14 DAY TRIAL // Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, believes Apple would make a “brilliant” move to give away OS X Mountain Lion for free to Mac users this summer.
"I think it's a great idea," said Gottheil. "It would be brilliant." His argument is complex, and he starts with the simplest justification of all - good will.
"One, just the general good will to customers as a way to ameliorate any negative feelings they have had about Lion," he said. "I don't think that was quite ready for prime time when it came out."
"Two, by giving away [Mountain Lion], they get that operating system out to more users, which will have some revenue benefits," said Gottheil, "We believe that there will be additional paid cloud offerings from Apple, so the more Macs that run Mountain Lion, the more revenue Apple can earn from those.”
The analyst points out to an Apple filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last summer for clues that the Cupertino mammoth could, indeed, offer Mountain Lion as a free upgrade to customers.
Pointing out to the respective literature from the Form 10-Q Apple submitted to the SEC on July 20, 2011, Gottheil said, "The Company has indicated it may from time-to-time provide future unspecified software upgrades and features free of charge to customers.”
At the time, Apple had deferred $22 from the sale of every Macintosh computer with OS X Lion installed to cover "the embedded right ... to receive on a when-and-if-available basis, future unspecified software upgrades and features relating to the product's essential software [and] the online services to be provided to qualifying versions of iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac."
If you do the math (with the reported 5.2 million Macs sold in Q4 2011), that’s over $100 million Apple managed to put aside last quarter.