Apple switches to Intel Chips
On Monday, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer,
announced that his company, which for more than ten years had used Power PC
chips from IBM and Motorola, would now exclusively use x86 chips compliments of
Intel. The move not only has produced an immense amount of consternation and
hand-wringing in the Mac community, but it threatens a major repression of
Apple's hardware sales over the next year, as Apple attempts the transition from
PPC to x86. Why is Jobs doing this?
The primary reason he gave is the greater
efficiency, in terms of heat production, of Intel chips to IBM's G5. This
suggests that Apple is switching because IBM has failed to provide a fast,
powerful, yet relatively cool chip for the Powerbook, which still uses G4s made
by Motorola/Freescale. But it's hard to believe that this was the only reason,
especially given the fact, as Jobs admitted at the Worldwide Developer's
Conference, that there are more great PPC products forthcoming (which also
suggests that the decision to move to Intel-based processors was a recent one,
and not a long-range plan, as some have suggested). There would seem, by all
accounts, to be some additional compelling reasons that more or less made this
decision, so fraught with consequences, inevitable. What could that additional
compelling reason possibly be? Perhaps the most convincing speculation involves
Intel's La Grande technology—a security feature built into the actual chip
which was originally envisioned as a way of finally dealing with the security
woes of MS Windows. Yet it may have other uses as well, including: (1) ensuring
that OS X can only run on Apple built computers; (2) DRM uses for downloaded
movies; and (3) creating the most secure consumer desktop available (an
impossibility, even with La Grande, under MS Windows, but certainly possible
under OS X, which is already more secure than Windows, thanks in part to all
that BSD code).
There are also some
other advantages, such as the fact that now they can compete head on with other
PC makers, such as Dell, HP and Sony. Speculation that this move will cause
Apple to become solely a hardware vendor is dead wrong. The exact opposite is
more likely. The ipod has shown that consumers will pay a substantial surcharge
for design, elegance, and superior functionality. This suggests that Apple could
sell computers to people who want to run Windows on them. The big loser in all
this would appear to be Sony, which, among PC makers, is the most self-conscious
about design. But even though a Sony box is not as appallingly ugly as a Dell
really does not say much for Sony. To be entirely honest about it, Sony
computers look like kitchen appliances with screens attached to them, as if
someone had taken a blender or an electric can opener and welded a television to
it. In terms of elegance and design, Sony simply cannot compete with Apple in
the Windows space.
Apple, then, will be
fine as a PC maker. The real question how well OS X will do. It will no longer
be so necessary, since Windows will run fine on a Mac as well. In fact, with
the right software (perhaps supplied by Microsoft?), it would be possible to run
Windows applications under Mac OS X at near native speeds. But if this happens,
what incentive will there be for Third Party Software makers to provide OS X
native binaries, when the Windows binaries can at least potentially run just as
well.
As for the affect of this change
on Mac users, they are the ones that will bear the brunt of the hassle. They had
to endure the hassle of the switch from OS 9 to OS X, but at least there was a
big payoff at the end (i.e., a much superior OS). There won't be anywhere as
much as a payoff this time around. All Mac users can look forward to is faster
notebooks and the ability to run Windows natively on their Macs.
Posted: Wed - June 8, 2005 at 05:03 PM