Dell Willing To Sell Mac OS X - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Dell Willing To Sell Mac OS X

In a Fortune.com article, David Kirkpatrick talks about a recent interview with Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers.

So I emailed Michael Dell, now the company's chairman, and asked if he'd be interested in the Mac OS, assuming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs ever decides to license it to PC companies. (For now, Jobs says he won't.)

"If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers," Dell wrote in an email. It's the first time any PC industry executive has openly shown enthusiasm for selling machines with Apple's software. Though that's all Dell would say for the record, I suspect his interest is not unknown to Jobs. So, as I said in this column last week, the ball is in Jobs' court.

Steve Jobs has made it clear that Apple is a hardware company, not a software company, and doesn't want to market the Mac OS as a standalone product for fears it would lose the "total package" integration provided by a closed-loop system.

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...
Apple Logo Sketch Feature

Apple Has Now Unveiled Eight New Products This Month

Tuesday March 17, 2026 9:25 am PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping eight new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and now the AirPods Max 2 this week. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as the iPhone...

Top Rated Comments

SilvorX Avatar
271 months ago
i would rather shoot myself than see dells with OS X
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MBHockey Avatar
271 months ago
This will never happen under Jobs. Whoever becomes CEO after him, well, that's another story.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SpaceMagic Avatar
271 months ago
Quite an interesting read. Although, from Apple's point of view.. mass selling Mac OS X like Windows would be very profitable and in a way good for us all as more software would come to the mac.

However, I often feel that we'd be jealous of this. Mac users like to keep to themselves in a way. We like to think ourselves apart.. I think we all like being in a niche market, where we can brag about our systems. I think this is why we all got a bit huffed at WWDC because part of our arguements to why Macs are better was taken away from us.

I'm the same though... but I don't know, perhaps an OS X world would be a safer and better one.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jared_kipe Avatar
271 months ago
Of course he would. Why would it be a bad thing for any PC company to offer a different OS? But it won't happen, at least not yet.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
amac4me Avatar
271 months ago
Michael Dell, the founder and Chairman of Dell computer stated that Dell would be open to selling systems with Mac OS. Check out the article.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1072719,00.html
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: South Africa | Politics | Business | News | Culture