Since everyone (OK, well, someone) is engaging in a bout of rank guessing about which companies are the rumoured suitors for the licensing of OS X on non-Apple boxes, I thought I’d join the funFrom Fortune Magazine: “Most tantalizing of all is scuttlebutt that three of the biggest PC makers are wooing Jobs to let them license OS X and adapt it to computers built around standard Intel chips. Why? They want to offer customers, many of whom are sick of the security problems that go with Windows and tired of waiting for Longhorn, an alternative.”:

What will obviously happen is that Apple is going to license OS X to IBM so that Big Blue’s customers have the option to run OS X on the next generation Cell-based IBM corporate servers; and Apple is going to license OS X to Sony so that every Cell-based PlayStation 3 is simultaneously a Mac mini on steroids — running the non-game home-entertainment-hub part of the PlayStation’s many promised abilities. (Who knows, maybe Cell-based Macs will in turn run PlayStation games.)

Notice how this strategy does not in the main cannibalize Apple’s own computer segments (this being the mistake Apple made last time it licensed an operating system)? By licensing to Sony, OS X shows up in far more households, and by licensing to IBM the whole corporate world finally opens up to Apple — at least to its OS, and thus later hopefully to its Xserve on the low end.

Meanwhile, going to Intel chips is not worth the risk of compatibility headaches, especially as Cell looks amazing from where we are standing right now.

As for who the third manufacturer might be, here is a clue: Three major companies are co-developing Cell.