A Little Geek Crystal Gazing

Sometimes I have the same problem reading the geek press as I do with parsing the political media: the inability to figure out if or when these writers are being serious. Case in point today: this guy who predicts that Microsoft will buy AOL in 2010. To me, that would be like the recovering alcoholic buying the local tavern. I suppose it does make sense at some level far above the potential of my impoverished mind.

Over at the other evil tech empire on the west coast, rumors abound as usual this time of year: Apple will be running out the phantom tablet and the Touch with the camera. But if not, the OLPC founder has a few ideas for them. My personal feeling remains that Apple’s next big wave will be the creation or purchase of their own clone shop. The attack on Psystar (which is still breathing, but barely) went beyond a deterrent defense to stop an invader; it was an act of aggression meant to destroy. One explanation for that level of malevolence would be that Apple has a plan to do branded cloning on their own. Back before Acer bought out Gateway, I had called for Cupertino to be first and make Gateway their own clone shop; but that was a couple of years back when the Intel momentum was just gathering speed at Apple. If they want to lock out future competition (legal or otherwise), the best step would be to clone their own. The arrival of a sub-$500 PC, made by Apple or an Apple subsidiary, legally running Mac OS X would be a body blow to MS and the PC industry.

Another reason this makes sense now is the success of Windows 7. I’ve been using it in a Boot Camp partition on a Mac (the release candidate of Win 7 is free to use until May or June, at which time MS will shut it down), and have been impressed at the design, speed, stability, and performance of 7 — it’s sure to give MS a lift in the consumer market next year, along with the release of Office 2010 (now in beta). I won’t be buying it, but that’s because I don’t care to deal with the Achilles heels that any MS OS comes with — the pervasive threats from viruses and malware, and the persistently antediluvian Internet Explorer browser. But for those who don’t know any better (i.e., the majority of corporations and lots of consumers as well), Win 7 will certainly be a more attractive and pleasant devil (Mephistophelian, if you will) than Vista or XP.