IBM Press Release and Steve Sakoman
http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2002/10/14.html
If you read that for what it says right there... you'll see that the underlying writing I spoke of above is there, and this is an "OFFICIAL" press announcement. Of course, it mentions that it'll be available "NEXT YEAR" which is another reason to try to keep your jets cooled. They might be ahead of schedule (perhaps at Apple's urging)...
But they might not. Why set yourself up to be disappointed?
Which is why I even gave until Q2 on the speculation, saying that, that'd be a "GOOD" time (although, right now would be totally awesome LoL), and it'd fit the "Year of the Powerbook" claims as the desktops and XServes wouldn't likely see major changes 'til sometime in 2004, and Powerbooks I don't figure are very likely for the PPC 970 based on the previous "heat" statements. Disappointing that no PPC 970 might be announced? Perhaps... but I'm sure IBM's trying their damnedest to get these out as fast as they can. You can only do so much...
After all, the faster they get them to market, the faster IBM and Apple can use them to bowl their competition, rather than buoy or merely keep pace. Which obviously... the more speed advantage you get overall, the better off you are. I really feel the PPC 970 will be "competitive" at current 1.2-1.8 Ghz speeds even into around May-June 2004, if not longer. It's not just the speed of the processor, it's the architecture and how swift it is. Way it sounds with Hypertransport and all of the other goodies like the bus, faster PCI, faster AGP, faster RAM, et al. this could be quite wicked.
Even at that launch, it'd not be a bad deal, as we'd be on par, if not the leader with some OS fine-tuning to get some efficiency out of the ol' OS. That could be why Apple got this...
http://news.com.com/2100-1041-991061.html
Steve Sakoman, who not only worked on Apple with their "Newton" project, but was an executive (and engineer) at Be Inc. who made one of the most efficient and threaded desktop OS's, in BeOS. He also briefly worked at Palm after they took over Be Inc. as noted at the bottom of the page. I place more emphasis on his knowledge from Be than the Palm deal (wasn't there for a tremendously long time, rather brief actually), although it's obvious that the iPod eventually is taking on more and more tasks, and could branch into a bunch of other iDevices; which likely had to lure Sakoman over in some vain.
Yet in the end... getting a highly threaded Mac OS with someone who's obviously knowledgeable in such manners (once again, Sakoman) could make OS X run significantly faster on existing older hardware (a G4 could be more than bearable, and a 970 would literally fly), and furthermore... make the newer hardware seem that much faster. After all, NT (Windows 2k, XP, et al.) gets more and more bloated and slow with each release (much as Classic Mac OS did for some of us who ran it on older hardware before)... Apple turns back the clock on their efficiency, Microsoft will need Intel to be 2x's as fast just to keep pace, all the while increasing speed but also adding features to the system that don't tax it or make it crumble under the added weight.
It's not strict hardware gluttony that makes a fast computer (ask any Amiga Aficianado, they'll tell you), although being on pace in hardware holds the potential to make an advantage out of a slight deficiency in Ghz/Mhz, through efficiency and fine-tuning. Be did it, so could Apple. Running an older build of BeOS from CD-ROM (demo disc) on a 233 Mhz. PII vs. Windows NT 4, BeOS was "NOTICEABLY" faster. Just imagine if it was running from a hard disk...
For anyone that's used BeOS on Intel or PowerPC, you know the speed advantage it had over just about anything you could throw at it, including Classic Mac OS on "LIKE/SAME" hardware (as in older 604e and 603e machines). Given an efficiency formula with OS X in the "threadedness" of the system, if the PPC 970 ships a little late and is a "little" behind it's competition; as long as it's "ballpark", the operating system's efficiency can make up for it and make it seem like the clear winner overall.