Notebook Critic

I like to take stabs at guessing what Apple has in the pipeline as much as anyone else. Although I can’t claim to have any degree of accuracy it’s still fun. Very few people read this site so it spares me from embarrasment when I miss the mark.

My prediction:Apple’s brick is actually two things; software and a marketing strategy.

If it’s a metaphor for an object to break Micrsoft’s Windows what could be better than making Windows un-necessary? I am not talking about OS X for generic WinTel – although that would be cool.

We know that a big ‘product transition’ is coming that will eat away a huge portion of Apple’s profits. What could bring Apple’s margins down? Huge price cuts on Macs – that is what. Why now?

What if Apple offered a solution that would let you run the top Windows applications in Leopard without dual booting or having to instal any Microsoft OS at all? Linux has had this for years, but what if Apple took the open source project, put some polish on it and optimized it for the top Windows applications? Codeweavers, Wine and Cider all do this now but have missed capturing the public’s attention. This would be worth marketing the heck out of – and nothing works better than a big easy to understand sale.

In one fell swoop they would eliminate the final barriers to universal Mac adoption; price and perceived compatibility.