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By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
Finally a "Mac OS on Intel" angle that almost makes sense. We just saw this at a site called PC Pro that seems to be the venue of choice for MacUser UK articles these days. It sounded so interesting, we couldn't figure out why no other Mac sites were commenting on it. Still can't, obviously, but here's our reaction: "Marklar" is of course the 1950s sci-fi-style code name for the Intel-compatible version of OS X. According to MacUser's Ian Betteridge, the mutant beast is "at an advanced stage of development" and humming along quite nicely in step with successive releases of the PowerPC version of OS X. All of the previous blather about OS X on Intel was wasted bandwidth, if Betteridge is correct: what Marklar may be, friends and neighbors, is not a way for Apple to jump to different processors, but rather a neutron bomb aimed straight at Microsoft's highly profitable operating system business. When Microsoft fully implements "Palladium" and its hideously restrictive digital rights management component, owners of Windows machines will not be able to copy, well, just about everything, at least not without paying higher costs and enduring massive inconvenience. If you wonder how Microsoft can get away with this Hollywood-coordinated assault on the emerging much-hyped digital lifestyle, just think "monopoly." But what if millions of PC owners could run OS X on their existing machines and still have a measure of freedom from the DMCA-engendered clampdown? Aha! Yes, and wouldn't this make Microsoft furious? Certainly, which is why Apple is unlikely to turn Marklar loose unless, for example, Microsoft drops support for the Mac version of Office or tries something similarly predictable and evil. Apple might also lose hardware business to people willing to buy cheaper PCs for running OS X, although admittedly there is still the problem of recompiling all those Carbon and Cocoa applications for Intel. This last bit of bother reduces the retaliatory impact of a Marklar launch, but these things have a way of resolving themselves over time. (If the opportunity is there, someone will take advantage of it.) Apple switching to Intel processors never made sense to us, but keeping a viable Intel-ready Windows alternative at the ready does, even if it would only be released as a last resort.
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