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June 3, 2005 5:08 PM PDT
Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips
Last modified: June 3, 2005 5:11 PM PDT
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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.
Apple and Intel: film stars?
the stage for a Hollywood ending.
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 Nintendo, 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.
CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos and Richard Shim contributed to this report.
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IBM PowerPC,
Apple Computer,
IBM Corp.,
Intel,
Apple Intel Mac Mini
Itanium to maintain the RISC concept), and WIndows can run on
the same processor, the next generation computers might be a
common hardware design and dual mode OS's. That was the
CHRP concept a while back 'Common Hardware Reference
Platform' with a core kernal plus personality (OS) overlays.
Can't really see Apple going with an X86, even tho maybe they
could. The X86 line is just aboout out of steam and needs to be
junked.
And, if Apple shifts to the Itanium, that just might force MS into
a clean OS design, especially one without the registry file.
and how will i get new software for my computer. who will make
outdated stuff... i hate apple... to court i say to court
out of this post strapped to my head.
apple has no reason to switch to X86, x86 has been just as
stangnent as IBM has been if not more, the only real jump is dual
core, and IBM cant be far behind, and with the low clock speed of
the pentium D i dont see apple switching to intel.
None.
Come on people, we know you like to entertain these ideas, but its just not going to happen. I'll eat my hat if it does.
wrong Monday. Who knows. If it turns out that Apple is going to
jump to the Itanium or some new processor that's fine with me. If
it's x86 and this turns out to be Steve's great folly of a crusade
against Microsoft (which is an imagined enemy anyway) you can
count me out.
For now, though. I don't buy it.
Sloppy reporting.
That said, OS X stands the best chance of pulling this off. It already runs on Intel x86 (it just doesn't get out of the Apple campus), and it supports "FAT" binaries -- executable files that contain code for multiple processor architectures in a single file (this elminations a lot user confusion -- "there's two files, which one do I launch? PPC? x86?? Huh?"
But Apple's got a big problem. It just put customers and developers through a big transition in operating systems... now it wants to change processor types. Developers will probably not be happy. A lot of older code may not be endian-neutral. PowerPC is big endian, and x86 is little endian. Users will want to be able to run their old PowerPC apps. Is Steve Jobs going to ask everyone to immediately go out and buy upgrades of their software for x86? At least with the OS 9/X transition you could use classic, or boot into OS 9 for any apps that wouldn't run in Classic. So do they have an efficient emulator/binary translator they plan to use? If they don't they're dead.
This seems like a very risky move. CNET has typically been reliable about this stuff, but I doubt Apple can pull this off. If Jobs thinks they can, I'm willing to speculate that his ego is now bigger than planet Earth, and he's way out of touch with reality.
server market against favorites such as Microsoft and Linux. It's a
tough sell asking enterprises to lock into proprietary hardware.
Aside: I'm very happy with my Powerbook and its G4 processor. But
I know, things could be a little sweeter with Intel's M chip. Too bad
this has to happen when the powerpc is picking up steam on the
gaming consoles.
PowerPC that Apple is going to give up on its relationship with
Apple just because they're at 2.5 rather than 3Ghz? By now, any
fool on the street knows Ghz are kind of irrelevant, for one.
Second, the developer community would be ticked off to say the
least, and I'm no developer. Third, PowerPC is a great, not good
architecture, and it just needs time to develop. IBM is not like
Motorola of 68xxx days, and are very much in the
microprocessor business, and at the pointy end too. Fourth,
they've already got to deal with two CPU suppliers, you think
they're going to have to support three? Finally, can't you
imagine some NEW device they're going to introduce that could
use some appropriate cool Intel chip? If you imagine Apple
have been busy simply trying to tweak the platforms, you're
sadly mistaken. I'm sure this signals some interesting new
directions for the company.
Intel Inside/Apple Outside
Blue Men Dancing/Other Bright Silhouettes Dancing
Wonder what the pundits will call this duo? Aptel? Inpple?
Intelapple? AI?
CharlesJo.com
OS Wars
http://charlesjo.com/newsletterissue?
newsletterIssueEntityId=285
switch this late in the game. IBM has done a real good job with
PowerPC and it would be crazy to switch to the x86 architecture
now.
are not unhappy with G5 speeds; marketshare is starting to grow
for the first time, and the risk of people running a hacked up
variant of Mac OS X on some random Dell is high. Why would Steve
Jobs want to run this particular risk? Not a good idea.
I've always been a PC/Linux guy and after test driving several different Macs I was still undecided but went to take the plunge on a Mac Mini anyway.
But... after telling the rude little troll behind the counter what I wanted configuration wise, he informed me that his technician was "too busy" and I wouldn't get it till the next day.
Had he not been such a jack*ss I might have been more understandable, but that experience and this article clinched it for me. I'am sticking with my PC.
Quite frankly, I found the MACs to be pretty slow performers, but OSX is really nice. Hopefully we'll see it available for x86 platform someday.
In the meantime, Apple can keep their hardware.
Dvorak, trolling for fish bate , how fitting with a last name of
SHANK..land. There is nothing to this story that warrants any
discussion period, move along people realise when you come
across a wanna be journalist....
perspective of switching the platform to intel-based processors:
it means that Apple can finally compare apples to apples in
speed tests instead of comparing apples to oranges for such
bottom line issues as "processor advertised speed" (as if this
weren't meaningless in the bigger scheme of things, where real-
world performance rules -- but the marketing types will rejoice).
It will also mean that it will probably be easier to gather the
programming staffs to deal with machine-level coding/patching
(since finding machine-level programmers versed in G4/G5
chips is difficult); conversely, it wil also mean they probably will
inadvertently start pulling in the dredges of the programming
realms that currently infest the PC side of the world and are at
least partially responsible for the innate quirkiness of unstable
PC's.
From a co-marketing stand-point, being able to shout "intel
inside" and convincing manufacturers of third party add-on's
that adding a few code-snippets to support the mac (instead of
having to build mac-specific versions) will open up the
accessory and add-on market. Anybody remember NuBus?
Finally, it might signal the emergence of the penultimate battle
-- if they get the OS running on plain-jane OS boxes from a
dozen (or a zillion) different vendors, they will be able to take on
MS Windoze as the platform of choice. Unfortunately, I see this
particular tactic back-firing in three ways:
(A) MS is a marketing company. Yes, they sometimes write
software (and more often absorb it through acquisitions, etc),
but primarily they are the biggest gorilla on the planet because
of marketing prowess. Apple doesn't have the coffers to go toe-
to-toe with them on their home-turf, even with a superior
product unless the spyware/virus/maint/update/support cycles
continue in the current vein on the Windows platform.
(B) If they give up hardware control, they will open themselves
up to the same kind of glitches that the PC side already endurs;
If they don't give up hardware control, they are stuck right where
they're at, but at the mercy of Intel/AMD, both of whom are
extremely loyally dedicated to the Wintel platform because of
raw sales numbers (meaning MS could leverage marketing force
against them, including in such things as processor
development direction -- it doesn't take a genius to figure out
that if MS wants Intel's staff to dedicate itself to changes X,Y,Z,
smaller clients like Apple will be left on the back-burner).
(C) In a combined view (a subset of the full Mac OS runs on
generic boxes, with a complete superset of the Mac OS running
on Apple-branded Intel-driven hardware -- something shown as
early as the roll out of OS X beta's), apple gets split two ways to
Sunday -- people will lambast them for poor stability on the low
end of the spectrum and lambast them for too high prices on
the high end of the spectrum (right now they can be lambasted
only on the pricing models). Apple history has always shown that
their attempts to go low-end, mass market goes awry somehow
(remember the Mac clones?); the company size simply isn't right
for this kind of move, and I doubt it could stand the growing
pains of that kind of growth while still being the same
outstanding firm it has been in terms of products &
conceptualizations realized at the desktop level... This speaks
back to the Pepsi generation at Apple, and the problems that
existed then as well... If anyone has looked at the stock, it's
already started to tank as a result. If you hold stock, I'd expect a
harsh ride over the next two weeks as it rollercoasters...
Best possible solution, if the news is true:
Apple will remain Apple. The box will still be Apple and the OS
will run only on Apple-delivered boxes; the processor core
changes to Intel Itanium or some other multi-core RISC
architecture that they see as feasible, but from the outside of
the box, we don't see the changes...
Fingers crossed
=-= The CyberPoet
Mac interface to be ported to Intel, period. They are talking with
Intel about using their next gen WIFI chipset. MacNN has much
better coverage.
- Cnet and others trying to manipulate stock markets.
-
by
June 3, 2005 10:37 PM PDT
- Since these rumors resurfaced a few days ago, Apple's stock has
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See all 288 Comments >>been rising again.
Monday, when this rumor is dispelled and once again Apple
shows that they won't switch to the x86 architecture, the APPL
stock will crash... (well maybe not crashing but it will go down
by some margin)
Some "clever" people could make a lot of money out of this, or
they simply some company wants to hurt Apple's stock, hoping
to throw them in a downward spiral.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing is not a criminal offense...