Tucked in amongst Apple's several hardware debuts last month was the announcement that the company would stop charging for its OS X and iWork office-suite software. Why is Apple willing to forgo this small revenue stream? How might it affect IT buyers? The move is an interesting one on several fronts.Although Apple has been a software vendor for a long time, it thinks and acts more like a hardware company. And given its large hardware margins, why not? On the same day it made software free it also announced cuts to some of its most popular Mac hardware. Over the course of 2013, Apple has reduced the average selling price of Mac computers by about $150. The addition of free business-oriented software heightens the perceived value of Apple's computers, which may be a bid toward increased market share. I'll return to this point in a momen
