June 22, 2005 11:10AM  |
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“Apple’s differentiation comes from great software in a beautiful box on good hardware,” said Forrester analyst Ted Schadler. “The chip inside makes little difference to the quality of the experience.”
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 For decades, the Mac faithful have been proud to “think different” in their choice of machines. When OS X arrived, Apple advocates seemed to be just a little bit prouder of being devotees.Apple always has inspired a following with its unique blend of an operating system running on hardware that is optimized to provide better performance over Windows machines. Macs had the added edge of being infinitely more user friendly than Unix as well. But with new Macs moving to an Intel-chip platform, and already running a Unix operating system derivative, the shift could change Apple’s strengths. In the next few years, will the Mac user interface and its slick casing be enough to offer its users a value proposition that is significantly better, or even different, than a basic Unix machine with a polished skin?
“Apple’s differentiation comes from great software in a beautiful box on good hardware,” said Forrester analyst Ted Schadler. “The chip inside makes little difference to the quality of the experience; unless that chip burns your lap and depletes the battery in two hours as the PowerBooks do.” Intel is intensely committed to building chips that work more effectively in portable devices, he added, and Apple is smart to tap into that. Desktop performance with Intel’s new dual-core chips also will give Apple an advantage, Schadler believes. In other words, the Mac user interface and its slick casing likely will be more than enough in the future. This combination, at least according to Schadler, will drive more users to try the company’s products. “Apple’s key differentiation will not disappear,” said Schadler. “It’s hard to build great software and beautiful boxes.”
With the new Macs packing Intel inside, some users might find that that the Mac does not offer much over the latest version of KDE running on Unix or Linux. The K Desktop Environment, as Unix and Linux users know, is a well-designed graphical user interface that sits atop the operating system. Many have compared KDE’s interface to the Mac’s. But do not underestimate the combination of hardware and software that Apple has been careful to marry together, said IDC analyst Roger Kay. “Mac is an integrated experience for end users, and most don’t care what the chip is that’s running it,” Kay noted.
Kay added that although some might gravitate away from Macs because they see only a user-friendly interface and sleek hardware, they might be missing a key element of what makes Apple distinctive. (continued…)
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