Details of Office 2007 for the Mac.

You have to hand it to the folks at the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit.

As is convention for the Office family, at this early stage the product is known only by its version number as ‘Office 12′. “That won’t be the name it goes to market with — we’ll have something brilliant, like the year it launches, as the name!” laughs Mary Starman, group product manager for Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU).

They’re very good-natured about their position in the Mac world. Why, they even realize what some silly pundits don’t: you can’t just tell Mac users to “boot into Windows”.

“Mac customers would prefer to run a native version of Office on their Mac” says Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for the MacBU “We don’t expect and I don’t think Apple expects lots of their customers and our customers to be running the Windows version of Office on their Mac.”

Indeed.

Silly report prompts silly conclusions

Perhaps some of the Macalope’s readers from across the pond can tell him, is there something in the water over there? Or did Jonathan Ive do something really, really horrible that everyone in the UK hates him for and then have to flee to the U.S. and we just don’t know about it because we refuse to read the British press because of our fervent belief that Zed is a sodomist who is dead and not the last letter of the alphabet?

Via MacSurfer, the Macalope read Personal Computer World’s Clive Akass’ latest post on the iPod. Clive links to a PCW story on a recently released report by Jupiter Research that shows that just five percent of iPod tracks were purchased through the iTunes Store.

Now, before the Macalope goes off on Clive, it seems possible that the story Clive links to was subsequently changed because it’s very clear to the Macalope at least that what Jupiter is talking about is the total percentage of tracks on an iPod’s hard drive, not purchases.

From the story:

A survey by Jupiter Research has discovered that an average of just 20 tracks on an iPod are bought from iTunes – about five per cent.

From Clive’s post:

Figures from Jupiter Research indicating that iPod owners buy only five percent of their tracks from Apple’s ITunes online store…

The difference between “bought” and “buy” is rather important in this instance.

It seems rather unstartling to the Macalope that in the 3+ years of the iTunes Store’s existence that it hasn’t surpassed the 20 years of the CD or the orgy of downloading that took place during Napster’s heyday.

What would have been meaningful is a representation of overall music purchases, not music ownership, and the trend of online buying.

Even with the questionable meaningfulness of the statistic that drives the Jupiter report, there are some really odd conslusions they draw from it.

The report warns that the ‘free’ concept is still very important to most digital music users and advises that newer services should look into offering ad-supported ‘free’ services, like the forthcoming Spiral Frog service.

There are few problems with that. First, people’s time is not free. In fact, to many, it’s their most precious commodity. Second, another conclusion you could draw from the continued prevalance of music ripped from CDs is that people like to own their music and ad-supported services give you zero ownership. “Free” to digital music pirates also means “free to play anyway and anywhere I want.” Plus, the Macalope can’t help but wonder how that question was phrased.

“Hey, kids! Who likes free music?!”

“I do! I do!”

So, the report concludes that people prefer CDs (the most expensive option but it lets you do what you want with the music) and pirating (the least expensive option which also lets you do what you want with the music) to iTunes downloads.

It then recommends the most restrictive type of service currently imaginable, short of having to pay a dollar and watch an ad every time you want to listen to a song.

And get a punch in the gut.

People pay for this research?

But let’s get back to Clive because the Macalope knows you want to see how silly the rest of his post is.

Trust the Macalope. It’s very, very silly.

Neither will the iPod work with any online music store other than Itunes, which is rather like a CD player being restricted to playing disks only from the device’s manufacturer.

Clive could not have picked a worse analogy as the iPod actually will play music ripped from anyone’s CDs (with the possible exception of a smattering of DRM-ed CDs).

But, like it or not, in Apple’s business model, the iTunes Store is the handle and the iPods are the razor blades. Apple gets you in the door with that neat iPod all the kids are talking about and then wants to lock you in by getting you to buy your music off of iTunes.

Even so, it’s a rather velvety lock. You can always burn your songs to CDs and re-rip them.

The Macalope finds it odd that the people who complain about how restrictive the iTunes Store and the iPod are don’t complain at all about subscription models.  Or, for that matter, the Zune, which apparently doesn’t play PlaysForSure (antler tip to Daring Fireball).

The iPod bonanza, which has seen Apple sell 1.5 billion tracks online, is not going to last forever.

Hmm, yes, well that’s certainly setting the bar a little high. But the Macalope seems to remember this other company that’s held a lock on the PC operating system market for over fifteen years. No, that’s not an eternity, it just seems like it.

There are countless rival players that do not carry the same restrictions, and Apple has been slow to bring a portable video player or musical phone to market.

Uh, Apple release a portable video player almost a year ago. Called the iPod. Don’t let that whole thing about it not being the “true” video iPod fool you. It was, in fact, a video iPod.

And Apple is widely expected to release a music phone in 2007. As for that being “slow”, the Macalope remembers similar statements when Apple first released the iPod. But just like the MP3 player market in 2001, no one owns the music phone market right now.

The company could come badly unstuck if it tries to lock people into its video downloads when there are plenty of other sources available.

Yes, it would be a shame if Apple uses the same highly successful model with video that it uses with music.

If it starts to be perceived generally as being guilty of anti-competitive practices, it could lose some of the momentum it has gained over the past five years.

Ah, yes, the Macalope remembers when that happened to Microsoft and people took their copies of Windows to the ocean and threw them in to show their…

Wait a minute…

The Macalope is just a little uncertain why so many people think that what made Microsoft so successful will make Apple a failure. But they sure do think that a lot.

The silly cherry on top of this silly post is when Clive closes by commenting how fun it would be if Apple licensed OS X.

Fun for you, maybe…

Brown?

The Zune comes in white, black and….

…brown?

More on "iTV"

Commenter V M Respectable provides this link to Dan Eran’s speculation that Apple’s waiting until January for the 802.11n standard. He also seems to confirm the Macalope’s original speculation yesterday that 802.11b would be insufficient for streaming this kind of content and even says 802.11g would just barely be sufficient.

It’s possible Apple’s waiting for 802.11n, but we’d need some dongles to transmit to an “iTV” via 802.11n and Steve Jobs wasn’t showing us any of his dongles yesterday.

Not even when he bent over.

Of course, not everyone likes to get up on stage and wave their dongles around.

But 802.11n isn’t built-in, so we’d need to see some dongles.

OK, so the Macalope just likes saying “dongles.” That’s not such a crime.

Is Vic There?

UPDATE 9/14: Victor Keegan responds in comments.


Dear Victor Keegan of The Guardian:

The Macalope knows we haven’t met before, but he felt compelled to respond to your recent column entitled Every Empire Crumbles.

There are some notable errors and an overall paucity of critical thought. The Macalope knows a little about how newspapers work in the U.S., but in the UK is it common for columns to be handed out like tuppence to a busker performing “God Save The Queen” in the Covent Garden Underground station on a guitar that hasn’t been tuned since the Falklands War?

It looks as though Steve Jobs, boss of Apple, might need a charisma download after what many people thought was a lacklustre performance – by his own high standards – at the company’s much hyped developers’ jamboree in San Francisco yesterday.

The Macalope thinks you must be confusing WWDC – which is for developers but was in August – with yesterday’s Special Event which was for members of the media. In your defense, developers are somewhat like reporters in that they’re sullen, ill-tempered and often look like they slept in their clothes.

Actually, since he had hardly anything new to say, he didn’t make a bad fist off it.

It’s been a long time since the Macalope has seen Quadrophenia, so forgive him if he isn’t “hip” to your “funky lingo”. But he thinks he at least understands the first part of that and wonders what it would take for you to think Apple had announced something “new”. Jobs announced a new movie download service, new iPods across the board – including the first digital music player the size of a postage stamp – and a new set-top box that has the technology world abuzz.

The Macalope hates to break it to you, but he thinks Crazy Apple Rumors is just kidding about the whole sexbot thing. Here in the real world, yesterday’s announcements are pretty big.

But, Vic, Vic, Vic. Would that were the only point that causes the Macalope to think you’re just the latest in a string of columnists that attended John Dvorak’s summer program on How To Increase Your Web Traffic Through Apple Bashing.

[The iPod] simply can’t maintain the phenomenal growth of recent years (indeed sales have dropped for two successive quarters).

Mmm. Yes. It’s always shocking when people don’t buy iPods as much in the first two calendar quarters of the year as they do in the quarter that includes Christmas.

Hey, you know, maybe that’s why serious analysts always compare quarters year-over-year. Just for fun, let’s take a look at that.

Wow. Both quarters were above the same quarter from the previous year, the first calendar quarter by 60% and the second by 32%.

If you’re looking to pass yourself off as a serious analyst, Vic, the Macalope suggests you might criticize the decline in sales growth quarter over quarter, but even then it’s hard to knock a company for failing to sustain 60% growth.

And, Vic, buddy, it just gets worse from there.

Leaving aside the question of why we need an extra intermediary to get films to our television sets…

Hey, if you want to drag your tower over to your TV every time you want to watch a downloaded movie, be the Macalope’s guest.

…the mere fact that he announced it at all, was a sign of weakness. It was done to prevent people buying a rival device from Microsoft. Or whoever.

Who sells a comparable device that works with a movie download service out of the box with a minimum of configuration (this is Apple we’re talking about, remember)?

And is there a lot of chafing when you pull things out of your ass like that?

Meanwhile, Apple is hoping that its user friendly iTunes infrastructure will enable it to be a natural host for the video revolution. It may. No one should ever write off Apple’s amazing ability to reinvent itself. But this time it is leading from the rear.

If by “rear” you mean “front.” Yes, Apple doesn’t have as many studios as Amazon. But every single iPod owner already has iTunes loaded on their computer reminding them to update to iTunes 7. Amazon faces an uphill battle to try to entice people to come download their intrusive client software (antler tip to Daring Fireball).

And one other thing: Amazon’s service isn’t available yet. [Macalope: the Macalope saw the pre-release last week and missed the release on Friday. Apologies. He also assumed that based on the reports of buggy software, that it was still weeks away from production.]

Then you link to yourself to try to make the point that cell phones are going to crush the iPod.

It is no coincidence that in the first quarter, when Apple suffered a sharp drop in iPod sales…

Yeah, that 60% year-over-year growth is a killer.

… (blaming it, implausibly, on seasonal factors)…

Yeah, cyclicality is such bullshit! The oil and gas industry has been milking that crap for years!

… the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said that half of all digital music sold in 2005 went directly to mobile phones (including ringtones).

Ringtones.

Right. [Macalope: In comments, Victor Keegan says the only ringtones included were full tracks, but the Macalope still contends there's a world of difference between phones that are "music phones" and those that play a handful of ringtones of varying quality.]

Nokia alone, a late entrant to music, plans to ship 80m music phones this year (almost double last year’s iPod sales).

Wow. That seemed like an awful lot to the Macalope. He was curious, Vic, whether or not you were still including phones that just play ringtones.

According to a July 12th MP3.com article:

Nokia said today that its own music phone has sold more than 1 million units in less than four months.

Uh-huh. So… yeah, unless you’re expecting them to have a really monstrous second half of the year, you’re still including ringtones. Okey-doke.

There will always be lots of people wanting dedicated cameras or iPods, but the majority of people in future will opt to have all these functions on one device rather than two or three. They already are.

If you include ringtones!

But if you don’t, not so much (at least yet). And here’s why.

Nokia’s 3250 sells for $350 and comes with 1 GB of space for music. A 1 GB iPod is $79, leaving you $271 to spend on a phone that doesn’t play music but does a whole lot of other stuff and probably doesn’t cost nearly $271. Or you could just get the free phone that comes with your plan and use the $271 pay for a whole year of calls.

MP3.com also says:

According to market research firm Ovum, an estimated 27 percent of the mobile phones sold globally this year will be able to store and play music and will jump to 69 percent by 2010.

Note that MP3.com doesn’t seem to include ringtones in the group of phones known as those that “store and play music.”

According to CNet, mobile phone sales were projected to be about 850 million this year, so 230 million will be what most people think of as “music phones.” That’s still a lot and probably more than 5 times the number of iPods Apple will sell, but it’s from all vendors, Apple actually sells music for some of those phones and buying a music phone and buying an iPod are not mutually exclusive.

Some of those music phone purchasers also own iPods. The kind of person who buys a $350 cell phone that only holds a smattering of her music collection may very well also have a higher-capacity iPod that holds all of her music collection.

But let’s get back to yesterday’s Special Event and your alternate-reality interpretation thereof.

The only people who will definitely clean up are the lawyers. Apple’s decision to call its new device iTV may just possibly produce a thundering legal letter from a certain television company in the UK.

Oh, dear.

Now Vic, let’s be honest…

…you didn’t actually watch the presentation, did you? Because if you had, you would have heard Steve Jobs clearly say that “iTV” was a code name and was going to be replaced when the product ships.

Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, Vic, VIC!

It’s not the Apple-bashing the Macalope detests so much.

It’s all the lying [Macalope: meant as hyperbole but the Macalope will withraw it at Victor Keegan's request].

The Macalope understands if you have yourself a comfortable gig over there at the Guardian where they – for whatever reason – pay you to write your desperate cries for attention.

But the thing is, your cries aren’t very compelling when they’re so bad.

The Macalope would suggest you look no further than your previous column for guidance:

Feeling in need of literary refreshment this morning, I dipped into the 1851 edition of the Sentences and Maxims of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, the great seventeenth century cynic, who ought to be compulsory reading for all who take themselves too seriously. One of the Duke’s aphorisms, “It is a great folly to wish to be wise all alone,” would sit well on every blogger’s desktop.

Physician, heal thyself. Next time you sit down to write about Apple, do a little homework.

Fondest regards,
The Macalope

Paging Robert Morgan

That convergence you ordered ten years ago is here.

For those who don’t remember Robert Morgan, he wrote a rumor site ostensibly aimed at investors and then a column for MacWeek before it became eWeek.  He preached the convergence of computers and consumer electronics in long, sometimes rambling posts.  But these were some of the rumors the Macalope was weaned on when he was but a young Mac buck.

Morgan wrote around the time of the original iMac’s introduction when the rumor mill heavily bet that it would be a set-top box.  Witness this CNet article from 1998 which is both astoundingly wrong and accidentally prescient:

Apple Computer (AAPL) is working on portable and TV set-top entertainment devices that offer Internet access and play everything from music CDs to DVD movies, as the company refashions itself for the convergence of consumer electronics and PC technologies.

The top-secret project could throw the computer maker back into the limelight of the high-tech industry if, as planned, the company combines a WebTV-like Internet access device with a CD or DVD player to create an easy-to-use, low-cost computing device, sources close to Apple said.

Apple declined to comment, but one source said the convergence project is code-named Columbus.

Columbus turned out to be the iMac.  On the prescient side, the article notes:

“Studios need critical mass. It’s hard to justify new channels (for distributing) content if the subscriber base is small,” said one entertainment industry source.

Which pretty clearly describes how it’s Amazon and Microsoft that face the uphill battle here in 2006.

So, it’s been a long time coming – and it’s still not actually here yet – but the Macalope will be hefting a flagon of mead to Robert Morgan along with the modest portion of crow he’ll be eating tonight.

Because the Macalope was certainly wrong about wireless video vs. wireless audio.  Judging by Gizmodo’s specs, it appears the “iTV” doesn’t have a hard drive (although Gruber speculates it has one for caching) so it is, in fact, receiving streamed video from a Mac and, for smaller content, from the iTunes Music Store.  Certainly the “TubePort” was also wrong, though, and simply based off last night’s crop of rumors.  No dongles and no “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

And no “true” video iPod.  We’ll just have to soldier on with these “fake” video iPods.

HD video requires transfer rates of 25 mbps and regular ol’ fashioned non-extreme Airport and mixed Airport/Airport Extreme environments only get up to 11 mbps.  So, while the Macalope hates to say it, it’s time to ditch that stylish but antiquated key lime iBook.

UPDATE 9/13 – Correction:  25 mbps is for uncompressed HD.  Commenter Jeff notes you could copy the movie file over 802.11b in less time than it would take to watch it, so you should be able to stream it.  He also points out the use of the term “802.11 networking.”  Is that because it’s 802.11b and 801.11g or because it’s 802.11a?

Bonjour! It's your rendezvous with Showtime!

Not that iTunes isn’t woefully misnamed at this point, but wouldn’t the folks at a certain HBO competitor have something to say about this?

Special Event Eve

Ah, Special Event Eve. Much like Christmas Eve. Visions of a [sometimes] bearded gentleman who wears the same thing every time [one a black turtleneck and jeans, one a red suit] delivering presents [that you'll either pay for monitarily or emotionally].

The Macalope is here to go out on a limb with his educated guesses about what Apple will deliver tomorrow.

  1. Movie download service – Unfortunately for Apple, this will come as a surprise to no one. At least the rumor sites aren’t to blame this time. What would be surprising is if Apple is able to deliver a studio besides Disney. For those looking to see how Apple conducts a real leak, the Macalope suggests looking at this instance. Amazon made a pre-production announcement and Apple made the headlines read “Apple, Amazon to Deliver Online Movie Stores.”
  2. New iPods – Will this be the long-heralded “true” video iPod?. Someone please shoot the Macalope at the thought of the year-late rumor site triumphalism. As with any large woodland creature, you’ll need at least a 12-gauge.
  3. Not an Airport-streaming video system

Come again, Macalope? But all the late night buzz is about the wireless video streaming device! Get with the program!

Well, speaking of the program, the Unofficial Apple Weblog may have one.

But the Maclope’s not buying “TubePort”.

Let’s get this straight. TubePort streams – presumably via Airport Extreme – video content that is being streamed to your Mac from an “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

That’s a whole lotta streamin’. The Macalope hopes they don’t accidentally cross the streams in his living room, causing his sofa and plasma TV to shoot off in opposite directions (OK, no one is more aware than the Macalope that two Ghostbusters references in fifteen posts is not good).

Also, if it’s Airport-based, why two dongles? All of the Macs this system would be likely to work on have Airport Extreme cards included.

And if mom and dad decide to watch National Treasure downstairs while the kids are trying to watch The Lizzie McGuire movie upstairs, that’s two movies streaming through the same Airport connection in two different directions – once from Apple to the Mac and then from the Mac to the TV.

Personally, the Macalope doesn’t want his Airport network so active it gives him a tan. Nor does he want to watch jerky video that makes Nick Cage stutter more than he did in Peggy Sue Got Married.

There are, of course, no certainties in this game, but the Macalope suspects that if there is wireless transfer shown tomorrow, it’ll have to do with music, not video. And that if there’s a Mac-to-TV connection for viewing videos, it’s wired.

Now, the Macalope must be off to bed. You know what they say about Special Event Eve. If you don’t go to sleep, it’ll never come.

Dear George…

The Macalope is in receipt of your most recent missive and is somewhat bewildered.

You say, among other things, that the Macalope is “a site dedicated to bashing” you.

Including this post, the Macalope counts 4 out of his 14 posts that focus on you.

(Sadly, you have dedicated but a couple of measly comments to the Macalope. George, this relationship is never going to work if you aren’t going to put something into it.)

But 4 out of 14 is still just 29%. Is that a lot? The Macalope is kind of new at this. How much time do sites dedicated to bashing you usually spend on you?

Frankly, it’s been a busy week for the Macalope. He already has two people who think his blog is dedicated to bashing them – one who thought the Macalope was George Ou and now George Ou himself.

It’s like the Horny One stumbled into an episode of Three’s Company.

But, George, the Macalope was most confused when reading this:

So it appears he just proved himself wrong all along and my camp has been telling the truth all along. If Apple is now leaking to Mac bloggers that a wireless patch will come out and they’re changing the story that Maynor and Ellch are “frauds” to “unprofessional” for refusing to share exploit source code.

George, you have to get over these paranoid fantasies of the mighty Apple propaganda machine before they start to eat you alive and you begin to think that Apple’s responsible for everything bad in the world and you fall into a spiral of hatred until finally you do something really embarrassing.

The Macalope has not heard that a wireless patch is coming and has never said that he did.

As for “proving himself wrong”, the Macalope is just scanning back over his posts from the last week and a half and… hmm… no… nope. No, George, he can’t find the post you’re referring to where he said there was never any hack and that Maynor and Ellch are liars and that the MacBook is invulnerable and Steve Jobs is God and the Macalope’s dad can beat up your dad (which, nothing against your dad, wouldn’t be a fair fight as the Macalope’s dad is a 600 lb buck).

Just because some Mac users have said Maynor and Ellch are frauds does not mean that all have said it.

As a matter of fact, in relation to the code the Macalope said:

Maybe they felt they should be paid for their time to help reveal a problem with Apple’s drivers. And maybe they should. But the Macalope would suggest that getting the attention of a prospective client by publicly dissing them isn’t such a great business model.

The Macalope never said it would be unprofessional of SecureWorks to refuse to give their code away. He actually leaned in the opposite direction.

This might be the bit you’re looking for about unprofessionalism, George:

You [Ellch] and David Maynor shot your mouths off about a vulnerability in the MacBook and then backpedalled when angry Mac users demanded you prove the vulnerability exists. Now you claim you don’t want to confirm it because it wouldn’t be responsible.

Now, there is another possibility the Macalope neglected to consider. It’s also possible that Brian Krebs screwed up and reported something he wasn’t supposed to. There are certainly those who think Krebs is to blame. So, if Krebs reported something that should have been off the record, Ellch and Maynor are just guilty of being jerks, not necessarily unprofessional.

Which leaves the bit about what contact SecureWorks had with Apple. You said you attempted to get some more information about that out of Lynn Fox, asking:

Did SecureWorks or David Maynor ever attempt to indicate to Apple that an exploitable flaw exists in the stock Apple MacBook wireless laptop regardless of whether Apple believes this qualifies as “evidence” or not?”

Like, maybe through a puppet show or an interpretive dance?

It’s been a week since I asked this in email and I left voice mails. Fox refuses to answer.

You should probably take note that Lynn Fox isn’t the only one not answering certain questions.

And the Macalope can’t imagine why she doesn’t want to talk to you. Particularly when you’re such an impartial observer.

It sounds like Apple was too lazy or incompetent to do their own work after they were given the crash dumps and disassembled drivers and it’s sour grapes.

Is that what they were given, George? Who told you that? Isn’t that evidence? If you knew that’s what they were given, why didn’t you ask Fox why she doesn’t consider those specific items evidence?

So many questions, George. So many questions.

What’s so odd is that the Macalope doesn’t recall there ever being such a stir over a Mac security vulnerability before.

Apple’s had a few. A couple of them (that’s two, George) rather severe. But never such a controversy.

He wonders why that is.

Well, until we next lock horns, George. Oh, by the way, Tuesday’s not good for the Macalope. He’s getting his antlers filed. Have your people call the Macalope’s people.

Yours truly,
The Macalope

P.S. Oh, and, George?

Since when do journalists have “camps”?

[Edited slightly for grammar.]

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK

PC Magazine’s Jim Louderback, trolling for hits.

To spare you the dirty feeling you’ll get and the subsequent showering with the lathering and the rinsing and the repeating, the Macalope has read Jim Louderback’s desperate cry for attention disguised as a “serious” column about why Apple should license OS X for you.

The things the Macalope does for you…

Louderback is one of seemingly scores of PC magazine (small “m”) writers who wilfully forget the fact that Apple is…

Everyone say it together along with the Macalope now…

a hardware company.

In fact, Apple has a significant opportunity to trump Vista as the desktop OS — if only it would stop insisting on being the sole hardware supplier for the operating system.

Ah, yes! If only Apple would ditch its primary revenue stream other than the iPod in order to act out Jim Louderback’s wooden and unimaginative technology industry porn script!

It’s not wishful thinking. I’ve talked with top execs from two of teh top 10 PC makers recently, and both said they’d be more than happy to sell PCs running OS X.

One was Michael Dell, who promised to start selling OS X-based machines as soon as Apple opened the doors.

Of course he would! Michael Dell would love to have any possible alternative to Windows. That’s why Dell sells Linux machines. The ability to offer OS X on Dell hardware would give Mikey another bargaining chip when negotiating with Microsoft and allow him to compete directly with one of his chief hardware competitors.

Apple.

Now, Louderback isn’t stupid, he just plays stupid on TV. He knows Apple’s a hardware company. He’s just punking us. Mad-dogging us. Mean-mugging us.

Still not convinced? Considering clicking over?

This should convince you:

Apple, are you listening?

Ponderous. Ill-conceived. Clichéd.

Now, if you’ll excuse the Macalope, he has to go roll in the dirt to get the stench off of him.

UPDATE 9/7: Some commenters have pointed out that Apple is both a hardware company and a software company (and a floor wax!) which is fairly obvious in as they make both. But it’s true that what makes the Mac shine is the tight integration of OS and hardware.

Well, and all that aluminum also makes it shine. And those shiny new MacBook screens.

While Windows or Linux on a Mac Pro are not going to be as rich an experience as OS X, the Macalope was really more looking at it from a P&L perspective. The company just doesn’t make that much on software as compared to hardware. The Mac OS is a loss leader.

While it’s doubtful Apple will ever sell Macs with Windows pre-installed, there’s a reason the company makes Boot Camp but cracks down on hacking OS X to run on non-Apple hardware.

And why do we have to keep having this argument? Because unserious pundits like Jim Louderback keep dragging out the same brilliant idea that would drive Apple out of business in order to troll for hits from Mac users.