Dvorak is at it again...

id="610082">Whether it's misspelling the word iPod or simply complaining like a teched-out Andy Rooney, PC World's John C. Dvorak'sprimary appeal seems to be to the casual, back-to-basics PC user who can't detect that his comments are often totallyout in left field. Case in point: Dvorak thinks Apple needs to open source Mac OS X. Apparently he doesn't know that OSX's Unix kernel and much of its development toolset are already open source, but I digress.

If the Windowstest keeps going the way it's going, the results may indicate that Mac users are more likely to shift to Windows thanwe used to think.

Dvorak clearly doesn't understand why a certain segment of the consumer populationcontinues to choose Mac OS X. They choose it for the precise reason that it isn't Windows (bloated, too-little-too-lateon features, and usually buggy through the second or third maintenance release) and that it isn't Linux (learningcurve, few commercial applications, and a rabid community of desktop Linux believers that often sound, to the averageobserver, like zealots).  If Mac users were impressed by how fast Windows ran on a certain piece of hardware, theywould save the 25% luxury tax they spend to own a Mac and just buy a cheap, fast Dell.  But that hasn't happenedyet, has it?

But what will happen to Mac OS X? I suspect that the testing of Windows on a Mac might beduplicated in reverse, with a similar test of the Mac OS X running on a conventional PC. Here again, we'd need to lookat the test-marketing results. In this scenario, the idea would again be to determine—by testing—whether ornot getting OS X onto PCs would help or hurt Apple as a company. The same three factors would be assessed: practicality(is anyone interested?), functionality (does it work at all?), and political marketability. In the case of politicalmarketability, one additional variable enters the picture: Microsoft perceiving this as a threat to its business.

Dude, John, Microsoft is already in trouble. Look at their "innovations" over the last five years.Look at their stock price, and look at their executive brain-drain. Steve Ballmer embarasses himself repeatedly atevents. The question isn't "does MS think Apple's Intel version of OS X is a threat to Windows?" because Mac OS X is already a threat to Windows.  Yet Microsoft has done a more than fair job containing thatthreat by using its single-best asset: its installed based of companies that use Windows services.

Theone thing keeping OS X from gaining any share in the PC industry is that Microsoft owns the directory services marketin 90% of American corporations, and by controlling the framework for central authentication, Microsoft can keep Macusers (and Linux users) out of the equation.  If Apple did release Mac OS X for Intel beige boxes, the threat posed to Microsoft wouldn't increase one bit.  Because Mac OS X still wouldn't have top-billing as anActive Directory client, and it still wouldn't have a feature-complete version of Outlook.

Since nocompany, including massive IBM, has been able to compete with or unseat Microsoft from the desktop, Microsoft's stancealone may prevent any universal acceptance of OS X on the desktop from ever happening. In fact, I assume that as thisis being written, Microsoft has coders in its skunk works tearing into OS X looking for deep flaws that it can exploitand publicize. Don't think otherwise. It only makes sense that they'd do this.

Yeah, but they don't needto. Publicizing a buffer overflow exploit in the Mac OS X kernel is something Microsoft doesn't need to do, because theoverwhelming strength of their exclusionary tactic against OS X is the hobbling of Windows-integrated services forApple's OS, as I said earlier. This one thing is what causes IT managers to deny OS X any consideration in theenterprise, and this one thing is all Microsoft needs to keep doing to permanently hold OS X in its current position asa niche OS.

Thus a cloud is rising over OS X and its future unless Apple makes its boldest move ever: turning OS X intoan open-source project. That would make OS X versus Linux become the most interesting battle within the computer scene.With all the attention turned in that direction, there would be nothing Microsoft could do to stem a reversal of itsfortunes.

What? Can anybody help me understand why open-sourcing OS X would solidify Apple's position againstMicrosoft? Or even against Linux?  Dvorak has made the mistaken assumption, as many analysts do, that Unixoperating systems can compete with Win32 in the server room.  You want to know why IBM is pushing Linux? Becausethey have consultants they bill at $200 per hour to set up Linux boxes with IBM storage arrays, not because they have amargin on the OS itself.  IBM and Microsoft are involved in very different business models, and  I'm afraidApple has a different business model entirely: sell a hardware platform and then sell residual software upgrades afterthe fact, all at a profit.  This isn't what IBM, the leading Linux consultant, or Microsoft, the leading softwarecompany, are doing.  So one-upping those guys with open source would require a drastic reconsidering of Apple'scurrent, profitable, business model.

All of this seems born of the idea that a computer company can't sell$10 billion a year and be considered a serious competitor. But to sell $10 billion a year profitably?? That's a hell ofa feat for any supply-chain oriented manufacturer. Just ask Delphi.

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