Blog post of the fortnight: Apple patents a way to EAT MICROSOFT'S LUNCH

I already told you that I'm trolling ZDNet's mighty blog page, and I came across what I think is THE BLOG ENTRY OF THE FORTNIGHT (from Robin Harris' Persistent Memory blog), an entry that tells you how what Apple is planning -- and patenting -- now has the potential to do what I've been predicting will happen for years now (but heretofore with no indication that it would ever actually happen):

Leverage technical advances in OS X and its implementation on the Intel platform to port the Macintosh operating system over to PC and end Microsoft Windows' dominance.

Or in short, steal Steve Ballmer's lunch and commence eating.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty. It's all about Apple's new ZFS filesystem, the software scheme that controls how your files are created, stored and accounted for. Not sexy, right? Oh, but it is. While Microsoft's NTFS filesystem that came in with Windows 2000 was much better than the previous FAT filesystem, it's nothing like the filesystems in Linux and BSD that work an entirely different way (don't ask me exactly how because I may be geeky, but I'm not that geeky ... yet).

As Robin explains it:

What is sexy is that combined with Time Machine, ZFS enables for the first time truly safe massive home storage. Time Machine provides the “set and forget” backup automation with a simple, intuitive restore function that leaves Mac and Windows users drooling. ZFS provides the best data integrity and, for free, high performance RAID. Yes, George, better than Intel’s ICH8 chip. And it works much better with flash drives.

...

Apple had Mac OS X running on Intel processors for five years before they announced the switch. With Apple’s experience in managing big migrations - from 68000 to PowerPC to x86, and from OS 9 to Unix-based OS X - one has to wonder if Steve (Jobs) will finally choose to make the Mac OS available on Wintel systems.

Apple already has a sizable Windows software business. They install their Bonjour networking with every copy of iTunes, where it works way better than anything Redmond has. Now they are adding a browser, Safari. By inserting ZFS under NTFS data structures - and virtualizing Vista - they could start selling Mac OS X on Vista machines while preserving the customer’s investment in Wintel software.

The patent application itself, according to the ZDNet blogger, concerns a method for easily and "touchlessly" converting a Windows filesystem into a Mac filesystem.

And at the risk of over-quoting (if only because I barely understand all this):

Apple had Mac OS X running on Intel processors for five years before they announced the switch. With Apple’s experience in managing big migrations - from 68000 to PowerPC to x86, and from OS 9 to Unix-based OS X - one has to wonder if Steve will finally choose to make the Mac OS available on Wintel systems.

Now I know hardware is important to Apple, even though its strong suit has ALWAYS been the software that makes it work, but having Apple and Microsoft truly compete for the hearts and minds of users on the PC platform is something that should happen -- and quickly.

I'm not calling it collusion, because companies can clearly do what they want, and Apple thus far has been super-nice to Microsoft by not competing directly with them and, in return, getting Microsoft's continued porting of Office to Mac. Now with Apple developing its own iWork suite -- and the steamrolling of the free, open-source Open Office into real offices everywhere, Cupertino doesn't need Redmond so much anymore. So it could happen. What do you think?