Bill read this..... Apple to move towards Wintel standards !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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From PC Magazine, November 4, 1997
In Bed with Apple, Intel, and Microsoft
By John C. Dvorak
Rumors rampaging through Silicon Valley were corroborated by new revelations about the likelihood that the next version of the Macintosh will contain a Windows NT kernel. Also clarified were a number of informational anomalies, including the weird pronouncement by Bill Gates that Motorola would be out of the microprocessor business in two years (Inside Track, October 21, 1997). Let's go over each of these issues one by one to make sense of it all.
1.The rumor in the Valley is that Apple will adopt the Intel microprocessor. The reason is obvious: price. This move would also allow Apple to make a computer that could run both an Apple OS and a Microsoft OS.
2.It's believed that the Mac OS has already been ported to Intel. This may actually be the motive behind Apple's $400 million buyout of NeXT Software, as that company has long since put its OS on Intel chips. The Bill Gates/Steve Jobs coannouncement at MacWorld was made solely to firm up the real deal, which was the development of a Windows NT kernel for a Mac shell. Microsoft's $150 million will be used for development costs.
3.Apple is pulling the plug on licensing deals. As part of the pact with Microsoft and in exchange for the development money and the Windows NT license (actually all technologies were colicensed by both companies), Apple will agree not to license the Mac OS shell and to use it only on Apple-made machines.
4.This might also explain why Jean-Louis Gass‚e is rumored to be putting his BeOS onto the Intel platform. He has remained close to Apple and surely knows of any secret plans to dump Motorola.
These are the radical steps that are needed to save Apple; the company shouldn't have to continue to fight an uphill battle against the Wintel platform. With AMD, Cyrix, and a slew of other companies coming online with Intel-compatible chips, there is no reason to fight the real market trends with the PowerPC and its never-ending promises.
With an Intel-based machine running a new Mac OS, Apple can continue the support of its original platform and produce a serious Windows machine, as well offer the option for both platforms. Best of all for Apple, it can cut back on motherboard-design development efforts.
The real kick in the marketing pants comes from offering a Windows machine that would have the possibility of running a true Mac OS. That simple option might be worth a premium. In past columns here and elsewhere I've advocated that Apple develop and market a pure Windows machine. But I never took it to the next logical step: completely dump the Mac architecture and go entirely over to Intel.
In its current configuration, the Mac runs Windows in emulation and therefore will never perform properly. Too much of the Windows performance is tied up in elaborate graphics controllers that are optimized for Windows graphics. These speedy cards cannot be used in a Mac and cannot be duplicated in emulation. If you dump the entire Mac architecture and start with a PCI-based Intel system, then you can have the best of both worlds. Most of the graphics card companies were already preparing for a PCI-based MAC CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) and can make a Super VGA card that would scream under both Windows and the Mac OS.
This idea is a stroke of genius if properly executed. Most Mac users are primarily concerned with running their old software and will squawk only for a short time during a chip transition. Mac users have traditionally added high-performance boosters in the form of add-in cards with on-board processors, and we can assume that power users will add PowerPC cards into the Intel machine and manage some sort of multiprocessing if necessary. Windows NT can do this. It can also multitask, something that has been sorely needed in the Mac world.
What's most interesting is the effect that this change will have on big players such as Dell and Gateway. A Wintel/Apple alliance will have great appeal, and if Dell and Gateway are not allowed to sell Mac shells, they will complain bitterly. The possibility exists that Apple will sell the Mac OS on an individual basis, with money for the kernel somehow going to Microsoft. I suspect that the sales would be made in some way so that Microsoft gets more of the OS pie than it does now.
If Gates and Jobs can avoid double-crossing each other, we may see Apple back in the game in new ways.
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