Dell PCs would perhaps be running macOS today had this deal taken off

Zohaib Ahmed — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 09:19:57 +0000

On the tenth anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing, industry heavyweights are sharing memories of the late tech visionary, with one from Michael Dell suggesting a prospective deal that could have changed history.

In an interview with CNET, Dell talked about his friendship with Jobs and his new memoir, “Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader,” stating he first met the late Apple co-founder at a computer user group (via: Apple Insider). Sure, this bit of information has been public knowledge for a while now, but Dell has provided a new piece of info this time that Apple has kept under wraps.

Image: Apple Insider

Dell stated that he became friends with Jobs after he solidified his company’s position as a leader in the PC industry. He revealed that Jobs visited him several times in order to convince him to adopt the NeXT operating system. This was likely because the OS and its expensive workstation were not seeing the commercial success that was expected.

Dell declined the propositions citing a lack of software and consumer interest.

But it didn’t end there. Jobs resumed talks once again in 1997 upon returning to Apple as interim CEO after the struggling computer firm acquired NeXT. This time, he asked Dell to license a version of macOS, since Apple engineers had ported the OS onto an x86 machine.

That sure got Dell interested and he agreed on paying a licensing for every PC sold with macOS. However, Jobs was concerned that this would eat into Apple Mac sales, due to which he then proposed installing Mac OS and Windows side-by-side on all Dell computers. This would allow customers to choose which OS to use. Of course, Dell would pay Apple a cut of all computer sales.

Dell HQ today (By Jjpwiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

This didn’t sit right with Dell because he would’ve had to pay Apple the fees even if his customers preferred Windows. Moreover, Jobs was unable to guarantee continued access to the software.

“It could have changed the trajectory for Windows and Mac OS on PCs,” Dell noted. “But obviously, they went in a different direction.”

Jobs and Dell were rivals in a competitive industry, and they would openly trade jabs. When asked in 1997 what he would do with the then-underwater Apple, Dell replied he would “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Despite the public jabs and fierce competition, Dell emphasizes the two remained friends.

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Dell PCs would perhaps be running macOS today had this deal taken off