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Really switching to Intel!!??

Corraborated by Wall St Journal. See update.

Personally, I think the guys/gals at Slashdot are right. The odds of this being a result of Jobs making a hasty decision out of frustration and humiliation is high. I would guess that his personal relationship with the IBM executives is clouding his vision. We have certainly seen it in the past.

Oh, well.
 
Bad_JuJu said:
Bottom line is that one reason for Apple to do this is to have more advanced chips - which means having CPU architects and designers (multiple teams) working on CPUs - and of course you need to keep advancing chipsets too ...... I don't think Apple has those kinds of resources to toss into this !!
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$6.5 Billion in CASH?!? How much is enough?

And I repeat - Intel will not in any way risk its 85% market share to somehow help with Apples 1 - 2% market share. So if this is really true - Apple will be using x86 chips - done deal.
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How is fabricating existing designs risking Intel's market share?

Now its quite easy for Apple/Intel to make both cpus and chipsets that have internal (unaccessable) registers to keep OS X from running on a standard off the shelf Pentium or from being able to run XP on a x86 based Apple box. All that is very do-able.

But you ain't gonna see Intel using any of its resources (Fabs or design teams) to work on another architecture. I left Intel last year - and budgets and head counts are totally strapped since the tech sector is still in the crapper.
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But Apple's budget and CASH are booming right now, especially with the iPod and iTMS. And I believe Apple would be contributing mightily to any adjustments they would ask Intel to make. I'm not an expert, just offering thoughts.
 
Coca-Cola said:
Or Mac OS 10.4 is going to be available for the PC in the fall. Sony will have a line of Tiger PC's. HP will also be first to offer Tiger PC's. This may explain why Tiger Direct was so pissed off by "Tiger".

Apple continues to produce PPC macs.
Click to expand...


Like Tiger Direct even had a clue.
 
Beck446 said:
Corraborated by Wall St Journal. See update.

Personally, I think the guys/gals at Slashdot are right. The odds of this being a result of Jobs making a hasty decision out of frustration and humiliation is high. I would guess that his personal relationship with the IBM executives is clouding his vision. We have certainly seen it in the past.

Oh, well.
Click to expand...

If Jobs is starting to loose it and makes all kinds of radical, hasty decisions, maybe it is time for the board to give him a "toss over the deck" like they did back in the 1980's.
 
We're all like "Steve will be mad, he'll do this and that, blah blah".

Does Steve really make all the calls? We talk like he totally owns the company... I dont know anything about businessmodels, but are there not a board that makes decitions? And share holders, and representatives for those?
 
Im with one of the readers on Engadget:

"As long as it runs OS X, it can run on chocolate chips for all I care.."


And I doubt Apple will do anything that will kill their sales for the next 1-2 years.
 
Abercrombieboy said:
If Jobs is starting to loose it and makes all kinds of radical, hasty decisions, maybe it is time for the board to give him a "toss over the deck" like they did back in the 1980's.
Click to expand...

Yeah that worked out great....
 
springdaddy said:
Apple knows what they are doing here. I believe this will be good in the end for them.
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Yeah... I think a variety of things might be true...

(1) The situation with IBM is far worse than it appears and Apple is desperate. Hence, this is a desperation move by Apple to save its PC business. That is the worst case scenario in which Apple accepts it will have to take a massive hit in order to save its computer business from extinction.

(2) They already have some nifty way of making the transition painless and in such a way that it really makes no difference if you buy an X86 or PowerPC based Mac. Apple's stock and sales might be volatile in the short term, but will settle as people realize there is no difference. This is probably the truth if the "switching to X86 Macs" rumour is true.

(3) The Intel rumours only pertain to a tablet or some other new thing that Apple is making. This seems likely to me.

(4) Apple has been offered a ton of money up front by hardware manufacturers to offer OS X for licence including a new Media Centre version of it. HP et al are so sick of Microsoft and Dell that they want to have an alternative. This doesn't seem likely, but why is Microsoft spending a hundred million dollars on an ad campaign for a 4 year old product that most people already own?

(5) Jobs has gone nuts. Somewhat likely as he has an ego the size of an asteroid. ;)
 
I think Apple is seeing how much microsoft is strugling with longhorn, and since it wont be out until late 2006 or early 2007. Apple sees this as a perfect opportunity to finally strike a blow to microsoft. According to their strategie theyll start the transition from PPC to x86 in mid 2006 and complete it by mid 2007. Think about, the timing is perfect.
 
TorbX said:
We're all like "Steve will be mad, he'll do this and that, blah blah".

Does Steve really make all the calls? We talk like he totally owns the company... I dont know anything about businessmodels, but are there not a board that makes decitions? And share holders, and representatives for those?
Click to expand...

Steve "replaced" the majority of the board members when he returned to Apple. The board consists of a large assortment of his "friends" including Vice President Gore. Heh.

I think the majority of Apple's Board of Directors are there for show only, and are overly eager to support any decision Jobs makes. Afterall, Steve is the main reason they were "placed" there in the first place.
 
Abercrombieboy said:
First the G5 with a PowerPC Dual and then the G5 with a P4. Apple will be able to save a LOT of money on fancy cooling systems and have a lot of left over space. I know the G5 convert is homemade, but that is some UGLY guts in an Apple case... label on the side, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE A TRAINED TECH.
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The Apple Design Team will be involved. Apple's creative computer designs are not likely change to the inside of a typical Windows box. Design is one of Apple's strong selling points ... along with OSX.
 
TorbX said:
We're all like "Steve will be mad, he'll do this and that, blah blah".

Does Steve really make all the calls? We talk like he totally owns the company... I dont know anything about businessmodels, but are there not a board that makes decitions? And share holders, and representatives for those?
Click to expand...


If by board, you mean board of directors, then this is not the case. The board of directors in any company are uninvolved in the business decisions. Directors defer to executives on all business matters and face no liability for stupid business decisions. For the most part, the board cares about one thing and one thing only - keeping themselves out of the court room. And all they have to do to do this is work with Sarbanes Oxley and follow the instructions re the audit committee.

Need I remind everyone that Al Gore is on Apple's Board.

Anyway, Jobs does have complete control of Apple. It is a cult of personality. The thing about Jobs is that he makes a lot of great decisions. But he makes some dumb ones too. We've all seen that.
 
Bradley W said:
Your right about Microsoft knowing. At the WinHEC 2005 show thing they knew... at this "Power lunch thing" for exclusive people, everyone was told insider stuff. One thing they were told was that Apple would switch to Intel very soon. I didn't believe it, but they must have been right???
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OK. This explains quite a lot. Microsoft must be scared. They know that their own new OS is bogged down and may well be delayed again. I have no idea why they are spending $100 million on it. A bigwig ad guy I know says that he would have told them not to spend the money, but I guess we may now know why.

XP is getting creamed by spyware and viruses no matter what they do to it. It's just not designed to be on the internet. I know people say that OS X would attract more targets if it were more widely adopted, but that doesn't really explain the complete lack of viruses for it.

Open source solutions like Firefox are really gaining headway in that ordinary people have at least heard of FF and many are using it and now know that OSS actually exists (that was the main problem with OSS software – most people didn't even know it existed).

Apple has its highest public profile in years. The only thing that is stopping hordes from switching is the price and the speed.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck446
Corraborated by Wall St Journal. See update.

Personally, I think the guys/gals at Slashdot are right. The odds of this being a result of Jobs making a hasty decision out of frustration and humiliation is high. I would guess that his personal relationship with the IBM executives is clouding his vision. We have certainly seen it in the past.

Oh, well.


If you believe everything you read, then just ask President AlGore to step and and stop Steve from being foolish.

...or believe me when I say you are so wrong!
 
joshuawaire said:
Steve "replaced" the majority of the board members when he returned to Apple. The board consists of a large assortment of his "friends" including Vice President Gore. Heh.

I think the majority of Apple's Board of Directors are there for show only, and are overly eager to support any decision Jobs makes. Afterall, Steve is the main reason they were "placed" there in the first place.
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I agree. Steve may not fully own Apple, but he fully owns the Board of Directors at Apple! :p
 
Of everything that has been discussed so far...what I want to see most is Steve Jobs explain this...

http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Is that page going to be removed after his keynote??? I would say it would be best if they did, because it is not going to help "Mr. Joe Consumer" understand why they are dumping the PowerPC for a processor family that it is currently killing in all of it's so-called tests. You can say...well we are talking down the road in the next two years...but right now that is going to look not only bad...but very confusing to many people.
 
dicklacara said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck446
Corraborated by Wall St Journal. See update.

Personally, I think the guys/gals at Slashdot are right. The odds of this being a result of Jobs making a hasty decision out of frustration and humiliation is high. I would guess that his personal relationship with the IBM executives is clouding his vision. We have certainly seen it in the past.

Oh, well.


If you believe everything you read, then just ask President AlGore to step and and stop Steve from being foolish.

...or believe me when I say you are so wrong!
Click to expand...

Huh? Are you saying I shouldn't believe the WSJ and CNet? I don't. Not necessarily. It is pretty good evidence though. However, I was writing that comment on the assumption that the rumor was true and commenting about the personal implications within the company.
 
Personally, I think the guys/gals at Slashdot are right. The odds of this being a result of Jobs making a hasty decision out of frustration and humiliation is high. I would guess that his personal relationship with the IBM executives is clouding his vision. We have certainly seen it in the past.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't happen. The board could get sued out of existence if they knew about such behaviour and let him get away with it IIRC.

I bet the Keynote on Monday is devoted to demos showing that it actually works now. The only way people are going to accept this is if it can be demonstrated to work out of the box. Announcing a complete working model would take the wind out of the critics' sails.
 
I really hope that Steve makes Mac OS X run on any and all x86 hardware, selling Mac hardware on the quality factor -just like iPods sell. I love Macs and want to be able to build systems running OS X. Look at interest in Pear PC, etc. There's clearly demand. The Darwin kernel has been supported for x86 since day 1, make no mistake - there's a reason for this. Emulation will be offered for existing programs, developers will get adequate notice, and remember that most software on MacOS X now is ported from x86 to begin with. It won't be a difficult transition.

It wouldn't surprise me if Steve locks down OS X to Apple hardware, they do now - it won't run on non-Apple PPC boxes. If Apple chooses not to lock down OS X, I can EASILY see Mac OS X with 50% OS market share within two years, and I can see Windows as a 5% market share deal not too long after. Apple is in a wonderful position to ruin Microsoft, they're the only company in a position to do so - if they execute it well.

Even if Apple locks down the OS to certain hardware, I expect to see licensed OS X non-Apple hardware - most likely from Sony. And no matter what, if Apple goes OS X you can bet on more OS X software - porting to OS X will be easier than it is now.
 
Agathon said:
It wouldn't happen. The board could get sued out of existence if they knew about such behaviour and let him get away with it IIRC.

I bet the Keynote on Monday is devoted to demos showing that it actually works now. The only way people are going to accept this is if it can be demonstrated to work out of the box. Announcing a complete working model would take the wind out of the critics' sails.
Click to expand...


Nope. Read the case law.
 
Mr Maui said:
I agree. Steve may not fully own Apple, but he fully owns the Board of Directors at Apple! :p
Click to expand...


Some things to consider:

-- something of this magnitude [a switch to Intel[ can not be presented as a future happening, rather it must be a “done deal"-- the switch must have already been made and the new products available for sale.

-- if not, Mac computer sales would stop, dead in the water, until the new boxes become availablle,

-- I don’t think a “done deal” has been executed-- something like that would have been leaked.

-- For all his ego/power/persona/aura/whatever, Steve cannot get up at WWDC and say: “Oh, One more thing… Our next line of computers will use the Intel chip (phasing out the PPC). They will be available in Nov 2005”

Steve is the CEO of a public corporation, and, as such has certain obligations to the employees and share-holders. Were Steve to do something so irresponsible, he would be slapped with so many wrongful action lawsuits that:

1) at best, he would be wiped out financially & live out of a shopping cart in East Palo Alto.

2) at worst, he would go to prison


My opinion as an Apple fan and shareholder!

Dick
 
Abercrombieboy said:
Of everything that has been discussed so far...what I want to see most is Steve Jobs explain this...

http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Is that page going to be removed after his keynote??? I would say it would be best if they did, because it is not going to help "Mr. Joe Consumer" understand why they are dumping the PowerPC for a processor family that it is currently killing in all of it's so-called tests. You can say...well we are talking down the road in the next two years...but right now that is going to look not only bad...but very confusing to many people.
Click to expand...
I believe Joe Consumer is a lot smarter than people give him credit for. All that needs to be explained is that IBM and their production of the PowerPC is sub-par. It is not meeting the demands of Apple Computer. Joe Consumer realizes that when someone is not providing what you need, you go elsewhere. When one store stops carrying the things a consumer wants or needs, they don't keep going to that store out of loyalty even though their needs are not being met.
 
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