Apple is totally anti-competitive
1st May 2008 by David North
I’ve posted before about anti-competitive behaviour of companies, in particular Microsoft is generally accused of being anti-competitive no matter what they do. In my post I mentioned that I felt often it comes down to the reputation of a company to see how many of these dodgy tactics they get away with.
Apple is one that seems to get away with absolute murder! There have been rumblings about a company called Psystar producing Mac clones which can run OS X. Apple seem to have an EULA that outlaws anyone creating clones of a Mac effectively removing the opportunity for competition.
Way back Apple stopped the original Mac Clones by fixing Macs to the PowerPC platform and then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones (Correction: Apple renegotiated licenses for Mac clones that the licensees weren’t willing to pay). Now that Macs use Intel (x86) chips again this opens up the market (Apple marketing always said PowerPC provided a much more powerful system than x86 but I digress).
Now OS X can theoretically be installed on other machines than those produced by Apple it seems any support for a legal bought copy installed on a clone is removed. What’s more the Apple’s software update is blocked!
Not much of a fuss is being made but I wonder if the same could be said if another not so loved company did the same?
So let me get this straight. Apple is supposed to pour MILLIONS of development dollars into OS X and then let some company come and pick the fruits of their labor. I’m really failing to see your point here. Would you personally accept someone copying everyone of your articles and posting them as their own on blog based off the hard work you did in writing your posts?
People go into business to make money. Consumers get a product with a warranty and support from Apple and Apple gets to make a bit of profit. This situation you seemingly proffer is for companies to willfully let someone else swoop in and eat their lunch. Maybe in China this is acceptable but not in the rest of the world. HM
David,
MS Windows is a platform to be sold to multiple companies.
Apple’s Mac is a system, made by Apple for Apple customers.
MS licenses its software. Apple doesn’t.
You do believe in ownership, do you not?
There is a big difference between the Microsoft scenario and the Apple scenario. Apple makes the computers and software. Microsoft only makes the software. Microsoft anti-competitive behaviour amounts to intentionally blocking off certain software from being used on a computer that they did not make. In Apple’s case, I don’t really see how what it’s doing is anti-competitive. It makes the hardware and the OS software. Sure you can make the OS software run on non-Mac hardware but it’s not going to be easy and Apple is not obligated to help you figure it out or make updates that suits your hardware.
Now, should other computers sell non-Mac hardware with OS X software? Well, sure you can make non-Mac hardware that is Mac compatible, I don’t think Apple prohibits that. The question is whether or not that hardware can come accompanied with Apple’s OS X software already installed. Not so sure how to think of that. I think if you sold the hardware and software together as a bundle but not installed, you should still be legally safe. The problem is that actually even on the Pystar computer, the OS X disk that comes with it cannot be reinstalled by a home user. Pystar has to do it for you or perhaps if your hacking skills are good you can do it.
I don’t think this is anti-competitive behaviour because Apple sells an ecosystem to you–hardware and OS software combined. Try this for an analogy: Car manufacturer A makes a car that comes with special software that controls some of its safety functions such as anti-lock brake system and ability to create a certain distance from the car or object in front. Now, is Car manufacturer A obligated to let you use that “smart” safety software be installed in another car that it doesn’t make? No, I don’t think so.
When you have 3% of the PC market, you have to protect it any way you can. They tried the open market before and nearly died. Who do you think apple is competing against? You would think these clone makers would target a bigger market — guess they to are afraid of MS and their orks (DELL, ACER and others) with 95% of the market.
“Way back Apple stopped the original Mac Clones by fixing Macs to the PowerPC platform and then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones.”
Hey get your facts right. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple he pulled the plug on the clones to stop money hemorrhaging from the run-down company at the time. The truth was at the time that Apple were spending tons of money developing stuff and the clone companies were creaming off the profits by just releasing cheaper machines (with less overhead and not having to develop anything then they could just sell Mac clones and Apple get nothing much back in return)
“Now OS X can theoretically be installed on other machines than those produced by Apple it seems any support for a legal bought copy installed on a clone is removed. What’s more the Apple’s software update is blocked!”
Microsoft rely on selling their software to make their bread and butter. They are a software company. They sell their software they make their money. Apple relies on people buying their hardware to make their money which is why their software updates are running at a much cheaper rate than M$. If you are buying a Mac OS then you have purchased their hardware at some point. They can justify their expenses on developing the SW that way.
The point being that if Steve hadn’t stopped the hemorrhaging of money out of Apple there would be no Apple to compete. I.T. would be completely driven by Microsoft, DRM would have been rampant. OK there would be linux boxes but that would be mostly for web servers and the small computer hobbyists.
There is no conspiracy here, nothing to see, move along, this is what Apple has to do to do what it does.
BTW have you SEEN the Psytar clone, noisy as f*** and they can’t even afford to buy in packaging to ship the thing?
I don’t see how this is anticompetitive.
Apple is not stopping Psystar from selling PCs. You can buy one, and run Linux or Vista on their box. They can make hardware and sell it.
Anticompetitive is telling Psystar they can’t make PCs that run Mac OS X (the license says people can’t install OS X on any non Apple Products) or Apple bundles a free PC with their OS X software (ala a free browser with your operating system).
What Apple is doing is saying that OS X is only licensed to be run on Apple Computers. Psystar can make as many computers and sell them to whomever.
Can GM sell cars with Honda engines installed in them without Honda’s Permission? no. And my guess is Honda won’t support anyone trying to do it at home either. Is Honda being Anti-competitive? How is Apple any different?
David - you know nothing about the topic you are writing about in this post.
Apple bought the chip company? The chip companies you refer to were IBM and Moto (now Freescale) Neither purchased by Apple to kill the clone market. IBM and Moto could not decide on a a unified approach to developing the chip, could not meet roadmap improvement schedules, and effectively killed the PowerPC chip for desktops and notebooks as a reliable supplier for a computer manufacturer. Apple agreeing to buy a small PowerPC chip company that did continue developing the chip for small devices using very low voltage only points to possible use in handheld/mobile devices.
Apple is a computer manufacturer. Microsoft is not. Big difference in the way you do business. Apple software updates are designed to work with supported Apple equipment. Microsoft chose to do it differently and that is why they have their current operating system nightmare (Vista)
I am not sure what you are getting at here. Define “absolute murder.”
Because a company wants to tie their OS to their hardware? Try running Irix on a non-SGI workstation. Up until a year or two ago, Solaris wouldn’t run on anything but on Sun hardware. Ditto for AIX and I am sure another one or two OSes.
What we have in the Windows space is exactly what we should be avoiding: MSFT has a monopoly that have locked in Dell, HP and a host of others to ever offer a different OS, and they make peanuts on their hardware anyway because it is all based on cost. Give Apple credit for being the lone PC maker who still thinks they can compete with Windows on cheap hardware. I just don’t see the argument. You can go on Ebay and find thousands of gently used Macs for sale or go to the Apple refurb section if price is a concern. And they still come with a one year warranty.
How is Psystar going to compete with a Mac mini at $599, with no iLife suite and no OS, even if they could get around the licensing?
When Apple granted clone licenses in the mid-90’s they were already using the PowerPC platform, as were all of the clone manufacturers. The clone manufacturers were supposed to be spreading the platform, creating new market share by taking it away from the Windows platform. Instead they were simply cannibalizing Apple’s market share. Cloning had to die or there would be no Apple Macintosh platform. Apple declined to renew licenses to those whose license expired and bought the rest out to stop the hemorrhaging.
As to Apple being anticompetitive, other than an Apple computer can you buy any other computers? Are there any other suppliers of computer hardware or operating systems out there anywhere from which you can buy a computer? Do any come to mind? Any?
Your belief that Apple is some sort of anticompetitive monopoly is based on flawed assumptions. There are in fact many other manufacturers of computer hardware and many other developers of operating systems. Your assumption that Apple not allowing distribution of the Apple operating system on other’s hardware is anticompetitive is comparable to saying that J. K. Rowling should license her Harry Potter stories to other manufacturers of books. After all isn’t it anticompetitive of her not to allow Bantam, Del Ray, and Double Day to put her intellectual property on their hardware?
You can buy Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, etc. You can install Windows, Red Hat, Ubuntu, BSD, OS2, Amiga, Atari etc. Surely Apple has not limited your access to hardware or software.
You wrote: “Way back Apple stopped the original Mac Clones by fixing Macs to the PowerPC platform and then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones.”
GAH, there’s so many errors there I don’t know where to begin!
Coulda yuh cite just when Apple bought IBM and Motorola to stop clones?
Or for that matter explain: “Now that Macs use Intel (x86) chips again”?
Methinks your history is a might bit faulty.
As for ‘Competition’, Apple has that with Microsoft and the various PC makers.
The anti-competitive laws (and monopoly laws) are, in all probablity, different in the UK than in the US. That being said:
It is not against the law to be a monopoly in the US. It IS against the law to use that monopoly status to overtly influence the competitive marketplace. i.e. what Microsoft did to Netscape.
With, at best, a 7% marketshare, Apple is nowhere near a monopoly as a manufacturer of computers and computer software.
Psystar has, indeed, created a ‘Hacintosh’. According to the YouTube videos, a ’somewhat’ stock PC is shown to boot up using Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Only thing is, to get the PC to do that, they had the hack into the kernal of the OS to get it to ignore Apple’s APIs. Not exactly kosher, that.
EULAs are some of the most constrictive and contorted pieces of legal claptrap ever invented. Closely read your EULA on XP, Vista, or Office and you’ll see that Apple is not alone. [BTW - EULAs may, or may not, be legal (at least in this country)].
When Apple put an end to it’s cloning project, it wasn’t because they changed the CPU. All the clones ran PPC chips. Apple canceled their licenses because the sales of the clones were starting to impact the sales of Macintosh computers.
Apple OS X ‘looks’ for certain hardware when installed (just like Vista does). If it doesn’t ‘find’ that hardware is won’t install. If you want to ‘trick’ the software into believing that the hardware requirement are being met, you’re on your own from that point forward.
I’m always amazed by the amount of time and effort PC folks put into trying to hack Macs. Particularly since you can purchase a new Mac (including OS X) for under £340.
If you think that’s anti-competitive, try buying a Dell or HP without Windows installed. Or, better still, purchase a PC, immediately erase the HD, and install Linux. Try to return the unused Windows OS for a refund. MS ’says’ you can do that.
The only real reason that Apple is forced to lock the MacOS to their hardware instead of putting it in a box and selling it for $299 is software piracy. If you are forced to buy a Mac, then Apple makes the money they are supposed to up front. You may steal the next version of OS X by installing a friends copy, but Apple got guaranteed profit when you bought your Mac.
If it was easy for the average Joe to run OS X on their PC, there would be 10 stolen copies for every legit copy bought for the $299 Apple makes per machine. Look at the music industry’s sales freefall as year after year more people just steal music.
It’s hard to steal hardware, but easy to steal software. That’s the main reason Apple won’t put OS X in a box.
Are you really as stupid as this rant makes you sound, or just horribly ill informed?
“then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones”
The third paragraph is absolutely false. For someone making sweeping claims you should do the research at least. All of the clone manufacturers were under contract to Apple for the rights to manufacturer clones. Apple voided the contracts as they could do at any time per the language of the contract. Apple never “bought” the PowerPC platform. The PowerPC platform was and is owned by IBM. Use Wikipedia for God’s sake! The x86 platform that was compared to PowerPC at it’s inception was entirely different from the x86 platform chips when Jobs switched.
Apple will take down any clone manufacturers within reach of effective courts. They would like to avoid legal costs which explains the delay. Apple will not license OS X to other manufacturers for the foreseeable future. Their plans are vertically integrated technologies, not low priced clones. You don’t like it … tough! It’s not monopolistic in itself. Others are just as free to do the same and compete with a different hardware, software, and web solutions. Apple isn’t “forcing” others, like Microsoft does PC manufacturers to pay a fee whether they install Vista or not on all of their desktop PCs. If they installed OS X they’d still have to pay Microsoft! Otherwise their cost for Vista goes sky high.
I know it’s a rant and it doesn’t really have to have much basis in facts but …
The official Mac clone program only ever existed on the PowerPC platform.
Apple didn’t buy any chip company to stop the cloners, it stopped licensing versions of the classic Mac OS after OS8 and didn’t license its “New World” architecture (which used the G3 but it’s biggest difference was its use of OpenFirmware). It sucks that it happened but it was a business dispute, not “absolute murder”.
re: your digression, the PowerPC was faster by several metrics (not all) at different points in time, but gradually Motorola stopped investing in development and IBM wasn’t interested in developing a notebook friendly version of the G5 processor, so progress stalled and the PowerPC fell behind the x86 family. At about the same time, Intel finally got its head out of its butt and developed the Core architecture which greatly improved its performance, beating not only the PowerPC but AMD at price/performance.
Psystar didn’t develop anything, they are selling a whitebox PC and they stole the work of the OSx86 project without permission or credit. Emulating EFI is a fairly recent development (as opposed to the earlier efforts which used hacked kernels), so it’s no surprise that software updating might be crufty. There isn’t any evidence that Apple is blocking the software update.
Speaking of not much fuss being made … when did Apple even mention the word Psystar? Has Apple shut down the long-running OSx86 project or any home-brew Hackintoshes? Or are you complaining about what other people have said Apple might say?
1. Seems like Psystar blocked Apple’s software update. It works on other DIY hackintosh boxes.
2. If you DIY you can evidently get a better box for less money than the Psystar.
3. Apple hasn’t been going after DIY hackinoshers. They probably never will . . . Macintosh is all about ease of use and there are plenty of people (more and more if you look at the sales figures) that appreciate that.
4. Ya know, there are all kinds of restrictions implied by EULA’s for all kinds of software by all kinds of companies.
5. Apple’s Mac business makes money by selling hardware. It stands to reason they’d restrict the use of their software to their boxes. They make a lot more money out of the hardware than they ever would out of licensing OS X. If you look back at when Apple was licensing Mac OS, they were in a bad downward spiral. When Apple tried to re-negotiate the price of the license to stay afloat, the cloners balked.
6. It’s not anti-competitive . . you are free to go buy any Wintel, Linux, Unix, etc box you want if you don’t like Apple’s EULA.
I don’t know about UK law but in US Law, anti-competitive is not against the law. Now may be you are confusing monopoly power and a company cannot use monopoly power to gain another monopoly. In current climate no company will be tried for monopoly abuse and Apple is not a monopoly. Next time rant about something you know so you won’t look foolish.
“Way back Apple stopped the original Mac Clones by fixing Macs to the PowerPC platform and then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones.”
What chip company. The Power PC is owned by IBM with, back then anyway, additions by Motorola. Steve Jobs stopped the licensing because it was bleeding Apple dry, and the clones were often, but not always, inferior machines.
I disagree. Apple is VERY competitive. But they choose not to follow Microsoft’s business model (where Microsoft has the home court advantage of an entrenched monopoly). Apple needs to substantially differentiate themselves, and not just be another alternative OS.
Apple’s business model is to sell a complete solution (hardware plus software). This has proven to be a successful strategy for both Apple and its customers.
Regardless of your sense of entitlement, Apple doesn’t owe the world OS X. It may turn out that Apple can’t legally stop Psystar and others from installing OS X on their generic computers. Just don’t expect any support when there are problems. And there WILL be problems.
(And as an aside, The PowerPC WAS in fact a better CPU than Intel’s Pentium –back when Apple was making the claim. What happened was that IBM and Motorola eventually dropped the ball while Intel kept improving performance.
(Apple, to its credit, was able to smoothly transition the Mac to Intel when it became clear that Intel’s roadmap was superior. Apple can just as easily drop Intel when and if another company’s CPUs would serve them better.)
Ahh lovely, you’ve not corrected a single falsehood in your blog post even after multiple people corrected you. And people wonder why blogs are rapidly loosing favour amongst those in the know :/
Wow turn my back for 5 minutes and look what happens! Apologies for not posting back earlier.
I’ll admit that the post was written in a confrontational manner however those that took the time to read the related article I wrote about other companies’ tactics would have seen my general view is that this is business and business does what it can to make as much money as possible. The interesting issue is the different reactions by people to according to the company involved. I’m certainly not just singling Apple out – all companies do what they can to maximize profits.
As proved here Apple is a company that can rely on a passionate user-base that will support them to the hilt. I’ve heard and seen Apple fanboys in action online so I was expecting a great stream of abuse but I’m happy to say that the vast majority of the posts have at least some kind of argument.
A bit of an experiment and what a response!
Firstly I’d like to apologise for the inaccuracy in my post (a correction within the post will be made straight away). I stated that Apple bought up all the PowerPC chips which is incorrect and I can’t find the source I got this from (will make sure my references are more in order in the future). What actually happened was Apple changed the terms of the clone licenses and squeezed all the licensees out. Again sounds confrontational - the reason behind it was to ensure they made money on the licenses.
One of the arguments made is that Mac is a system and Apple doesn’t license its software. Do I believe in ownership yes but I also believe in innovation through free competition. But I can buy OS X separately to a Mac so why shouldn’t I install it on another system? Now the platform is on the Intel x86 architecture this opens things up even more.
I don’t think I’m alone in not wanting to be locked into a single company for hardware and software I like to pick and choose. Again I could go off and get Windows or Linux but wouldn’t OS X being available open up the market even further? Certainly if it is as good a system as Apple fans tout it should be able to go up against Windows? I realise that Apple fell on its arse last time but I think the market has changed and Apple will have learnt lessons their past experiences.
So other companies start creating Mac clones let them get on with it and you might well see OS X’s and Apple’s reach extends further.
This post has been a big learning curve for me. I’m certainly not an expert on licensing (as many of you have pointed out) however I’m more interested in the bigger picture for the entire industry and the innovation that comes out of competition.
The thing I’m a lot more interested in is the way different companies are perceived by their user-base. Apple is one that has passionate supporters, some with close to a religious following (none I’ve encountered in this case). I’d be interested to hear from anyone as to why they feel so strongly about what is essentially an appliance? I don’t mean to sound flippant with that remark just try to give the impression others have of the same object. Why do Apple products inspire such excitement to some? Is it the company, the product, a fashion thing or even just some kind of tribal instinct?
Any points I’ve not covered I’m sorry but I could go on for pages - you’ve presented your side above in any case.
I think I’ll leave the post about iTunes and iPods for the time being…
@mathue I’ve corrected the post as soon as I could. I believe blogs are to encourage conversation on subjects as this post clearly has and the beauty of a blog post is that an mistake can be corrected quickly by people making comments.
I think you are much mistaken if you thing blogs are losing favour by “those in the know” and would love to know who these people are?
@mathue I completely disagree with your comments here, David has posted this article on 1 May 2008; you write such a comment a day later! Secondly blog writing is not losing favour at all, in fact it is growing at such an alarming rate the media is unable to keep up. It is well documented in the newspaper, recently in the Guardian that blogging and blog groups are cropping up all over the UK.
Not only are people highly tuned into the fact that blog writing reaches a massive audience but also when we look at the speed in which Google is indexing blog posts marketeers are also getting very excited by the fact. Saying blogging is losing face is like saying reading books is going out of fashion.
Sorry for the off topic but with flippant, unfounded comments being bounded around such as this it is very difficult to keep quiet.
“Why do Apple products inspire such excitement to some? Is it the company, the product, a fashion thing or even just some kind of tribal instinct?”
I’ve used (and still use) both Macs and Microsoft driven personal computers. I prefer the macs because they are more reliable, more likely to do what you need them to and last longer. As a result they are more enjoyable to use and - over time - better value for money.
What are you criteria for preferring a product?
Hi Nick thanks for your comment.
I understand the choice according to which you think is the best product for the job but why are Apple fans so passionate about it? Generally you don’t get people nearly wetting themselves at new product launches like Apple supporters do.
My friend Mark has mentioned this with respect to open source supporters too - although I feel Apple fans are even more extreme. Is it supporting the underdog? I’m just not sure that’s true Worldwide - we love the underdog in the UK but I’m not so sure this applies to the States.
Because of the course of this post I’m not getting into the PC / Mac debate - another reason why I disagree with the attitude of Apple fans - they actually suppress debate online because of the aggressive nature of their support. Far from being convinced by their arguments I can’t see the point in arguing as there is a “I can’t hear you” theme to their comments. Not really what I would call a good way of promoting a product they love so much.
@North
“they actually suppress debate online because of the aggressive nature of their support”
I can see where the fans come from, looking at your rather ‘fact free’ blog post I can see why they tried to correct the many factual errors. Just when did Apple use Intel CPUs?
Even the first Apple used the MOS Technology CPU which was similar to the Motorola 6800 series. Moto CPUs were very popular with early home computers. My Amiga used Motos
Anyway, as another commenter alluded to, your unwillingness to remove or strike-out the incorrect info. And even to be _indignant_ over Apple fans trying to correct you is rather telling of many bloggers.
As a grey haired geek I find many blogs to be more akin to tabloids, few blogs, such as Robert Scoble, Mary Jo Foley and Mini-Microsoft have any credibility.
Take a look at http://www.edelman.com/trust/2008/TrustBarometer08_FINAL.pdf and go to page 5 and see where the trust level of bloggers comes to. Bloggers come in BELOW television talk shows and are level with places like Myspace.
@Vaughn Hangartner I haven’t been unwilling to correct errors. As soon as I was able to do so I did (with regard to buying out PowerPC) and I have apologised about this. I don’t think this is unreasonable.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Mac’s are using Intel chips now and this is what I stated “Now that Macs use Intel (x86) chips again this opens up the market” - just a quick look on the Apple site confirms this - Macbook Pro uses Intel Core 2 Duo.
I’m not indignant about the correction that was needed but still disagree with the other points with regard to opening up the Mac system to allow clones. I just see the current stance though great for Mac profits is perhaps limiting their market to people that might not want to be locked into Apple hardware and software.
As my other post discusses (and I doubt anyone above read) all companies will take steps to maximize their profits - some companies get more strife for doing this than others. I’m not blaming them for doing this - it’s business! The argument I have is that competition spurs innovation and I believe opening the Mac system to allow clones may well at this stage open up more markets for Apple. A lot of people won’t buy Macs because they have to buy everything from Apple.
With regard to blogs yes anyone can post anything they like so the level of trust associated must be measured however as has been proved here the great strength of the blog is the comment system that causes a conversation to follow and therefore correct mistakes. A blog post is not an article and should not be seen as such.
@North
“Now that Macs use Intel (x86) chips again this opens up the market”
I must be misreading how this sentence is structured. As my brain reads it it says “Now that Macs use Intel chips again” which would seem to imply that they had at one time used Intel in the past. I’m guessing this is a “Eats, shoots and leaves.” issue.
Anyway..
As for clones adding more competition and thus improving Apple market share, perhaps they might, it certainly didn’t happen that way last time. I myself owned and still have a now dead UMAX S900 clone (I can email a scan of my manual if you doubt me) and it did indeed run MacOS, but it was also quite fussy. Boot issues, stability and noise were its main irritations for me and that was with a license! Frankly it was almost as troublesome as the Win95 and Win98 machines I owned at the same time (Minus the registry).
I know many people like to tout the market share card. Frankly I don’t know of another type of device that people put SO much emphasis on market share. I don’t buy my other car/toaster/drill/tv based on market share. Heck, even price only drives my buying to a certain extent. I don’t buy daily use items based on how many of my neighbours have the same thing and how cheap it is at Tesco.
For instance, during Ford’s ownership of Jaguar they introduced lower priced models, a move that was almost universally drubbed. It basically was a dressed-up Taurus. I don’t recall reading that having these cut rate Jags appreciably helped their market share. (GM tried this as well with the Cadillac Catera, basically a Opel Omega MV6). Its main unappreciated legacy with Jag is big improvements in electrical and final drive reliability.
Now back to computers and Linux, it’s free. I have CentOS, SUSE and Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on the machine I’m typing this on. I downloaded them without exercising a single coin of my own. By the ‘clone’ definition they are highly competitive since they are free and work on pretty much any computer hardware you want to throw at them. They even work pretty well, but certainly not without issues. Assuming that price and hardware choices are the buyer’s criteria then these operating systems should be cleaning the floor. However, the desktop market for Linux barely shows on the radar.
In closing, yes, Apple’s OS is more of a closed hardware system then lets say Windows. Would cloning yet again make sense, probably not. Does Apple prevent people from using a computer, no. You have many choices for computers other than Apple. For example;
(Not all of these use a GUI or are currently supported)
A/UX
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Amiga OS
MSDOS
OS2 Warp
AIX / AIXL
BSD
DUnix
DYNIX/ptx
HP-UX
IRIX
MINIX
OSF/1
QNX
SCO
Sun Solaris
System V
Tru64 Unix
Ultrix
Unisys
UnixWare
Xenix
Ubuntu
PCLinuxOS
openSUSE
Fedora
Mint
Mandriva
Debian
Sabayon
Damn Small
Dreamlinux
FreeBSD
MEPIS
CentOS
Slackware
Kubuntu
Gentoo
KNOPPIX
Zenwalk
Puppy
Arch
Slax
sidux
Vector
PC-BSD
Xubuntu
Ubuntu Studio
Foresight
OpenGEU
DesktopBSD
Elive
Red Hat
gOS
Mythbuntu
Xandros
Freespire
TinyMe
Frugalware
SystemRescue
GoblinX
Fluxbuntu
BackTrack
Musix
Yellow Dog
SAM
Absolute
Parted Magic
Symphony OS
Shift
Linux XP
linuX-gamers
OpenBSD
KANOTIX
Scientific
FreeNAS
Solaris
DragonFly
64 Studio
Parsix
Nexenta
DARKSTAR
Pardus
NetBSD
GoboLinux
Novell SLE
Granular
Wolvix
NimbleX
OpenSolaris
Linspire
X/OS
gNewSense
StartCom
Bluewhite64
SaxenOS
m0n0wall
Berry
KateOS
dyne:bolic
Yoper
PUD
Pioneer
Turbolinux
GParted
CRUX
Ulteo
GeeXboX
DeLi
AUSTRUMI
Devil
Vine
Kiwi
SME Server
Lunar
LFS
Gentoox
BLAG
Ark
@Vaughn Hangartner You’re correct with the first point - my English teacher would be horrified!
I agree with the point about cheaper clones not necessarily opening the market up as you say. It could open the market up for people that don’t want to be tied to Apple for everything.
Yes I aware there are many other options available but OS X is the only really high profile competitor to Windows when it comes to the person off the street. Out of all the flavours of Linux I’ve heard Ubuntu is supposed to be a very good option without needing “technical” knowledge but Linux generally still has this image of “not for the masses”.
I was reading an article about Apple in a corporate setting - I can see this transition more likely if a company could separate the hardware and software or at least had the option to.