OSX is basically FreeBSD unix under the hood with a very nice 
GUI.  Given the fact that dual processor G5's are essentially high 
performance Unix workstations  that also happen to run all of 
those so-called 'productivity apps', I'm wondering if we'll see any 
Commercial EDA apps released for the platform?  Most of the OpenSource EDA 
tools like Icarus, GHDL, GTKWave, etc. are already running on OSX (it's 
quite easy to port code from Linux to OSX - usually no changes are required).  

I suspect that support issues would probably be less than those 
associated with Linux as well because there are less flavors.  
Having a plethora of choices of distros is one of Linux's strong points 
and it's just fine as long as you've got the source code for a given tool 
(like those listed above) but with closed-source tools it can be 
problematic which is why most EDA vendors still only support RedHat 7.2 
(I recall running that version back in '99 :) or maybe RH 8.0.  And then 
there's 64bit support: are you going to support Opteron or Itanium 
binaries (or both) for example.

Don't get me wrong, I still like and use Linux, but after using OSX for a 
few months I'm really liking not having to be a sysadmin for a laptop. 
;-) This would also seem to be a benefit for companies as well.  Sure 
Apple hardware is pricier than PC hardware, but when you compare that price 
difference (maybe $500 at the highend) with the price 
of EDA software ($5K - $100K+) the price difference is insignificant 
compared to the potential benefits.  Since each engineer would only need 
one OSX machine on their desk (it runs those so-called 'productivity 
apps') that would probably make up for the price difference quite easily.



Phil