by irrefutable data appear, Apple-supported OS X on any PC is just a nerd wet dream, and should stay as such.
Hell, let's play with some numbers now! These are just made-up numbers, but they illustrate the point.
Say Apple sells 2M Macs each quarter with an average profit of $500 each. That's $1B in profit.
Say the profit on each copy of OS X is $100.
The number of copies of OS X required to replace the hardware line comes to $1B / $100 = 10M.
So, can we find 10M new customers every single quarter? No? Then how about we stay with hardware sales until that time?
Once people crack open their calculator they can quickly see how this idea of switching to a software-only model makes no sense whatsoever. It might get them a copy of OS X for their Dell or whitebox PC, but that'll become a collector's item when Apple goes bust because their hare-brained idea was a crappy business model.
I just don't understand how people can miss the part about Apple being a business. I see those articles and immediately think of the quote from Zoolander - "Can't anyone see this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
This makes me wish I had posted my idea for a comment in the original article, so here it is now:
?The Macalope likes your American ingenuity, Jason, but he's not hearing the words that brings this sleazy scenario to its tacky nadir: steampunk casemod.?
Tacky nadir: Steampunk casemod -- or hentai steampunk casemod? ...?
Two questions I would like to ask those who support Apple licensing OS X:
1. Would you be willing to pay more for an "open" OS X, say double the current retail price of Leopard? Apple would need to recover the additional support costs somehow.
2. Would you mind Apple implementing a more stringent licensing/copy protection mechanism into the OS? Can't really expect them to leave it like it is.
- by ripragged April 24, 2008 5:28 PM PDT
- Steve Jobs' funeral will be scheduled weeks ahead of Apple licensing its OS again. I'll bet if you had the time (or inclination) to research Jason's archives, you'd find him somewhere comparing Apple to Microsoft in pejorative terms. They all do. Then they issue the suppository that Apple should mimic Microsoft (in pejorative terms). Oh, the absurdity of it all.
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