Lets go back to 1996 when he joined the company. Apple is in a weakened state, most of the industry has written them off, and people are counting the days when the company will implode.
Jobs has a fire inside and desperately wants to beat Microsoft. This *must* be a major motivator for him. It was Microsoft that dethroned him originally.
He is wise, and he knows that it would be foolish to reveal to the world his plan (Think Netscape). Microsoft would take note right away, and do everything it could to crush this little company. Instead he warms up to Microsoft, and they actually prop up this nearly dead corporation.
Meanwhile, Jobs brings in his *Intel* based system and slowly Apple starts to move it to their platform. Still - Apple needs Microsoft. They need Internet Explorer, Office, and anything they can to keep selling Apple systems.
OSX is finally released. Microsoft actually produces some of the first major commercial applications for this new operating system. With the success of their software, Apple becomes stronger, and the industry outlook for the company looks better than ever.
Secretly they have been keeping OSX compiled on internal Intel systems. This is for the day when they make the big switch. A switch that I believe was planned a long time ago. They must wait until they have enough momentum that the switch will not kill the company. When the outlook is strong, and financials are good they make their move.
With big fanfare Jobs lets the public know that they will be switching to Intel. The supposed reasons are for price/performance.
A Funny thing starts to happen after this. Accessory, and third party hardware vendors start to see it as a market for their products. They start to include drivers for OSX. Video cards, mice, and many other hardware items that were previously only for windows have already started including MacOSX drivers for their products. This will only continue until almost every PC hardware product will have drivers for both operating systems.
At this stage in the plan it is necessary to keep Microsoft from thinking that Apple will directly compete with them. It is soo easy too - since Microsoft has their deathray focused on Google. Apple is working hard to make it clear that OSX will only run on their hardware.
I believe that once there is a large number of applications ported and developed for the Intel version of OSX we will see another 'Big' announcement from Apple. A partnership with Dell. Yep. That is the final step in Steve's master plan.
By this time it will be too late for Microsoft to turn back the clock. Mac OSX will take a significant chunk out of their OS space. It will be a struggle for Microsoft as well. They will want to cut all development for any Mac application they sell, but the userbase will be so large that it will hurt their biggest cash cows.
The brilliance of this plan is that it takes Microsoft's strength, and turns it against itself.
I wonder if Jobs every read the "Art of war". It sure seems like he is following its advice very closely.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, January 04, 2006
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