MAC: VIRTUALLY BEST APPLE

How Macintosh became a Mac? 

What makes a Mac a Mac? Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has said it many times. Apple makes the "whole widget." It designs the hardware. It builds the software. No other personal computer maker does that. Virtualization, however, severs the link between hardware and software. No more "whole widget." No more Mac. But shouldn't that mean more business Macs, since virtualization, by allowing a Mac user to run Windows, eliminates the objection many people have to switching to Apple in the first place? A good theory; it doesn't seem to have happened that way. Apple's share of the worldwide market for business PCs remains just 1.6%, or 2 million units in 2008. That doesn't mean virtualization hasn't helped Apple. Virtualization software assures consumers purchasing Macs they can use whatever Windows software they may need at work or school.

Nevertheless, virtualization has failed to put Macs on many business desktops. It is, however, changing the computer industry in other ways. Before virtualization, you could only run one operating system at a time on a computer. Virtualization software allows a machine to run many separate "instances" of software. A single server, for example, can run different copies of an operating system for customers running different Web sites on the same machine. The result: Fewer machines can do more work. Now those changes are spilling out from the server room. Some companies are hosting virtualized desktops on servers. Employees can access their desktop files from any computer. In theory, at least, it also makes those desktops easier to administer. Microsoft has positioned itself to benefit from this trend. Apple has not. Microsoft encourages the virtualization of both its server and desktop software (if you pay for a software license).


You can, for example, use computers from a number of manufacturers to connect to Windows running on a server. You can even access a virtualized Windows desktop from a Mac. Apple, by contrast, only allows virtualized copies of its server software on its own hardware. You can't host a copy of its OS X software on a server from Dell, for example. It's an old story. Two decades ago, Microsoft won over businesses by building software that works on machines built by many manufacturers. Microsoft's software cannot match the grace and elegance of the Mac at its best. But by breaking the link between hardware and software, Microsoft dominated the personal computer industry. None of this means that Apple will face the woes it did after it lost the desktop battle with Microsoft. The iPhone shows Apple can thrive as the personal computer becomes less important. Moreover, there's no reason to think most of the world's desktops will be virtualized soon. Or ever. That's a good thing for Apple's computer business. It's still all about that old widget, the Macintosh.