NEEDLESS TO SAY, there are a lot of ideas and theories flying around right now about why Apple is in its current state of distress. One of these ideas is that the company approached licensing at a far too conservative pace. Many even believe that Apple should have licensed the Mac OS years ago.
In my humble opinion, I think Apple has done a good job of maintaining its product integrity by controlling licensing. For years, PC lovers have gloated about the wealth of suppliers and manufacturers for their computers. But there's another side to the story: the hundreds of problems in a free-for-all market in which manufacturers and suppliers with proprietary technologies try to capture a niche but disappear from the face of the planet as soon as trouble arises.
Apple has definitely made some good choices in licensing the Mac OS to financially stable firms with a definite commitment to the "Mac culture." If it had indiscriminately let the Mac OS go to all takers, I strongly doubt that all the Macintosh-compatibles would be able to boast "100-percent Mac compatibility" like the current ones do. There really is something special about the Macintosh, and I hope that Apple continues to protect it.
