04-06-2005 09:08									#1
	It'll be official on Monday: Apple switching to Intel chips Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

(Note to mods: It's a new day in my timezone, so this isn't the third thread in a day )

http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+...l?tag=nefd.lede

quote: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips Published: June 3, 2005, 5:08 PM PDT Last modified: June 3, 2005, 5:11 PM PDT By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer, CNET News.com TrackBack Print E-mail TalkBack update Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned. Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said. The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor. IBM, Intel and Apple declined to comment for this story. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Apple was considering switching to Intel, but many analysts were skeptical citing the difficulty and risk to Apple. That skepticism remains. "If they actually do that, I will be surprised, amazed and concerned," said Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood. "I don't know that Apple's market share can survive another architecture shift. Every time they do this, they lose more customers" and more software partners, he said. Apple successfully navigated a switch in the 1990s from Motorola's 680x0 line of processors to the Power line jointly made by Motorola and IBM. That switch also required software to be revamped to take advantage of the new processors' performance, but emulation software permitted older programs to run on the new machines. (Motorola spinoff Freescale currently makes PowerPC processors for Apple notebooks and the Mac Mini.) The relationship between Apple and IBM has been rocky at times. Apple openly criticized IBM for chip delivery problems, though Big Blue said it fixed the issue. More recent concerns, which helped spur the Intel deal, included tension between Apple's desire for a wide variety of PowerPC processors and IBM's concerns about the profitability of a low-volume business, according to one source familiar with the partnership. Over the years, Apple has discussed potential deals with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, chipmaker representatives have said. One advantage Apple has this time: The open-source FreeBSD operating system, of which Mac OS X is a variant, already runs on x86 chips such as Intel's Pentium. And Jobs has said Mac OS X could easily run on x86 chips. The move also raises questions about Apple's future computer strategy. One basic choice it has in the Intel-based PC realm is whether to permit its Mac OS X operating system to run on any company's computer or only its own. IBM loses cachet with the end of the Apple partnership, but it can take consolation in that it's designing and manufacturing the Power family processors for future gaming consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Ninendo, said Clay Ryder, a Sageza Group analyst. "I would think in the sheer volume, all the stuff they're doing with the game consoles would be bigger. But anytime you lose a high-profile customer, that hurts in ways that are not quantifiable but that still hurt," Ryder said. Indeed, IBM has a "Power Everywhere" marketing campaign to tout the wide use of its Power processors. The chips show up in everything from networking equipment to IBM servers to the most powerful supercomputer, Blue Gene/L. Intel dominates the PC processor business, with an 81.7 percent market share in the first quarter of 2005, compared with 16.9 percent for Advanced Micro Devices, according to Dean McCarron of Mercury Research. Those numbers do not include PowerPC processors. However, Apple has roughly 1.8 percent of the worldwide PC market, he added. Apple shipped 1.07 million PCs in the first quarter, and its move to Intel would likely bump up the chipmaker's shipments by a corresponding amount, McCarron added.

Apple has publically been kinda pissed off with IBM recently. IBM was content with giving them chips essentially already designed (the G5 is the PowerPC 970, a blade/low-end server processor IBM was making), which have historically also had slow clock-speed ramps as IBM tended to focus on new models instead of constant speed-bumping. Apple didn't have enough sales volume to warrant anything more to IBM's engineering staff, which are already spread very thin working on upcoming Power6 chips, the PowerPC 980, Cell for the PS3, Xenon for the Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Revolution's CPU. Apple just didn't factor in anywhere.

And in one of the smartest moves Apple has made in many years, they'll finally go to a company that produces consumer chips. Finally can get some decently-fast low-power laptop chips, for one...

Celeron M powered Mac Minis will be on the horizon, guaranteed.

Ditto Centrino powered PowerBooks. Welcome to 2003, Apple.

	06-06-2005 22:54									#2
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And....it's official. His Steveness announced it a few minutes ago.

Apparently the rewrite on Mathmatica to support Intel only took 20 hours...

	06-06-2005 22:56									#3
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http://news.com.com/2061-10791_3-5733723.html?tag=nl

quote: Jobs confirms Apple switch to Intel After years of trying to get people to switch to Macs from Intel-based computers, Apple Computer itself has switched. CEO Steve Jobs officially announced on Monday that Apple would gradually shift its Mac line to Intel-based chips over the next two years. The move confirms a timetable first reported by CNET News.com. Jobs' announcement formed the centerpiece of a keynote speech to Mac programmers attending the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference here. The conference, expected to draw some 3,800 attendees this year, is a traditional venue for Apple product launches. In his speech, Jobs revealed that Apple has been developing all versions of OS X since its inception to run on both Intel and PowerPC chips. "Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life the past five years," he said. The move to Intel marks a tectonic shift for Apple, which has used processors from IBM and Motorola (now Freescale Semiconductor) throughout the life of the Mac. However, the company has changed architectures before, shifting in the 1990s from Motorola's 68000 family of chips to the PowerPC architecture jointly developed by IBM and Motorola.

	06-06-2005 22:57									#4
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* Asher has known about this for months, huzzah!

	06-06-2005 23:00									#5
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quote: Xcode 2.1 released, builds universal binary (one binary works on both PPC and intel)

Interesting.

	06-06-2005 23:02									#6
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Black eye for IBM

	06-06-2005 23:03									#7
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I can officially say IBM doesn't care. IBM Microelectronics was spread too thin as it is, and the compiler team (where I work) is overloaded with Xbox 360/PS3/BlueGene workload already.

	06-06-2005 23:04									#8
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It'll be interesting to see how Apple treats this PR-wise. Their website showed G5s being 2x as fast as P4s regularly, now they're saying this will improve performance switching to Intel.

	06-06-2005 23:04									#9
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Pretty poor showing from IBM. They pissed and moaned to get Apple on board in the first place and then couldn't provide.

With the sale of their PC division to Lenovo, it just shows that IBM has failed miserably.

	06-06-2005 23:05									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Pretty poor showing from IBM. They pissed and moaned to get Apple on board in the first place and then couldn't provide. With the sale of their PC division to Lenovo, it just shows that IBM has failed miserably.

Apple ditched IBM because IBM wasn't tailoring to their prissy attitude and tiny market. IBM has bigger fish to fry, ones with higher margins and/or more volume.

As for Lenovo, they sold a shrinking division making a loss to a company with $2B in profit.

	06-06-2005 23:06									#11
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IBM were keen to get the G5 contract in the first place. Apple was going to go with Intel at the time, but IBM were keener.

WTF they couldn't deliver is beyond me.

	06-06-2005 23:07									#12
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This is from an AP article:

quote: For one, it means that all programs now built for PowerPC-based Macs will have to either be rewritten or run through an emulator to work on Intel-based Macs. And anyone with a Mac today might not be able to run software built for the computers after the switch.

If this is true, Apple could very well lose more users. Myself included. Why? I'm not about to drop $2,000 for a high-end iMac whose very guts could very well be useless within 1.5 years. Unless, of course, the AP is mistaken (it wouldn't be the first time, folks).

Gatekeeper

	06-06-2005 23:08									#13
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quote: Apple ditched IBM because IBM wasn't tailoring to their prissy attitude and tiny market. IBM has bigger fish to fry, ones with higher margins and/or more volume.

That's what they say now. At the time they took on the Apple contract for the G5 they were quite keen if the memos I saw at the time were accurate. They are just trying to put a brave face on it because they failed.

	06-06-2005 23:08									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon IBM were keen to get the G5 contract in the first place. Apple was going to go with Intel at the time, but IBM were keener.

Utter nonsense.

quote: WTF they couldn't deliver is beyond me.

What happened was IBM wasn't playing Jobs' game. Jobs intentionally made ridiculous public promises like a 3GHz G5 by summer 2004, when IBM's roadmaps didn't have anything close to that.

Jobs overestimated Apple's value to IBM, and paid the price. Jobs pissed off IBM, while at the same time IBM was signing contracts with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

Is it any surprise that IBM just shrugged and gave up? Their fab. plant capacties will be maxed out making the console chips, their engineering staff maxed out making console chips and Power5s...

Apple is a small fish of little importance. It's like the needy girlfriend. At soem point you decide she's ugly, needy, and give her the boot.

Apple loses marketshare with every transition it makes. IBM's is growing very rapidly. The loser here isn't IBM.

	06-06-2005 23:12									#15
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quote: Utter nonsense.

Well, thats just what they are saying now. At the time they were full of the equal and opposite BS.

IBM failed. I guess they are trying to put the best spin on it, but they failed.

	06-06-2005 23:14									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Well, thats just what they are saying now. At the time they were full of the equal and opposite BS. IBM failed. I guess they are trying to put the best spin on it, but they failed.

IBM fails by having the fastest growing instruction-set-architecture in the industry (Power/PowerPC) -- without Apple's help?

Apple sells a trivial amount of computers.

As for your claim about how enthusiastic they were, I think you're confusing press releases with reality. Partners in a joint venture will always talk about how excited they are...

	06-06-2005 23:14									#17
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All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie.

'Specially since IBM has larger market capitalization, a diversified product portfolio, and iirc, larger profits...

	06-06-2005 23:14									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Gatekeeper This is from an AP article: If this is true, Apple could very well lose more users. Myself included. Why? I'm not about to drop $2,000 for a high-end iMac whose very guts could very well be useless within 1.5 years. Unless, of course, the AP is mistaken (it wouldn't be the first time, folks).

It sounds like the Transitive deal is going to mitigate some of this...though how much, who knows. And if porting everything else is as easy as Mathmatica (yeah right, but...) the transition shouldn't be too bad.

At least all the shouting matches over PPC vs Intel will be over.

I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

	06-06-2005 23:15									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie. 'Specially since IBM has larger market capitalization, a diversified product portfolio, and iirc, larger profits...

And Apple has historically lost users per transition.

Many of my Mac-using friends are pretty disgusted in Apple right now.

	06-06-2005 23:16									#20
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quote: Originally posted by dv8ed I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

They absolutely will.

I'm going to go on the record and predict Apple will get "special" Pentiums with special instructions and/or protection mechanisms.

Apple would go out of business if they actually had a competitive hardware market. That's why they forced clone makers out of business.

	06-06-2005 23:19									#21
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quote: Originally posted by dv8ed And....it's official. His Steveness announced it a few minutes ago. Apparently the rewrite on Mathmatica to support Intel only took 20 hours...

Mathematica already supports Intel chips perfectly fine

	06-06-2005 23:19									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Asher They absolutely will. I'm going to go on the record and predict Apple will get "special" Pentiums with special instructions and/or protection mechanisms.

Oh, I'm sure they will too, I was just hoping. Though I doubt the processor will be any different, it'll probably just be a chipset thing.

I'm glad Apple is doing this...I'd just be happier if I knew they were releasing OS X for use on generic hardware.

	06-06-2005 23:19									#23
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quote: All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie.

If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs. They were **** a hoop about gettin Apple to sign on a couple of years ago. Now they are pretending it doesn't matter. Classic business BS.

We can add another notch to the Apple Death Knell Counter, but I don't think it makes much of a difference. Most people buy Apple for the software, and they'll still be here in 10 years.

	06-06-2005 23:20									#24
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Quote from my Mac-using best friend just now.

quote: Tom: ugh Tom: demo is a P4 Tom: so it looks like x86. Tom: linux time. Dave: they also talked about "universal binaries" Dave: x86/powerPC mix Dave: I can't imagine how massive those will be Tom: great, ultra slow kludgy programs running on a kludgy architecture Tom: one step backwards for man, one giant leap backwards for apple.

	06-06-2005 23:21									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs.

What did IBM fail to deliver as promised?

The 3GHz G5 claims were made by Jobs and Jobs alone, as part of a ploy to get IBM to ramp up clockspeed. It was a PR stunt.

	06-06-2005 23:22									#26
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quote: I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that they'll do.

	06-06-2005 23:23									#27
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For any who care, Stevie is going to be on CNBC in a few minutes to justify the switch to fanboys...er, explain the decision.

	06-06-2005 23:25									#28
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quote: If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs. They were **** a hoop about gettin Apple to sign on a couple of years ago. Now they are pretending it doesn't matter. Classic business BS.

So if they fail in one section of their market, a part that wasn't a) exceptionally profitable, and b) they stopped investing much into, and remain quite profitable with everything else... I still fail to see how IBM is the loser.

Frankly, whether IBM really wanted this or not is irrelevant. IBM isn't a loser because, well, it's still a) profitable, b) growing, diversifying, and adapting, and c) a behemoth.

For IBM, losing Apple is like shaving the hair off a forearm. It doesn't really hurt, doesn't really change anything, and they're still unstoppable.

So I ask again, how is IBM a loser in all of this?

	06-06-2005 23:27									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Quote from my Mac-using best friend just now.

a lot of speculation and nothing concrete...
Good luck with Linux

	06-06-2005 23:28									#30
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It really doesn't matter as far as users are concerned. IBM was a millstone around Apple's neck who couldn't produce the goods.

I guess only Asher could believe that IBM didn't promise Apple a G5 in a notebook, which is what this is really about. I don't think Apple was pissed off so much about the lack of speed progress, but the notebook thing was the big deal.

But good riddance to bad rubbish. Here's hoping Intel can do a better job.