more on Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET News.com

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jeff Porten <civitan () jeffporten com>
Date: June 4, 2005 5:38:57 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET  
News.com


For IP, a write-up of the Intel issue that I sent around to my  
clients this morning.

Best,
Jeff

CNET is reporting that Apple will announce a switch to Intel chips on  
Monday at the WWDC.  The article was posted after 5 PM Friday,  
presumably timed to avoid affecting the stocks of the companies  
involved.

<http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/ 
2100-1006_3-5731398.html?part=rss&tag=5731398&subj=news>

This follows a report in the WSJ that said that Apple was talking to  
Intel.  The original article pointed out that Intel makes many chips  
that are of interest to Apple (notably WiMax and portable electronics  
devices), and so this didn't necessarily cover the PPC family.  Most  
of the people who parroted the article on the Internet and elsewhere  
extrapolated this to mean a chip change and left out the finer  
details.  John Gruber wrote an article last week debunking these  
rumors, which I agree with:

<http://daringfireball.net/2005/05/intelmania>

However, CNET has a good rep and presumably would not have run this  
story without a strong source.  Presumably we'll know about the  
details on Monday.  The Jobs keynote is scheduled for 1 PM EDT; from  
what I can see there isn't a public web stream, but it's safe to say  
that whatever he says will hit the Internet within seconds after it  
occurs.

As Gruber points out, an architecture shift would require the re- 
release of all Mac software recompiled for the new chip.  In some  
cases, changes to the source would be necessary (although not all  
cases, since software relying on libraries within OS X would continue  
to run with the same code).  But it would mean getting new binaries,  
and it's safe to presume that in some cases this would mean  
repurchasing the software as opposed to a free download.  The 680x0  
to PPC transition was eased because the latter could emulate the  
former; in this case, barring an engineering miracle from Apple, you  
can forget about that happening at reasonable speeds.

More to the point, I'm highly skeptical of this report because of the  
uncertainty it raises for Apple's core business.  Apple makes most of  
its money on hardware, and even if they deliberately try to prevent  
OS X from running on other Intel machines, this will inspire a legion  
of hackers to release workarounds to allow OS X to run on the  
cheapest hardware at Wal-Mart.  I have trouble believing that  Apple  
could engineer something that would make all such hacks impossible,  
and that would be a big hit to Apple's hardware business.  There  
would also be a significant dampening of Apple hardware purchases  
leading up to the release of Intel models.  I have similar trouble  
believing that Apple doesn't realize this.

On the side saying this is all true, it's long been rumored that an  
Intel Mac OS X would cause a shift in market share as people had a  
cheap way to try it out.  (The Mac Mini is seen as exactly the  
hardware that would dispel such rumors, being its own entry level  
path.)  Jobs is said to be very annoyed about the lack of a 3 GHz G5  
chip, and the inability of IBM to produce a low-power G5 for  
laptops.  If Apple's engineers decided that IBM was going to drop the  
ball on this going forward, then that's a potential reason for a  
shift of this magnitude.

According to CNET, the shift will start with the Minis in 2006, and  
hit the towers in 2007.  No word as to how the migration will occur  
in laptops, iMacs or Xserves.

If this is true, then we should expect to see a somewhat slower  
release schedule for new features in software, as engineering  
resources will be bled off for the migration.  [Client-specific  
discussion redacted.]


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