Since the announcement that Safari has been released for Windows, I have been thinking about and reading articles on eWeek and ZDNet which have good insight. Ed Bott supposes that Apple is looking to make a hostile takeover of Windows. I'm not sure that I agree with idea of the hostile takeover doesn't ring quite true. I think we're looking more at an attempt at a slow assimilation.

Leopard is scheduled to ship in October. There has been a lot of speculation that there will be an Apple supported option to have Vista ship as a second OS on Apple hardware--there are in fact third party sellers doing just this right now.

Points that Bott makes that I agree with include:

1) Apple could be starting an outright war against other hardware providers like Dell and HP because other hardware providers can't offer both operating systems.

2) It also could be a testing ground for unbundling certain elements in Vista (like I.E. and Windows Media Player) and replacing them with Apple versions when the OS is preloaded by Apple.

At the end of the day, Apple wants to increase its hardware market share. If it can do that without having to do direct battle with Microsoft (after all, its market share doesn't change if the OS is loaded on Apple hardware) then reduces one front in which the battle continues.

Interesting times.

Powered by Qumana