Green IT Toolkit

Is Apple on the way out?

David Berlind ZDNet.com

Published: 13 Oct 2004 17:45 BST

Today, you can go to an Apple store (on-line or soon to be in a town near you), and if you need a mobile system, you have a choice among eight units from Apple. That by itself is a problem. Hundreds of Windows notebooks come in all sizes and shapes, with all sorts of keyboards and pointing devices, and with vary degrees of performance and durability. I'm getting used to the touchpad on the PowerBook, but I sorely miss my IBM ThinkPad's TrackPoint pointing stick because my fingers don't have to travel as much from the "home keys" (over which touch-typists' fingers like to hover) to change the mouse pointer's position. Though performance is important to me, I'm not sure that I need everything the G4's processor has to offer. If, for example, Apple had several tiers of performance from which to choose the way Intel-based vendors like IBM, HP, and Dell do, that might be nice. It doesn't and I understand the reasons why.

I'm working with the 12-inch PowerBook G4 and though it's lighter than it's 15 and 17-inch siblings, the display is too small for looking at large documents or wanting to scan lots of email messages. At bare minimum, I'd recommend a 14-inch display (standard on the £899 iBook) or, even better, a 15-inch display, (standard on the £1,399 PowerBook).

I could go on, but you get the picture. The premium cost of Apple hardware hurts and OS X only runs (practically) on Apple hardware. Let me remind you that none of this is really about whether you should switch to OS X or not. It's about what happens when desktop Linux reaches that point where it provides an experience that meets or beats the one that that sets the standard for *ix-based desktop operating systems: OS X. When it does -- and I don't doubt that it will -- Apple will be in a real pickle because of the hardware 'problem'. Users will have significantly more hardware options for running desktop Linux and the likelihood that they'll find something to meet their needs in terms of cost and form factor will be excellent. There will no doubt be companies that make systems that look every bit and run every bit like a PowerBook (or whatever Apple is selling at the time). They just won't be PowerBooks and will cost significantly less.

Doubters will point to Apple's time-tested ability to innovate in a way that has kept its operating system and user interface ahead of Windows since the dawn of PC-time. But to not have faith in Microsoft is one thing. To not have faith in the highly motivated open-source movement and all those behind it (Red Hat, SuSE, Sun, etc.) to bring desktop Linux up to speed is misguided. They're the underdog. Never underestimate the underdog.

The question then becomes, what will happen when that day arrives? Will Apple have built such a large entertainment business that it might be willing to let the systems business die on the vine? Or, will it finally cough up an Intel-based version of OS X? Or, as I fantasised in a recent column, is there some crazy mixed up world where Apple ends up merging with another Unix server specialist like Sun with the end result being a magical blend of GNU/Linux, OS X, and Solaris that's compatible with AMD and Intel, that's light years ahead of any other desktop *ix on the market, that provides a killer platform for running and developing Java, and that affords the Apple technology a re-entrance into the corporate market through Sun's customer base. Even I have to admit that the idea is crazy. But, in response to my column, my email suggests that there are people who will get in whatever line they have to in order to get access to such a technology.

Stranger things have happened.