OSNews

That Apple did not see the resurgence of clones coming? How would Steve Jobs, known for his prescience, and with a direct and profound knowledge gained through experience of what clones can do to the Apple personal computer hardware market, not understand that as soon as you moved the hardware base closer to standard PC components, the new generation of now highly-networked, tech-savvy people, for whom computers represent a primary world, would not hack it?

Now, imagine if Apple did want to climb out of the PC hardware market, in order to devote itself to a different market. Could it just announce it overnight, and sell off the hardware stock without its share price plummeting?

But what have we here? An already long-running dispute with a clone-maker, and Apple stock remains high! When OS X for the desktop was released in 2001, its share price was slightly stagnant but the iPod revitalised the Mac range, and so has the iPhone, since then:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2002/tc20020118_0...

and

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/09/apple-announces-iphone-stock-s...

Ok, so back to the scenario - Apple wants out of Personal Computer devices but cannot do it in Blitzkrieg style, so, after a long, meandering, inconclusive trial against one clone-maker, inconclusive because others sprout up all over the place, like mushrooms, like the heads of the Hydra: Gasp! Apple bows to the inevitable, and licences OS X to a market it did not directly create, and which it would not have been able to accommodate in demand terms anyway; it's left to pursue much more innovative products for the 21st Century instead. Stock remains high, people marvel at Apple's finesse once more...

The alternative to this - *some* might think far-fetched - narrative, is that Apple didn't have a clue about the potential consequences of going over to Intel.

Which is the crazier headline, do you think?