more on Opinions Re: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips rumor on CNet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Simon Higgs <simon () higgs com>
Date: June 4, 2005 7:05:34 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: more on Opinions Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to  
Intel chips rumor on CNet


At 11:11 AM 6/4/2005, you wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Matt Clauson <mec () dotorg org>
> Date: June 4, 2005 11:32:29 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Opinions Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips
> rumor on CNet
>
> On Jun 4, 2005, at 6:39 AM, David Farber wrote:
>
>
> > http://news.com.com/2102-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=st.util.print
>
> I have significant doubts that Apple as a corporation is stupid
> enough to shoot themselves in the foot like this.  Anyone who follows
> the more hardcore tech rags, or even a news aggregator like Slashdot,
> will remember the recent PearPC/CherryOS debacle, where the specifics
> of emulation of grossly different hardware (in this case, the PowerPC
> CPU architecture on the Intel x86 platform) can have massively
> horrible results in performance.  In this case, it's allegedly due to
> the horribly different CPU designs, including instruction sets and
> number of registers between the two architectures.  Apparently the
> reverse type of emulation (x86 emulation on PPC architecture) doesn't
> have as many problems.

The idea of Apple using Intel chips has been around for a long, long  
while. In 1997, Gil Amelio was quoted as saying that he "would be a  
fool not to at least look into Intel portability". Historically,  
Rhapsody is a very early development version of MacOS X. Rhapsody is  
based on OpenStep, which is based on NeXTStep. NeXTStep 3.x was  
ported to the Intel x86 / PC platform when NeXT tried to change their  
focus to software, and dropped their proprietary hardware (note that  
Jobs also made this decision). Openstep which followed was also  
available for the x86 PCs. After Apple bought NeXT, Apple started  
using Openstep as the basis for their new version of MacOS and they  
maintained a PC version for some time. However, after Rhapsody  
Developer Release 2, x86 support was dropped. Around this time,  
Amelio left Apple and Jobs took over.

Apple's current strategy seems to be a repeat of NeXT's strategy.  
Apple doesn't care about the Mac market. After all, most die-hard Mac  
users are used to throwing everything away every time they upgrade.  
And you know it's true.

My guess is that Apple is going to attack the Wintel market at the  
software level. Users will get the "great Mac experience" (SIC) for  
only $129. They simply buy a copy of Mac OS X for x86 and reformat  
their existing machine. The next time the user upgrades their  
hardware, they buy an Intel / Mac appliance. That's the theory. I  
just don't see it working in practice without tremendous x86 driver  
issues. Unless, as with NeXT, Apple drops their proprietary hardware  
and ultimately becomes a software company.

Let's put this all in perspective. Apple excel at one thing really,  
really well. It's the one thing that is historically constant across  
all Apple product lines. Apple excel at losing market share. What  
starts out as a captured market is lost to competition that beats  
Apple every time on features and price. Overpriced hardware and cool  
isn't nearly enough to retain market share and this has been repeated  
over and over again with the personal computer, the PDA (Newton), and  
the MP3 player (iPod). Apple's only chance of breaking the cycle is  
to capture the x86 market. But in doing so they risk repeating all  
the mistakes that NeXT made.


Best Regards,

Simon Higgs



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