Michael Dell would be happy to sell Mac OS X systems
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Marketing
David Kirkpatrick at Fortune has done some very worthwhile research into where Apple could go with its new Intel-based OS. What he found certainly surprised me:
Michael is a smart and very talented guy. If he is interested, you can bet a lot of other PC makers would be as well. But the real challenge is the OEM contracts these vendors have with Microsoft -- most of those documents are 1) secret, and 2) have a number of exclusivity clauses in them that preclude PC manufacturers (or at least disincent them) from offering other operating systems. Bill Gates' threat to invoke those contracts made Dell pull back from Linux in the past; I wonder if anything has changed there.
David Kirkpatrick at Fortune has done some very worthwhile research into where Apple could go with its new Intel-based OS. What he found certainly surprised me:
I emailed Michael Dell, now the company's chairman, and asked if he'd be interested in the Mac OS, assuming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs ever decides to license it to PC companies. (For now, Jobs says he won't.)
"If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers," Dell wrote in an email. It's the first time any PC industry executive has openly shown enthusiasm for selling machines with Apple's software.
Michael is a smart and very talented guy. If he is interested, you can bet a lot of other PC makers would be as well. But the real challenge is the OEM contracts these vendors have with Microsoft -- most of those documents are 1) secret, and 2) have a number of exclusivity clauses in them that preclude PC manufacturers (or at least disincent them) from offering other operating systems. Bill Gates' threat to invoke those contracts made Dell pull back from Linux in the past; I wonder if anything has changed there.
posted by Carl Howe at
9:00 AM
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