Publisher Of CIO Thinks Apple Should Go Linux

by , 8:00 AM EDT, May 2nd, 2002

Gary Beach, publisher of CIO magazine, poses an interesting question: Can Apple win new corporate desktop real estate by offering an iMac loaded with Linux? Mr. Beach thinks Apple can. In a recent editorial titled 'An Apple for the Enterprise', Mr. Beach explains that corporate IT shops are hungry for Linux. He says:

Apple should make a special iMac model for enterprises that runs a Linux client OS. In the process, Apple would increase its share of the home market as well. Efforts to make an advanced, easy-to-use graphical user interface for Linux - most notably those made by former Apple software evangelist Andy Hertzfeld and Eazel's Guy Tribble - were ahead of their time. Eazel and its graphical file manager product called Nautilus failed because of market conditions, not product conditions. The enterprise was not ready for broad-based Linux in 1999 and 2000.

But thanks in part to the long IT spending drought, Linux's market appeal to CIOs and the enterprise is high.

Mr. Beach believes that it would be a simple matter for Apple to offer a version of Linux for its desktop systems, saying:

Some say it would be fairly simple for Apple to get a version of Linux to run on the new iMac. The challenge remains in the graphical user interface (and all the back-office stuff like drivers, plug-and-play and networking). But it can be done.

Steve Jobs, if he is serious about making Apple into a feared technology power, should round up the old Eazel players, pay them hoards of money and announce the new iMac Linux machine at this summer's MacWorld Conference & Expo.

It's a short article, but an interesting question. Read the entire piece at CIO.com, then stop back here and let us know what you think, or join in on the discussion on this topic in our forums.

The Mac Observer Spin:

A very interesting question indeed. We believe that Mr. Beach has overlooked some key facts, not the least of which being that OS X's BSD underpinnings are about as close to Linux as one can get, minus the penguin. In fact, it is the BSD guts of OS X that has IT managers looking again at what Apple has to offer; and don't think Apple isn't doing anything about it. Recent ads in UNIX-centric periodicals openly court UNIX users, and Apple has hosted seminars that emphasize the UNIX underbelly of OS X, including command line use, compiling, and scripting. Even government IT managers are looking seriously again at Macs largely due to OS X. So, it would seem that Mr. Beach's question is moot, OS X already IS where he thinks it should be.

Or is it?

There are several versions of Linux that run on Macs, arguably, the most prominent of which is Yellow Dog Linux, which dosn't seem to be at a loss for customers. There is a certain appeal to Linux that may make the transition to a Mac environment less traumatic for show users.

Even so, there is one thing that OS X offers to anyone looking for an alternative to Windows on the desktop that Linux cannot, and likely never will be able to offer: MS Office. Complain about Microsoft if you have to, but there is really no other high-end office productivity package like MS Office, and you can only run it in Windows or on a Mac. Unless that changes, we can't agree with Mr. Beach. OS X is the way to go to loosen the Windows corporate deathgrip.

Lastly, the idea of a company the size of Apple having the resources to split its effort on two OSs is ridiculous. What Mr. Beach is truly saying (from our interpretation) is that Mac OS X doesn't cut it, and that Apple should drop its flasgship product for Linux. That's so silly in so many ways, we can't begin to list them all.

An Apple for the Enterprise