With the incredible (some would say monopolisitic) market share that Microsoft has, the scraps are left for the other OS's to fight over. These include the unixes, the big players (especially in regards to media coverage) being Linux and Apple. With regards to this development, the competition looks to have upped a few notches, the battle for market share heating up.

So why is this announcement such a BIG thing? It impacts the whole way that "geeks" talk about computing. For years people have discussed, argued and started flamewars over the relative merits of PC and Apple Macintosh hardware, and also the merits of the software.

Macs look good. With software, the sleek lines of the OSX buttons and scroll bars, the simple interface and the dock are enough to make some people run screaming down the street for the nearest apple store. Linux aside, Macs definitly look way better than Windows.
However price is and was a limiting factor. The same screaming convert sadly reverted to the PC when they saw the price tag. Though this was slightly fixed with the Mac Mini (which was small, good looking and affordably priced), many people feel the tug at the hip pocket is more important than eyecandy. So, they stuck with windows, and the brave ones found linux, and found that it was good.

Now, price is no longer a factor. Theoretically, mac OSX (especially tiger) should be able to run on any Intel based machine. For years now, mac gurus, tied to the platform because of certain applications (such as finalcut pro) have been suggesting that to save cash, buy the base mac and upgrade using the cheaper but just as good PC parts (such as hard drives, memory, etc) OSX should have no trouble running on most intel PC's.

So where does this leave linux? Now it is not the only popular Unix for the Intel chipset. Now it will not only have to battle Microsoft, it will also have to battle Apple. However, Apple is almost TOO user friendly to the point of being idiot safe. To install anything from source, you need a compiler- which you MUST get from Apple- a massive download called Xcode. It is much harder to get things done that they have not meant for you to do. With Apple there is less choice. To be fair, Apple has a great keyboard shortcut system- that they let people know about. Linux is also still available in "free as in beer" versions - (http://iso.linuxquestions.org/ for many options) it still will be the cheapest option. It lets you get things done.

There will always be fanatics, but in terms of general market share, which way will it go?

You still think your case looks ugly? Try googling for case mod. :^)

this author thinks that out of the three major operating systems, Linux is the best, followed by Apple, then by Microsoft.

titanium_geek

I picked the last answer because, in the UK at least (and the rest of Europe is not much better) you CANNOT get a linux PC. I mean, go to an online shop pick and configure the PC you want (cheap or expensive) and have a good distro pre-installed with EVERYTHING garanteed to work.....

And I have never seen a product getting significant market share without some company seriously giving it a push. Don't bore me with Novell or Mandriva please ! Seen an ad in a mainstream PC magazine lately ? That says it all.

And don't get me started with these guys presenting a common lobbying front to hardware and software vendors. They can't even agree on system file location and packaging format. And we are talking about the main desktop linux vendors here....

Where's the choice for "Windows will keep it's stranglehold and both Apple and Linux will remain unchanged"?

Well to point out some...

Xcode comes with MacOS, or you could download it for free.. and its just an IDE. You could just use the Terminal and mess with the compiler directly..

While it is possible for MacOS, now running on x86, to be used on any x86 machine Apple does not want this and have addmitted that they won't allow this to happen; it be great if this would change but then they got hardware issues to support, something big would have to change there.

Cost? Apple has never been cheap. Chances are the price won't drop--but it may change. It again all depends on Apple.

I won't choose which is best, it all depends on what you want to do.

You can get Linux PC's from tiny, evesham (not always), transtec, cheeplinux and others. Tiny even have Linux laptops. The problem is that you can't just walk into any shop and say you want a Linux PC and thats something that needs correcting.

As long as apple Oses are more expensive than Linux and only run on their own hardware (frequently more expensive than generic x86 pc's), then it will never be more popular than Linux particularly in the third world and on business desktops.

oops! I forgot the remains unchanged option. sorry.

Well, a new development: apples will have intel processors, but OSX will not be able to be run on any old intel- it will still have to be a mac.

thanks for all the replies

titanium_geek

None of the above. Linux will stay exactly where it is. I think apple will at least double thier market share i.e. 3% -> 6%, possilbe more. Microsoft will stay the leader for the foreseeable future. 5 or 10 years down the road apple could make a serious dent in microsoft but it will take a while.

Linux will remian a niche OS for the few. Linux would have had 6 years without microsoft coming out with a new desktop OS, and still they havn't made dent in the desktop OS. That should tell u something right there. People won't something easy to use. Linux is way to splintered for people to take it seriously, besides the few computer geeks and hobbyist.

Also OS X x86 wil almost defenitly be hacked to run on other x86 besides the intel-mac. However, they chose to block it, bios, whatever... it will undoubtbly be hacked. Hell if I was apple I'd do it myself internally and leak it out because it is to their advantage. Give people a taste and watch your sales growth increase.

splintered and under funded. Mind you, we are all kind of talking about the desktop here. What about servers ?

I would say more for linux, and less for apple... this move could be quite dangerous for apple which could be seen by its fan as nothing else than an expensive pc...

Hell I'd buy stock in apple now. Even if they lose half their base, 1.5%, they can easily pick that up with first time buyers. Where is that 1.5% going to go... linux, don't think so... microsoft almost definetly not. Don't see how anything positive can come out of this for linux, or freebsd even. If anything I see windows, linux, and freebsd people going to OS X, not the other way around.

not to microsoft yup probably but organizations and companies that were considering apple will likely consider linux because it is relatively similar, free and the idea of buying a mac with a intel processor is just weird... considering the general public I agree, i won't be for linux...

Linux has always been battle-hardened as far as market share is concerned, because it has never had the big company (again, ignoring Novell and Mandriva's minimal influence) backing it purely. Accordingly, it should remain just as - if not more - influential in the market.

I think Mac is the only one opening themselves to danger here. I have always believed that Mac software is nice, but that their hardware and usability design is their bread and butter. We'll just wait and see how intel changes that dynamic.

Also, perhaps intel hardware will take some mac considerations into their development, resulting in better chips...

Well, it is certainly tough to predict what the course of events will be in face of the new development. But I don't suppose the market will take it lying down. It may be the beginning of a new era for Apple. Now they'd be able to benefit from the low costs and high performance of the Intel chips. But also it'd be able to dual-boot, so this might not be all that bad a thing.
It is quite possible that their market share may, as a result of this, increase.
This, I think is a dodgy situation for Linux. Now perhaps we'd be facing tougher competition. There is no doubt that Linux is a far more superior piece of software,but the timing of switch couldn't have been worse, now that Linux has started to come out of the nooks and crannies and earn its righful place under the sun. It is just becoming a bit too frustrating now. Confounded corporates!! When will we receive deliverance??

Pretty much agree with what alot of people are saying, I think apple will increase their market share a little bit by selling some cheaper stuff, although I do think it is a bit dangerous for them...the troll inside of me thinks that its good for foss because apple wouldn't have much going for them when they switch, you can already get bsd on x86 I'm sure some ppc die hards will be done with apple, but the orange sunglasses crowd will eat up cheap macs Ok, trolling done, forgive me