THE LESSON WE LEARN from the recent PowerBooks-on-fire fiasco should be clear: License the Mac OS as if there's no tomorrow. A successful operating system is too valuable an asset to tie its fate to a single hardware brand. Would anybody worry about the future of Microsoft Windows if a few Compaq notebook computers caught on fire?
However, maybe the problem is more serious. Recently, John Dvorak wrote in PC Magazine that IBM should let OS/2 be developed by a separate company, to foster the success of that operating system. Maybe Apple should get rid of its hardware business, in order to save the Macintosh OS from oblivion.
In any case, I will seriously consider an IBM CHRP notebook when it's time to replace my PowerBook, and I am not sure this is entirely against Apple's interests.
