The problem with Windows.
Microsoft not in an enviable position.
Poor Microsoft.
No, really.
OK, stop that. Stop that snickering.
OK, well, just a little snickering. Go ahead.
OK, done now?
OK.
But, look, they really have a tough job. Apparently -- and who could have predicted this? -- there's a cost to being everything to everyone. The Macalope doesn't envy them. They have a gazillion different users with a gazillion different requirements and hundreds (thousands?) of hardware manufacturers they have to get their software to satisfy those requirements on.
Suddenly the Apple method of making the whole enchilada doesn't seem so bad now does it?
So, again, please tell the Macalope how Apple desperately needs to license the Mac OS, because facing the choice of continuing to wrestle with this unmanageable hydra or breaking it apart into multiple code bases as Gartner is suggesting just sounds awesome.
Of course, it's not to say that Microsoft should necessarily jump on this advice. Gartner, you may recall, is the firm that famously said Apple should get out of the hardware business (albeit by licensing to only Dell).
Go back and read the arguments Gartner put forth. They seemed laugh-out-loud funny then and are even funnier now. So let's just say that not all of Ma Gartner's sons are business geniuses.