Could Snow Leopard Put OS X Licensing Back on the Agenda?
In the last couple of weeks we had some rather vigorous discussion about the hackintoshing scene. Out of it came an interesting suggestion by one reader, UrbanBard, that Apple could very likely include some sort of DRM in Snow Leopard to combat hackintoshing. Although this would cause a lot of negative backlash, there is an exciting positive side to it. That is, it would then put Apple in a great position to license OS X to PC manufacturers.
For Apple, the biggest drawback to licensing OS X to a Dell or HP was it had no controls over anyone else installing OS X on any computer. Apple has enough of a battle now to keep a lid on hackintoshing, but if it was to license OS X without some sort of DRM, it would become impossible and hackintoshes would proliferate rapidly.
According to UrbanBard, the 64-bit technology of Snow leopard will provide much more robust security which could then be used to prevent it being installed on non-Macs.
If that's all Apple does, you'd wonder if the backlash would be worth the effort of developing the technology - especially as Steve Jobs hmself spoke out against DRM on music. They might be two totally different scenarios, but that wouldn't stop people bagging him. So it would benefit Apple greatly if it had a sweetener to make DRM on Snow Leopard more palatable.
That sweetener could be licensing. That same DRM could also be used to allow OS X to be installed on other licensed systems but still prevent it being installed on hackintoshes.
Most Mac users of more than a few years have likely enjoyed a debate at some point about the pros and cons of Apple licensing to other PC manufacturers. It's easy to see why Apple wouldn't (it'd greatly threaten its own hardware sales) and easy to see why Apple would (it'd significantly help the spread of OS X).
If Apple accepts the pros and cons but finds on balance that licensing OS X is an advantageous situation, it still has a problem with hackintoshing. With OS X being allowed to be installed on a wider variety of machines, that would make controlling and limiting hackintoshes even more difficult, as each licensed vendor would want to build Macs to its own specs, thus meaning OS X out of the box would have to work with a wider variety of hardware configurations than it does now.
Until you bring DRM into the picture.
How this would work technically is unknown - at least to me, anyway. I'm not going to get into that side of it since it is way, way beyond my knowledge.
Suffice to say though, if Apple can identify its own computers, it could be able to identify those from any manufacturer.
This makes DRM in OS X rather exciting. I'm not saying Apple will now or anytime in the future license OS X to other PC manufactuers (and if it did, I'd expect it to be only one or two others). However DRM in Snow Leopard could remove a major stumbling block.
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Given its track record, I’d look for Apple to implement the DRM but without the upside of having licensing. I hope they do license the OS, or barring that, keep out the DRM. I really don’t think the hackintosh community is big enough to warrant such a hugely inconvenient change for every single Mac user.
The larger the hackintosh community, the more of a market Apple has to see for a desktop expandable Mac in the $1500 price range.
DRMing OS X would be the last straw for me. The fact that Apple trusts its users to not copy their OS is one of the things I really like about them.
BTW anyone notice how the Snow Leopard page on Apple.com has been stripped right down and no longer includes the system requirements? Since it doesn’t state ‘requires Intel processor’ anywhere, I wonder if they will also release for PPC? Rhapsody Preview was issued for Intel processors, even though OS X itself went PPC only, so they must have maintained that version behind the scenes…
A PPC fan can dream, can’t he?
But if DRM meant OSX licensing, wouldn’t that make a difference, evilcat?
Beeb said: “I really don’t think the hackintosh community is big enough to warrant such a hugely inconvenient change for every single Mac user.”
I agree, and that’s why I think Apple would need more than just that reason to implement DRM. And OS X licensing could be the rest of the story.
evilcat said “The fact that Apple trusts its users to not copy their OS is one of the things I really like about them.”
heheh - but we’re all breaking that trust. Wired, Apple Matters, hackint0sh.org, InsanelyMac, etc, etc,etc. And if Apple took us to court, what would happen? A slap on the wrist and told to cease and desist. Not worth the cost or effort for Apple.
So what can it do to stop us breaking that trust? DRM has been suggested by UrbanBard. And I think if it’s announced with OS X licensing, there’ll be so much excitement about the licensing, there’ll be little hooha about the DRM. A nice little win-win for Apple.
Chris > I was (in my head as I typed) comparing an install of OS X to an install of any Windows since 2001 when I referred to the trust:
OS X: follow instructions, choose not to send personal details, remember you don’t have to sign up for .Mac/MobileMe, it just wants you to think you do
Win: follow instructions, type in incredibly long serial number, retype it because you though that badly printed ‘8’ on the yellow label was a ‘B’, restart numerous times and then, just when the end is near, get told you must register online with MS or the OS will be switched off after 3 days
Because I’m at a loss to work out how the DRM would work in locking you down to your copy of OS X without requiring you register/activate online. Unless they made it so you could only download OS X from the iTunes Store. That said, you have to activate your iPhone, don’t you? Hmmm…
“DRMing OS X would be the last straw for me. The fact that Apple trusts its users to not copy their OS is one of the things I really like about them.”
They do DRM their other products, like iWork and Final Cut Pro. So one has to wonder why they don’t do the same for iLife or OS X. I don’t think it’s trust in their users, though, or they’d open up FCP and iWork as well.
lol
Ahh Windows… Sometimes it’s easy to forget what a pain it is. 
From the way UrbanBard theorised last week, I imagine that the DRM would have some way of identifying the machine. That way it wouldn’t need to check back with Apple, and it would either install or not.
Currently, OS X checks to see if your Mac is compatiblee.g. is an 866Mhz PPC or later. It does this via a encoded (or whatever the right word is) plist file. It’s not too difficult though to decode the plist, change it to allow older CPUs, and re-encode.
So obviously that method wouldn’t be ideal for DRM in Snow Leopard. As UrbanBarrd suggested, it will be a lot more secure and harder to crack than that.
I don’t think it will provide any major inconvenience to users. Just like the checks in the current OS X aren’t noticed by anyone installing on a compatible Mac.
“Currently, OS X checks to see if your Mac is compatiblee.g. is an 866Mhz PPC or later.”
I guess one could argue that this is a form of DRM. It prevents you from installing OS X on non-Apple hardware. Yes, you can do so with hacks and cracks, but let’s face it, this will also be true if Apple decides to include any kind of intrusive DRM. After all, it hasn’t exactly kept Windows (or any other software on the planet) from being cracked.
Why would Apple want to put OSX on HP, Dell or any other computers, Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. OSX works great because Apple has control over the hardware and the software. Apple makes a large part of their profit from hardware sales, and they don’t have customer problems that would arise from third party hardware issues. Imagine what would happen to Apple’s customer relations when the Apple genius says, “this is a hardware issue and I can’t help you.”
As I said Flyboybob, there are pros and cons. And that is certainly the main con.
Does that get outweighed by the pros though? The opportunity to expand OS X’s marketshare is rather enticing. What if licencing OS Xto HP and Dell meant OS X’s marketshare leapt to 20%?
I know Apple tried the clone thing before but that was more an act of desperation to stop a rapid slide caused by the arrival of Windows 95, and involved dozens of manufacturers.
If Apple did it again, it would be in an ascending marketshare and with only one or two manufacturers so as to maintain control.
BTW I think your Apple genius would actually say, “This is a Dell, you will have to contact their support” and then Apple’s image would stay relatively intact. Some folks might complain that since it has OS X on it etc, but some folks will complain about anything.
However, on the flipside, 14 years ago I worked (in IT) for a photocopier company. They actually found they could make quite a healthy income servicing their competitors’ copiers. So maybe that Apple genius would help - for a fee. So he might say “Well, it is a Dell. I can look at it for you, but it would be cheaper to take it to Dell.”
Hey, and also, having been an IT support nerd- we can fix anything!
Apple make a huge profit on every piece of kit they sell. Far above what other manufacturers make on their PCs. OS X, however, is available in ‘family packs’ of 5 for 50% more than a single seat version. Presumably the profit on OS X is pretty slim then?
Let’s say Apple sell Dell 5 copies of OS X for $199 - how much profit do they make? Let’s be generous and say they make the 12% they do on their hardware. That’s $24 dollars, and at best they just made $24 dollars they never would have had because the buyers would never have bought a Mac. At worst, they lost 5 Mac Mini sales at $700 a pop.
If that’s not enough, maybe they sell OS X to Dell for £130 per copy. Still working at 12%, that’s $78 they made.
Microsoft have 90% of the market and claim to have sold 100m copies of Vista in 13 months. So if Apple were to increase their market share to 20% by licensing, they would sell 11 million copies of OS X in 13 months. Making $5 per copy or $15 per copy gives a profit of $55 million or $40 million.
Obviously these figures are fudged because they would have to rise to 20% market share first, and I doubt they make that much per copy of the OS sold. And a MacBook has a 20% profit margin - that’s $200 profit from the basic version.
So which would make more sense? Sell 275,000 MacBooks, earn $55m in profit and gain 2.5% market share? Or sell 11m copies of OS X and make the same amount of cash but four times the market share?
I know which one I’d choose… the one which helps me keep my ‘exclusive’ badge and makes me money but has 75% chance less of a dumb user biting me on the arse because they installed on a Dell.
Well, Mr Evilcat, very well said. I feel like you’ve belted the OS X licensing idea out of the park.
“the one which helps me keep my ‘exclusive’ badge and makes me money”
The idea that Apple is going, in any way, for some kind of niche market instead of the biggest marketshare they possibly can ignores years of history and two major products out of three that they make.
Apple wants marketshare. They don’t license OS X not because of profits or “exlusivity” but because they like CONTROL. It’s one of the reasons I’m so glad Apple didn’t win the “OS war.” Imagine Microsoft, only they own all the hardware TOO.
And it’s not like Apple wouldn’t still sell hardware if they licensed the OS. The only thing that would happen is that OS X would be available to a market that it doesn’t already sell to, namely the low-end desktop and netbook markets.
Snow Leopard Server is designed so people of all technical levels can easily manage servers, providing advanced features so you can have total control over your network. -Instant Tax Solutions