Linux, MacIntosh and the Global Futue

[DudeAsInCool]

I recently posted an article in this forum which criticized Steve Jobs for focusing on innovation instead of the bottom line. Well, here's another article (courtesy of Holy Moly) for you Mac lovers, in which engineer/futurist Del Miller of MacOpinion shows how Jobs could and might really give Bill Gates a run for his money:


It was recently predicted that the number of Linux operating systems appearing on the desktop would soon overtake that of the Macintosh. While the definition of "soon" might be debated, what is nearly undeniable is that, in a surprisingly short length of time, Linux will not only outnumber the Macintosh but will also replace Microsoft Windows as the number one desktop platform.

The reason for this is that the market for personal computers is about to expand beyond the traditional borders of the first world. In the next few years the developing nations will see millions upon millions of new computer users and these new consumers will have an entirely different set of purchasing constraints.

Here in the United States, as well as in Europe, Japan and a few other reasonably well off countries, the price of a new computer and attendent software is most likely a small fraction of our annual income. Most of us have the luxury of shopping around for the particular product that suits our desires, and if that means spending a few dollars extra, well, that's just part of the buying decision.

But in the rest of the world, where total family income is often less than what first worlders spend on beer money, the entry fee to the world of computing is, as it now stands, completely out of reach. A four hundred dollar computer may be considered embarrassingly cheap in San Francisco but in Calcutta it is more often an impossible dream.

But that is going to change, one way or the other. The developing nations are already leaping into the computer age and they will continue to do so at a terrific rate. The citizens of these countries will buy computers and the necessary operating systems in enormous numbers, and they will buy them at prices that would bankrupt the likes of Apple, Del, Microsoft and the rest.

Homegrown hardware companies will be churning out cheap boxes with cheap processors and cheap motherboards and cheap enclosures (and I don't use the term "cheap" disparagingly) and those who buy such systems won't spend two or three hundred dollars for Windows or MacOS to run on them. They will choose Linux and they will choose it because it is free.



Disorienting Numbers

China and India together are home to well over two billion people; approximately forty percent of the world's population - nine times the population of the United States. Throw in the rest of developing Asia, Africa and South America and well over half the human beings on the planet are, potentially, new computer users. If these populations purchased computers at a rate that was even an absurdly small percentage of that for first worlders, it could feasibly reach 200 million computers per year, or more than the number of computers as are now sold annually in the developed nations.

What does this mean for the computer industry? It means that Microsoft will lose immense amounts of influence in the market and that Apple, unless it does something to tackle the problem, would statistically disappear.

In a previous story, Chill Out on the Marketshare, Already!, I made the case that Apple's low marketshare numbers are no immediate cause for concern, but that will eventually change. In a decade or two the expanding market couldleave Apple with a worldwide market share measured in hundredths of a percent. Evangelize that.



So What Is Apple To Do?

Apple could choose to continue with its current marketing approach, which is to avoid the razor thin margins of the commodity computer industry and instead target those customers who will pay for a higher quality computing experience. But those customers will be few and far between in the developing countries. Apple would essentially cede the bulk of the world's market to Linux running on foreign made hardware and squabble with the Wintel crowd over what remained.

Or Apple could, perhaps slowly, enter the emerging computer market through head-on price competition in both hardware and software. If it did so, you can forget the high R&D budgets and, with them, the premium touches that make Apple products what they are. And also forget the idea that Apple could sell its products at rock bottom prices overseas and still demand an upscale price here - the world is too small for that to work these days. No, if Apple were to compete pricewise against commodity boxes and Linux, the company would become just another box maker, peddling an obscure operating system.

A third option would be to make nice with the Linux world - real nice. If Apple made it abundantly easy to use Linux software (which the bulk of the world's programmers will eventually be writing) then Apple would at least be known for compatibility. This would mean that Apple would have to stage a serious effort to make Linux/Unix software operate transparently on the Macintosh yet still provided a unique and more productive experience in the process.



Apple's Plan for the Future

There is absolutely no doubt that the higher-ups at Apple have had these conversations and that they do have a plan. What that plan is I couldn't say, but we can certainly make a few guesses based upon what Apple is doing these days.

Clearly, Apple is buddying up with Linux. The new software development systems from Apple are increasingly friendly to Linux developers and the ability to run Linux developed code in X11 is a pretty neighborly gesture as well. It is entirely possible that the Darwin foundation for MacOS X will, over time, allow an ever better compatibility between these two Unix-ish creatures. In such a world, Microsoft would find itself in th strange position of fighting a reputation for incompatibility with the mainstream.

In this future that I've constructed, Apple might assume the role of the upscale Linux, the system for folks who are looking for something beyond the ordinary. But in a sense, that's what the Mac has always been, and Apple might continue to both prosper and suffer in its shrinking marketshare.



Does Size Really Matter?

But before we stumble anew into the old marketshare debates we have to ask ourselves if marketshare really matters. Or more to the point, will marketshare matter even less in a world in which there is no longer a need to worry about Microsoft?

When, or if, the day comes that Linux is the lingua franca of the computing world, Microsoft's current stranglehold on the market will be released. Redmond and Cupertino will both revert back to place names on a map rather than techno terminology. The battle to own the desktop will become just another competitive market, both companies fighting for customers and each required to profess compatibility with the global, Linux standard.

When Lenin said that quantity has a quality of its own, he probably wasn't referring to such capitalistic subject matter. But in the new world order of computing, just how big does Apple have to be? After all, even a small share of the emerging global market would allow Apple to grow its revenues and earnings far beyond current possibilities.

Over the next dozen years or so, the global computer market will be turned completely on its head. While the actual computing landscape is impossible to predict, it will be an interesting battle to watch.

http://www.macopinion.com/columns/engine/03/07/21/

Copyright 1999, Del Miller. All rights reserved.


Del Miller is a mechanical engineer by education but he has spent the last decade selling embedded computers into the Aerospace industry.
He lives in a quiet canyon in southern California, with a wonderful woman and way more cats than the law should allow. In his spare time he designs sensing equipment for materials testing applications, reads about the future and tries vainly to keep his opinions to himself.

[isus]

more concerning osx and linux:
don't forget, that apple is working with the khtml team... they are fixing bugs, making the core faster and better. and khtml is just one of the many sides of it.

they are sharing. not stealing. the sharing part is what helps people grow.

and did you or the author say "steven"? lol.

[DudeAsInCool]

Originally Posted by isus

did you or the author say "steven"? lol.

I'm the guilty party--but thats how they refer to him in the companion article I posted. Curious as to what you think about the the other thread about Jobs and innovation...

[ffooky]

1.What's the world marketshare of Rolls Royce, Ferrari etc ? I don't see them going out of business anytime soon.

2.<http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/02/1930232&mode=thread&tid=121&tid=179&tid=185&tid=18 9&tid=190&threshold=-1> is a good example of another Linux app that's not going to require X11 to run

3.You can't underestimate the importance of a committed (ok, fanatical,zealous etc) userbase..Windows fanboys seem rather thin on the ground in comparison with *nix devotees

4.The vast majority of office and business work is always going to be done on x86 machines but when some people come home they may well fancy the leather trim and walnut fascia of OS X and even more so as they are increasingly able to run the same apps at home as they do at work (assuming the Linux revolution does take place).

Apple's survival has been based on superior quality hardware with no compatibility issues and a user-friendly and stable GUI. Windows has infinitely more to lose from in increase in Linux. As far as I can see the only detriment to Apple from this change would be a drop in the numbers of people switching OS in search of a more stable and less opaque one but I think that would be offset by the reasons I gave in (4).