The software is everything!
I was writing COBOL on a Sytem 38 when the micros began to arrive. I remember the first article on the Macintosh. I was blown away by this totally revolutionary machine. It was clearly miles ahead of the IBM/Microsoft offering.
I was re-assigned to PC's, where I have pretty much worked for 20 years. In the mid 80's, any purchase was considered suspect unless it was IBM/MSDOS. I remember how difficult it was trying to sell the idea of buying a clone computer named Compaq, even though it was clearly superior to the IBM. Even today, you will occassionally see a '100% IBM compatible' tag on a computer. But, back then the reason for ensuring the machine WAS IBM compatible had nothing to do with the hardware. It was a guarantee the business software of that era would run on it.
And there were precious few SW choices available. There were four major apps back then; Lotus 123, Dbase III/IV, Samba and Wordperfect. Many more were actually becomming available, and would soon gain great popularity. But, these were the main players. It is my belief, if Apple had struck a deal with Lotus Development, Ashton-Tate (Dbase) and Samba, Bill Gates would NOT be the world's richest man.
Apple had their own proprietary apps, but they were out of the business mainstream. And the business market was VERY conservative. Most corporations saw micros as a means to keep users from bothering the DP Department with requests for data and technology (how dare they!). And when they were willing to actually make micro purchases, they only bought hardware that would run what everyone else was using. That has not changed a heck of a lot.
I believe that Apple is poised to really make a run at the business market place. Corporations are absolutely sick of dealing with viruses and hacking. But, they are growing even more shocked by the cost of MS's outragous pricing. Compare the price of Windows 2003 Enterprise Server Unlimited to OSX 10.4 XServer unlimited. Have any of you done the math? I do not have the numbers in front of me, but OSX is $999 and Windows is over $20000! Add the cost of MS SQL Server 2003 Enterprise and MySQL Enterprise. The same thing.
If Apple can establish OSX within the business world, many things are going to fall into place for them. I think Wintel is vulnerable right now. Apple has the best hardware, the best network solutions, the best operating system and the best apps. It is now time to storm the bastille. Getting OSX on the desktop, regardless of who's box it is in, is what is important.
