Analyst Suggest Sony-Apple Partnership

[GFLPraxis]

CELL processor based on PowerPC core... really small, low heat/energy,
passed the 8 ghz mark, and someone said that there's even an ativec processor on this thing...
Apple has a problem regarding it's powerbooks, how is this processor not the perfect solution?
PS3 is the first major electronic device to use this, while Nintendo's Revolution and Xbox 2 both will use g5 processors. There's no doubt that next-gen games will continue to be cross platform, so there can't be too much of a difference between the two.
Are you guys trying to say that there's a bigger chance of Windows: Longwait, an x86 system, being fully ported to CELL than there is of OSX being optimized for CELL?
We all know about Apple's nuclear g5 problem... how is the CELL processor not the most logical next step for the Powerbook line?

Yeah, you're missing a few things.

The PowerPC core in the Cell is 4.6 GHz at max, not 8 GHz.
Secondly, its stripped down, so it'll get performance more like a 4.6 GHz G4 than a G5 (though it'll have 64-bit).
Thirdly, the Cell cores are really specific to the task you're doing. It'll boost multimedia stuff by many times in terms of speed, but calculations won't get much of a boost at all. CoreImage and CoreVideo would probably get huge boosts, but standard OS X wouldn't. Final Cult Pro will get a huge boost, but Mathematica or Office won't.

Finally, it costs about 3.4 times as much as an average PowerPC processor to produce.

So unless they plan to:
A) Use Cell to replace graphics cards (not sure if it is THAT good), so the extra cost of putting the Cell in is balanced by the money saved on the graphics card,
or
B) Hike up the price by 10% on all their systems,
they will probably reserve Cell for the high end PowerMacs due to the extra cost.

They could also scale the Cell down with less APUs, but the performance boost will be fairly small and there would still be a little price increase over the normal PowerPCs and a performance drop for non-Cell optimized programs.

 

[relimw]

I hope you are right, however from what I have been reading, IBM has dropped the ball big time. The ghosts of MOTO are coming back. We may have to wait another 6 months before we get a significant speed bump on the PowerMacs.

Oh please don't tell me that!
As it is, I broke down and bought a mini as a stopgap measure since the 3GHzs haven't shipped. I needed something faster to run 2 programs on, that won't even load on my dual 500 machine.

 

[virus1]

I know! how about apple, sony, hp, compaq, toshbia, and all the other little companies all bond together and take down dell! muahahaha... im not a big fan of dell. sony would pull down apples beautiful image, but if sony clung on to apple, adding thier assets to apple, apple would prosper, and more money would be made for both the people who used to work at sony, and apple.

dream on... i know, but wake me up when somthing actually happens.

 

[Gyroscope]

I don't know if this is any news but Sony music is already selling their music through the iTMS music store

 

[gavinq]

Please revise the highest price

As a stock holder in AAPL I know that in the late 1990's the price for AAPL had gone well above $100 dollars a share around $148. Check CBS MarketWatch for this information; at the time it was a service I used from home as well as ADP in the office for realtime quotes. $88ish is not the highest price ever.

The $148 price I seek of was the highest ever and crashed over the span of 6 months or so to $25 or so a share. This all happened around the time that OS X was starting to take shape in the form a the public release and the intro of new hardware with disk burners.

I know this as a certainty as I lost a great deal of money in AAPL that year, but i didn't worry as I'd rather know that I have a nice chunk in AAPL and vote in my proxies every-time!



Check the records.



More Power to ya APPLE!

 

[Stpauleboy]

Yeah, you're missing a few things.

The PowerPC core in the Cell is 4.6 GHz at max, not 8 GHz.

I believe he may have been referencing the amount of ram that could be installed, not the clock speed. Although he stated the number as 8ghz he may have had a typo and meant 8gb.

 

[Corpus_Callosum]

The cell processor presents a problem though - a huge computer type shift that may require rewriting the OS altogether - and probably no bakcwards support unless by emulation

Nope. The CELL has a POWER core (same instruction set as G5) and a VMX (altivec) - so OS X should run without modification on the chip. It also has a bunch of these new things called SPUs, which are a lot like GPUs found on modern video cards (but more general and more powerful). Apple's Core Image and Core Video in Tiger make use of GPU facilities such as these to do powerful rendering and image/video manipulation. Interestingly, it appears that these new Apple technologies are positioned perfectly to leverage the new SPUs on the CELL.

 

[Corpus_Callosum]

Alignment of the stars

Do you remember the rumor about three hardware companies asking Apple to license OS X?

My guess is...IBM, Sony, and Toshiba.

Perhaps thats even why IBM sold their computers to Lenovo, so they would drop out of the x86 market altogether and go to Cell...

If I'm right, we'll see Cell-based VAIOs and Toshibas and IBMs.

Perhaps IBM for the server market and Sony/Toshiba for desktops.

You just nailed it.

 

[Scottgfx]

As a stock holder in AAPL I know that in the late 1990's the price for AAPL had gone well above $100 dollars a share around $148. Check the records.

You seem to be missing a vital bit of info.
Your late `90's $148 adjusted for the previous stock split would be $74. That would make todays stock worth $176.82 had Apple not done the last stock split. Therefore, it is the highest stock price ever for Apple.

 

[rdowns]

As a stock holder in AAPL I know that in the late 1990's the price for AAPL had gone well above $100 dollars a share around $148. Check CBS MarketWatch for this information; at the time it was a service I used from home as well as ADP in the office for realtime quotes. $88ish is not the highest price ever.

The $148 price I seek of was the highest ever and crashed over the span of 6 months or so to $25 or so a share. This all happened around the time that OS X was starting to take shape in the form a the public release and the intro of new hardware with disk burners.

I know this as a certainty as I lost a great deal of money in AAPL that year, but i didn't worry as I'd rather know that I have a nice chunk in AAPL and vote in my proxies every-time!



Check the records.



More Power to ya APPLE!

You need to check the records. Apple is now at an all time high. To determine that, you have to take into account previous stock splits. While Apple has traded at the $148 you cite, that price is $74 when adjusted for the split. As it is now just under $90 (or $180 when you take the previous split into account), that is its highest ever.

 

[radio893fm]

I really hope this doesnt mean Apple and Sony will be one company... I want Apple to be themselves.

Sonys computers are not that good, Apples are great.
Sony is overpriced for bad stuff, Apple is overpriced for incredible stuff.
...

Ohhh youth... so crazy sometimes!!!

Let's say Sony used to make (the new ones are ok) slow/not real good computers... but what about: TVs, Walkman, MD, DATs, Mics, VHS, Beta, Camcorders, Digital Cameras, DVD players, DVD/CD burners, Headphones, etc... all incredible, good quality and amazing products... oh yes, overpriced, but you pay for what you get... Sony is an amazing company wheter you like it or not and has set an example and a path to follow for the rest of the electronic companies in the world

 

[IJ Reilly]

You need to check the records. Apple is now at an all time high. To determine that, you have to take into account previous stock splits. While Apple has traded at the $148 you cite, that price is $74 when adjusted for the split. As it is now just under $90 (or $180 when you take the previous split into account), that is its highest ever.

The need to split adjust is correct, but the price cited here is not. As I wrote earlier, the previous all-time high price for AAPL was $64.00, which was set on 3 March 2000. It did not break $64.00 again until 24 Nov 2004 and would not remain above that price for more than a few days at a time until 5 Jan 2005.

 

[whooleytoo]

The need to split adjust is correct, but the price cited here is not. As I wrote earlier, the previous all-time high price for AAPL was $64.00, which was set on 3 March 2000. It did not break $64.00 again until 24 Nov 2004 and would not remain above that price for more than a few days at a time until 5 Jan 2005.

This chart (from Yahoo) seems to show Apple at over 70 (or 140 pre-split) during 2000.

 

[Yvan256]

Sony is a wannabe Apple.
The entire VAIO line (with all its proprietary parts, right down to the 'Sony only Memory Stick') is just a PC response to the 'sleek' look and feel of Mac with an Video Audio (hence VAIO=Video Audio Input Output) focus, also like Mac.

Apple used to be a wanna-be Microsoft/IBM. Proprietary formats, proprietary connectors, proprietary protocols.

Apple changed. A lot.

They dropped most of their proprietary stuff. Including their "superior ADC connector".

Maybe Sony will ditch everything and go build computers for Apple, based on Apple specs. Maybe they're tired of Microsoft's requirements (whatever they might be), or they're loosing money on tech support because of Windows.

 

[Yvan256]

edit: Imagine having real time effects in FCP that are 10 times faster than what is currently possible, or blindingly fast HD video encoding. These are the kinds of situations in which the Cell processor will excel. It would be a radical addition to the platform, but could provide an enormous leap in the video/audio processing ability of the Macintosh. Successfully supporting the Cell processor on the Macintosh platform could be a major coup for Apple.

One only has to remember and compare computers from the 1980's era. At that time, which computer was above all others? No, not Mac.

It was the Amiga. It had some co-processors/specialized chips that helped the computer process audio/video.

Imagine the next generation of Macs with all-purpose, high-speed helpers chips. That's what it amounts to.

Powerful main CPU, lots of high-speed DSPs to help process data. And from what I understand, OS X is built/is building for such operations (CoreImage and CoreVideo - you call the libraries, they take care of dispatching the job to the hardware).

Imagine a G5 with a few Cell co-pro. The PPC inside each Cell could even add "multi-CPU" capabilities. That's not even talking about the dozens of high-speed Altivec units.

 

[gavinq]

AAPL Stock split

AAPL

 

[IJ Reilly]

This chart (from Yahoo) seems to show Apple at over 70 (or 140 pre-split) during 2000.

Yes, you're right! AAPL closed at $72.10 on 28 March 2000, which means it didn't enter record territory until 26 Jan 2005.

 

[wide]

my limit order at 90 per share tripped. i know it's going up too far, too fast, but it makes me sad that in a few hours, apple stock will be at 95 dollars per share .

at least the money's going towards a new powerbook

 

[BarfBag]

I could live with a partnership with Sony. They make some pretty *peppy* computers. Maybe even Toshiba. As long as they partner with IBM too. IBM kicks butt AND invented the G5.

 

[gekko513]

Yeah, you're missing a few things.

The PowerPC core in the Cell is 4.6 GHz at max, not 8 GHz.
Secondly, its stripped down, so it'll get performance more like a 4.6 GHz G4 than a G5 (though it'll have 64-bit).

So what? A 4.6GHz G4 would perform mostly the same, sometimes better, than a 4.6GHz G5 for 32-bit code given an equal front side bus.

 

[macidiot]

I could live with a partnership with Sony. They make some pretty *peppy* computers. Maybe even Toshiba. As long as they partner with IBM too. IBM kicks butt AND invented the G5.

Interesting. Before, Apple would never license the Mac. They tried before and it almost killed them. But now, they have the ability to do it. The iPod gives them enough of a second revenue stream to handle the hit in computer sales. That plus licensing fees could potentially cover any losses in computer sales. Unfortunately, I don't know what Sony would bring to the table. Their boxes are the windows equivalent of Macs. They would basically offer the same product. Maybe some sort of psx device? A combination dvr/ps3/mac? Toshiba is different, since they are mostly laptop with a lot of corporate sales. IBM would be a great licensee for osx server. They can sell it as linux with an actual phone # to call if it blows up.

 

[sunilraman]

What concerned me and made me sell my AAPL stock a few days ago was the P/E ratio. It has now gone above the 70 mark. During the .com bubble, many companies were in the 80-90 P/E range. By contrast, Microsoft's P/E right now is only around 28, IBM at 20 and Adobe at 35. In a way, this is like an mp3/iPod bubble, and it's a game of chicken from here on.

I heard somewhere that Apple hasn't been expensing stock options for a while and may do so in the next quarter. This means an additional expense item that could affect profit figures.

i don't own any AAPL shares. i agree that something is up... when an analyst sends out rubbish like that, admitting that it is speculation, and such speculation which pretty much is what you see on the rumor websites, something sounds a little off...

there is enough momentum and long term strategy in Apple corporate that people are willing to ride out this year, but i think some people and institutions are trying to nudge it a bit further than it should

suddenly AAPL is the post-bubble tech darling f8ckers... or maybe they just had too much fun with the Mac mini and Shuffle and now are like, whoa, this could go places...!

but for 2005 in any case Apple products remain strong, just a matter of updating products, rolling out Tiger smoothly, keeping up with Mac mini and Shuffle demand....

To justify anything past ($110) or ($55-post-split) by the end of the year, you would need some convincing data on Switchers and a *next big thing* announced by the end of 2005 (which we *know* steve has got a few aces up his sleeves, he's just deciding on the color)

 

[sunilraman]

the more i look at gaving's graph several posts above, you can clearly see an almost-exponential spike going high, high, high and the volume traded moving in... caution is urged past $100 ($50 post-split) now that the analysts have moved in on this heavily

 

[Evangelion]

Sounds good, just add an iPlay Game Store for game downloads!

Games and music to your PS3 straight from iTunes (iStore by then?).... You know that it makes sense.

As to the Cell.... It doesn't have to be like the one Sony will be using. What about full-blown multithreading G5 with 2-4 SPE's, together with integrated 128bit DDR2-memory-controller? Whole package running at 3+Ghz.

 

[Evangelion]

Finally, it costs about 3.4 times as much as an average PowerPC processor to produce.

The one that Sony will be using in PS3, perhaps. But Apple doesn't have to use that version. Remember: there can be numerous different CELL-configurations. We have now seen the one Sony will be using.

Besides, CELL that we have seen was made using .90 micron process. But that is NOT the process the final CELLs will me made in. The target-process for the CELL in .65 microns.