[Beowulf] [craig.hunter@nasa.gov: Re: Intel?]

[Mark Hahn]

> It seems that they are "daft."  One Apple's VPs has emphatically declared 
> that they will not allow MAC OSX to run on anything but Apply hardware.  

that's sort of predictable given Apple/Next history.

but I think people are forgetting that Apple is now an appliance company.
most of their sales (units and net) are iPod and growing, and Mac hardware is
pretty much at a standstill.  I would be astonished if Jobs wasn't steering
the company towards more appliance-ization: persistent rumors of cellphones,
some actual history with PDA's, etc.  game consoles would be an obvious 
step as well, though perhaps through partnership.

after all, the main point of Apple products has always been that they're
more appliance-like than competitors (in the sense of Norman's Invisible
Computer).  and as sad as it makes me, most computer users are not interested
in being programmers ;)


> again.  Too bad too.  That is one of the few possibilities for a real 
> tidal change in the desktop. 

is the desktop in need of a tidal change?  I don't think anyone believes
that the desktop is still just clone-PC+windows.  the waters are still 
swirling enough to make the landscape unclear.  

the web-browser is obviously the killer app, but how does it relate to some
underlying OS or FS?  how do you use browser-only boxes to interact with
other appliances like storage, music, etc.  viewed this way, the household
broadband-wifi router is really in an interestingly powerful position...

there are only very wispy hints of how this model relates to HPC...

regards, mark hahn.