After seeing an article about the new MacBook Air on Daring Fireball’s linked list, I decided to have a peek at it. Gruber summed up the gist of the article well:
Mike Barton at PC World doesn’t like the MacBook Air, which, apparently, somehow proves that Apple should license Mac OS X so that he can run it on a $600 ThinkPad. I’m sure Apple will get right on that.
Barton’s argument hinges on the idea that Apple has a “monopoly”:
Apple’s monopoly power over the Mac OS is holding back better software.
That’s just nonsensical. If we go to the Oxford English Dictionary (the definitive dictionary), it defines a monopoly as:
The exclusive possession or control of the trade in a commodity, product, or service; the condition of having no competitor in one’s trade or business.
Only if you define “product” as Mac OS X alone does saying Apple has a monopoly even remotely work. In reality, though, the product here is not OS X but an operating system in general. I would hardly say that Apple doesn’t have any competition with Microsoft lurking around the corner, not to mention the variety of up and coming Linux distributions.
Calling Apple’s hold on OS X a monopoly is like saying a movie studio has a “monopoly” on a movie they produce or that Hersheys has a monopoly on York Peppermint Patties. Of course you have a monopoly on the specific product you produce.
I’m alright if Barton doesn’t like Apple hardware. I’m even OK if he thinks Apple should license OS X to run on other hardware. Just don’t use buzzwords to mislabel Apple and portray it as something it’s not just because you don’t like its new product.
