Were Apple to once again start licensing its operating system to third-party 'Mac clone' hardware makers, it could reignite the OS wars. Yet whether Apple will go this route - and whether doing so would be smart - remains to be seen.
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Member since:2005-04-01
Interesting idea, but they won't, because Dell needs to mollify Microsoft, not piss them off. If Dell were to do that, I would expect them to run something specialized. They currently offer FreeDOS, because it's simply not a competitor to Windows.
Now, in the event that Dell DID decide to develop their own OS, it would be foolish to do anything but write a pretty, custom DE on top of Linux, because otherwise it would simply be too hard to compete with its own products. That said, Dell controls the hardware, so if they did develop an OS from scratch - which is not likely - drivers wouldn't be a problem, and they could even lock it to their own hardware too.
Member since:2005-07-06
I doubt they would develop ANYTHING; they're a zero R&D company; basically the PC manufacturing wing of Intel; the processor, motherboard, everything is designed by Intel, all Dell do is purchase the components and throw it together - hardly an IT company, nothing more than a gloried assembly plant.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:
2005-07-27
Even if Apple does not license OS X to other hardware suppliers, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller has said that Apple won't prevent Mac owners from installing other OSes, like Windows.
So Dell owners can run Windows, Linux distributions, BSD distributions, etc, etc.
Mac owners can run all that AND MAC OS X.
Will Michael Dell start screaming, "We need our own proprietary OS to compete!"? That would be cool.