Why Consumers Won’t See “Mac Genuine Advantage” Anytime Soon
Windows Genuine Advantage is a system developed by Microsoft in an attempt to thwart piracy. And with Vista, WGA gets even more pervasive. With its insane restrictions I have no doubt it will be received with open arms by a public desperately seeking for more copyright protection in their lives. Why, I constantly struggle with copyright-related guilt. Pirated music, movies, TV shows and so much software! Sometimes I cry myself to sleep at night when I imagine an unlicensed copy of Windows being installed on an unsuspecting PC. But I shall sleep better once Vista comes out and saves us users from ourselves.
However, a few bloggers have hinted that it is only a matter of time before Apple follows suit. Their logic goes something like this: When Apple’s marketshare reaches X (where X is whatever magic number their dog predicted that day) then Apple will have no choice but begin locking down their OS and crippling it with intrusive anti-piracy measures. Because that is the only way to ensure people buy OS X.
Now, in the pre-Intel days of yore (my how long ago it seems) this wasn’t really an issue. Because even if you illegally copied OS X then you still could only run it on an Apple computer. So, even if Apple took the hit by losing out on 1 sale of their OS, they won big by gaining a hardware sale to offset it. And since no one could easily build their own Apple-compatible PC they were safe.
Things have changed a bit since then I’m afraid. Now, it is difficult (though easier than it once was) but still possible to load OS X on a non-Apple piece of hardware. This means that piracy could still theoretically happen, but is currently far too small a factor to warrant investing large amounts of resources fighting.
But things become so much more different if Apple starts to license OS X. If they do that then they move away from their current model of selling hardware to Microsoft’s model of primarily selling software. And if they make that shift then they will be subject to all of Microsoft’s problems, including rampant piracy.
So, this brings up the question, “is it worth it?” Is it worth the benefits of licensing OS X (cheaper hardware, more customization, wider selection) if one has to also accept the drawbacks of things like Mac Genuine Advantage, registration codes, calling support to enable your computer and all the rest of the WGA nightmare. To me, the answer is a resounding NO. Maybe one day I will change my tune if Microsoft can prove that their system works. But I wouldn’t count on it.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
But things become so much more different if Apple starts to license OS X
Apple as “computer” company becomes ever so much as a minority in total revenue going forward. The current switch momentum is gaining switchers but the iPod’s acceleration is unhindered and seems to keep expanding. It should, as analysts predict the iPod is only now approaching the inflection point.
From looking at the past 5 years worth of 10-Q annual report to shareholders (I am one) the momentum is not building Apple the company as a PC company but a consumer electronics company centered on media devices.
Apple Computer might as well remove the “Computer” portion of their corporate name since it is no longer the primary driver of the company’s vision. It is still very important and should be maintained along with the consumer media devices. It is still a hefty source of total revenue.
As for Apple licensing OSX to other hw makers and to the general public for consumption, it is entirely possible. Apple could make a special version of OSX without the TPM module that locks it to Apple-only hw.
This would then allow it to run on any Intel-based hw BUT…this is very important and critical, Apple would certainly include some anti-piracy measure along with that version like the article claims. How vigorous that measure will be can only be speculated here. I hope it is not a short-sighted version a la MS’s WGA.
I think this is leaving some reasons for Apple’s philosophy of not allowing OS X to run on non-Apple hardware: it’s much, much easier and bug-free not to have to support the sea of hardware out there. This would end up COSTING Apple a whole lot.
Also, the Mac is sold as an Experience, not a set of software and hardware. It would reduce the ‘value of being a Mac user’ if the OS were shipped with gray boxes. You can consider this baloney, but I’m pretty sure that Steve & Co. don’t - to them it’s a major part of the Mac brand.
Mac OS licensing will not happen again anytime soon.
Doesn’t anyone remember the 90’s? It was only 10 years ago. The OS licensing model would never work for Apple in its current incarnation.
There was yet another article recently about some Wall Street analyst saying Apple should split their hardware and software into separate subsidiaries. Why are analysts so short sighted when Apple is making record profits?
What they don’t seem to get is that Apple is like neither Microsoft nor Dell. They’re not exclusively a box-maker or a OS maker—they create integrated products. They’re closer to Nintendo in that sense.
Nintendo isn’t about to license a Nintend-OS and allow hardware makers to create GameCube (or Wii) clones. Apple is in a similar situation. It’s the integration of hardware and software that creates the user experience. Separating one from the other would be a disaster.
Honestly, 90% of the people who are really interested in running OSX on their PC are either hackers or people who insist on building thir own white box - just because they enjoy fiddling with it everyday and every week - swapping something out in the “name of making it the best” but in reality, like a kit car - a hodgepodge of technology and frankly, crap. It would be easier just to go out and buy a Mustang 500 for the amount of money they are spending. If anything, offering a Mac OSX legally would bore them - they’d must rather have it as it now - try to hack their system so it runs ... let them just buy a box of OSX off the shel;f but you can NEVER please this crowd with a legal product.
As for the rest of the interested people, Mac already licenses the OSX, it’s called a MINI. For $600, you get OSX plus iLife and NO viruses ... even if you count XP as the equal to OSX, ilife is available nowhere else for thousands of dollars PLUS you get free walk-in tech support and hundreds of stores who will not tell you to call the MS or vice versa, it’s a hardware issue.
And that leads to the final reason - how much would you have to price OSX to cover all the add’l tech support (look at all the whining over the FREE PC itunes?) and port ilife also? $499? $599? Hey, look, it’s the price of a MINI - again, for pretty much the same price, Apple can deliver you the full Mac experience without the need to set up tech support.
Collolary to that is when Pc users walk into a store and see OSX at retail at $499 or $599, they think - man, that’s one expensive OS - the hardware must be expensive - it’s a bad sitiuation all around.
Other than the hackers and pirates who want to run a free OS, the average person does not really know or care that much anymore - you ask them to identify what’s Windows and what the browser - how many people will get that right? 30%
Apple is doing it right now - build buzz and provide an easy in - the mini. You keep the keyboard, mouse & monitor you like, plug us in and try it out ...
With regards to separating the Mac hardware and OS X:
If you hate Microsoft, you shouldn’t wish for Apple to become Microsoft.
If you love Microsoft, shut up and use Windows.
Either way, I can’t imagine why anyone would want Apple to separate the OS and the hardware.
Honestly, 90% of the people who are really interested in running OSX on their PC are either hackers or people who insist on building thir own white box… -jb
This same sentiment was around when the iPod was exclusively Mac-only. Many Mac faithfuls protested: “Why make iTunes Windows-compatible? It will always be better on a Mac”, and “The Mac is all you need for the iPod”, and others, “Windoze will degenerate the iPod EXPERIENCE”, and so on.
From using both iTunes versions, I can’t tell a difference. My music sounds exactly the same.
As for your personal analysis above, no, I strongly believe there is a potentially BIG market for OSX outside of the faithfuls. Sure, the “switch” experiment is on full tilt but that can only go so far. After, the low-hanging fruits and fence-sitters dry up, what then? How will Apple keep the momentum?
Yes, experimenters, hobbyists, modders, and then hackers are always the first in line but those people are already doing it today. Those people are not waiting for a PC-centric OSX.
As for the rest of the interested people, Mac already licenses the OSX, it’s called a MINI. -jb
That’s a shrewd way of saying, “Buy a Mini Cooper, it already comes with a licensed BMW roadster engine, and hey it plays your iPod too on its steering wheel. Ain’t that so cool?!”.
We’re talking about people with a decent PC tower or desktop that just want to EXPERIENCE OSX once in a while. They are not yet ready or willing to dump their PCs even when the Mac minis can play with XP/Vista natively.
Also, people object to OSs that costs more than $199. This is the reason folks just snap up new XP machines rather than forking $299 for a full version of XP Pro.
I know what you’re thinking. Why can’t these folks do the same with OSX on Mac mini, right? It is a matter of pursuading people unfamiliar with anything without a “Designed for XP/Vista” logo sticker. Familiarization is very comforting.
That said, Apple should take baby-steps toward this goal first. Familiarizing the masses by creative marketing and products that speak simplicity. The iPod is doing this now. The iTV will be next.
Robotech Infidel said:
“Many Mac faithfuls protested: “Why make iTunes Windows-compatible? It will always be better on a Mac”, and “The Mac is all you need for the iPod”, and others, “Windoze will degenerate the iPod EXPERIENCE”, and so on.
From using both iTunes versions, I can’t tell a difference. My music sounds exactly the same.”
One of the changes that manifested as a result of the marketing of iPods to the Windows (TM) environment was the loss of the Firewire connection in a bid to improve compatibility. I for one see this as a major change. Though I haven’t used an iPod I have used an iPod Shuffle, and I was /stunned/ at how long it took to fill it with tunes. The fact is, the Windows (TM) environment is actually more stagnant, and retains a lot of old technology that Apple has eschewed in favour of supporting innovation. Look at the new EFI standard in the Intel Macs, for example, or the decision to drop floppy disk drives and encourage online storage and transfer of files. In short, unbundling OS X and licensing it for the Windows PC crowd would in many ways be to hang an albatross around Apple’s neck, stifling what Apple has come to be respected for: forward-thinking and originality.
Slow news day? This entire discussion rests on the premise that Apple might unbundle the Mac O/S from the hardware. “Over my dead body” I can hear Steve Jobs say. What did Steve do when he came back to Apple? Cancelled all the licences and closed down all the clone makers. Apple is NOT going to licence OS/X any time soon, if ever. And while Apple hardware sales grow at 30% year on year, and Apple maintain high gross margins on that hardware, why would they even THINK about it.
So, no unbundled OS. So no reason to worry about pirating. End of blog…
One of the changes that manifested as a result of the marketing of iPods to the Windows (TM) environment was the loss of the Firewire connection in a bid to improve compatibility. -SirGB
Firewire, as good as it is, is not the ideal bus interface for a host-to-peer topology. The USB would be that. When I say ideal, that also includes $$$ in the equation. Built-in to most 99% of computers today and is $0 expense. Bit-by-bit comparisons and speed are comparable.
Without getting into QoS, stream preferencing, isochronous timing, guaranteed bandwidth, host-free capabilities, and so forth, USB 2.0 is just another way of shuttling bits from a device to a host (Mac/PC). I have never seen iPods interface with other iPods anyway (this is Firewire’s bread and butter feature, btw) so why complain?
If your USB transfer rates are much lower than advertised, you must have other bandwidth hogging devices working at the same time.
USB and Firewire works on serial protocols (much like TDMA for wireless). Not all devices occupying the channel can be given full bandwidth each. And each streams have their own overhead on top of the real payload.
So, look at your setup to make sure your iPod is optimized to that one dedicated USB 2.0 channel and not sharing.
Don’t blame the iPod for no longer providing ye ol’ Firewire 400. I like FW400 myself but I can live without it.
unbundling OS X and licensing it for the Windows PC crowd would in many ways be to hang an albatross around Apple’s neck, stifling what Apple has come to be respected for: forward-thinking and originality. -SirGB
This notion did not stop Apple from making iTunes+Quicktime the premier Windows application for home users, bar none. Apple can use this same model with the PC edition OSX if they wished.
I do have doubts of The Steve making such a drastic move, yet he fooled everyone before. He made the move to Intel architecture, introduced BootCamp to run Windows, ported the iPod system to Windows, etc. Didn’t he also claim that movies on a small screen is such a joke? Where is that claim now?
So, I have learned my lessons not to put complete trust on Steve and sift through the data myself and come up with my own analysis.
I wouldn’t say Apple will NEVER entertain themselves at a possibility in the future when the transition to become a living room behemoth is complete. Then and only then, that Apple will again face its long time nemesis - Microsoft.
By that time, Apple will have firmer footing than in the mid 90’s. That old licensing fiasco had good intentions to spread System 7, albeit to no awaiting market. There was no real value of switching from DOS or Win 3.11. Have you asked yourself when getting to someplace and asked yourself, “Now what?...” This is exactly how those few people felt when they switched to System 7.
Now the world has changed. OSX comes with goodies packed for consumption. On top of that, you have the iPod and its sweet music. And for those who likes to dabble with XP intermittently, they can do that with BootCamp or Parallels. In a word, PC folks have nothing to lose, except millions of viruses and trojans in the wild (or in some used iPods from eBay)...
Either way, I can’t imagine why anyone would want Apple to separate the OS and the hardware.
Then you lack imagination. I run Vista on my iMac. I’d love to run OS X on my laptop until I can buy a Macbook Pro. It’s not any different than users having a choice between Windows or Linux on their existing PC hardware. Why not throw OS X on there too?
Is it worth the benefits of licensing OS X (cheaper hardware, more customization, wider selection) if one has to also accept the drawbacks of things like Mac Genuine Advantage, registration codes, calling support to enable your computer and all the rest of the WGA nightmare.
That’s a good question. Frankly, WGA is a stupidly crap-tacular solution to the piracy issue, and I can’t imagine that Apple would implement anything remotely similar to this. I use Apple software that is prone to piracy and I don’t run into anything like the WGA intrusion, although they do usually require registration codes and the usual protections.
Is an OS inherently different so that it requires such draconian measures as phoning home and disabling your entire system? It’s paranoia. Windows owns 90% of the market. A few lost sales to piracy are a fair trade off against false-positives that shut down some innocent person’s computer.
One wonders where microsoft’s monopoly would be left were piracy made impossible over night.
90% of the computers sold have Windows on them. The only real piracy market would be upgrades to existing Windows systems, which wouldn’t affect the market share numbers at all, or home-built PCs, which I’d imagine accounts for single-digit market share at best.