Mac, x86, & VMware
by Jonathan Quince
Friday, August 5, 2005 15:06:15
Now that Mac is moving to x86, Apple should really produce a special “developer” version of OS X that runs on VMware. If they want to prevent people from building their own cheap Macs with off-the-shelf parts, fine! Just allow developers an easy way to port and test their apps with OS X—which is good for Apple!—without being forced to buy an expensive piece of white-elephant hardware.
Really, it would be a win-win situation for Apple. More apps would be ported to OS X, but they would still be able to maintain their godawful chokehold in so far as disallowing cheap Mac clones. I’m sure that VMware would be amenable to working with Apple to add the capability that the special Dev-OSX would be locked to only run on VMware; after all, it’s definitely a win-win situation for VMware, too.
Price the Dev-OSX version at USD $50 or so—or make it available for free!—and watch the number of OS X-compatible applications grow, particularly in the freeware and open-source departments. Plus, PC enthusiasts would have an opportunity to play with OS X, get hooked on it, and then suffer an irresistible urge to go and buy overpriced Apple hardware so they could run an OS X system for real.
This is really in Apple’s own self-interest.