Mac OSX: Winning over Wintel?

Apple promised Copland would feature pre-emptive multi-tasking, memory protection and a customisable interface - features OSX now boasts - but development soon fell behind schedule and deadlines were revised as developers tried to add more and more features.

Eventually it became obvious that Copland would never launch, Apple began looking for a technology partner and ended up with NeXT, with its innovative openstep operating system and a CEO by the name of Steve Jobs.

In February 1997, Apple bought NeXT for $427m, took on Jobs again as an 'advisor' and began adapting openstep OS - a technology Jobs claimed was five years ahead of anything else on the market. It continued to update its older OS, adding some features from the Copland project, but always had an eye on the launch of OSX.

Apple claims the release of OSX is the most significant product launch since it unveiled the first Macintosh in 1984. The operating system is based around an open source Unix-based foundation called Darwin, which the company claims allows true multi-tasking as well as memory protection and increased stability.

But it's the flashy user interface Aqua that Apple hopes will woo new customers in the same way the iMac did. And if the company is ever to expand its market share it needs to get consumers drooling over OSX's look and feel in the same way the iMac's revolutionary design appealed to consumers turned off by boring, beige boxes.

When the iMac was launched, it attracted massive sales and not just from the established customer base. According to a survey of almost 2,000 iMac buyers by research firm Audits and Surveys, 29.4 per cent of those who bought the brightly coloured computers were first time buyers, while 12.5 per cent had previously owned Wintel machines but never a Mac.

Jobs, now Apple CEO again, recently repeated his vow that the Apple operating system will never run on x86 machines so the company has to attract more Wintel users to the Mac platform. OSX may prove a persuasive agent.

But Apple has a stagnating consumer hardware range at the moment. The iMac and iBook models are in need of an overhaul. And even the most die-hard Mac fan has to admit that changing the colour of iMacs and adding minor speed bumps every six months is unlikely to sustain the company's sales, especially in a slowing global PC market.

Apple has opted for a low-key launch of OSX. The real hard sell is likely to happen this summer when it comes bundled free of charge on new machines. But its success will rest entirely on whether it can kick-start its consumer offering, in particular the iMac.

If Apple can offer a revamped consumer line, an all-singing all-dancing OSX and accompanying third-party software, then it may well be in a position to grab a bigger piece of the pie. And then the company that claims it "ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s" will have its real day of reckoning.

And remember, Windows XP is just around the corner.