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| Monday, June 27, 2005 |
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Apple, Intel Link Shakes Industry
If past transitions are any indication, a move from IBM to Intel is likely to be rocky for Apple, its customers and software developers. Analysts said such changes in the past have hurt the Mac's worldwide market share, which now is at 2.3 percent, according to the research firm IDC.
For two decades, Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL) touted its Macintosh as a superior alternative to PCs based on Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) chips and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) software. In ads, it urged people to "Think Different" with machines that bucked the dominant forces of the PC industry.
But on June 6, Apple started thinking a lot like Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Gateway. It announced plans to switch the Mac to the same Intel chips that have powered Windows-based machines for years.
The deal, which has long been rumored, will help Apple better compete with the performance and potentially the price of Windows PCs. Still, Apple will continue to build its own computers and says it won't be licensing its software to other PC vendors.
Lame Ducks
If past transitions are any indication, such a move is likely to be rocky for Apple, its customers and software developers. Analysts said such changes in the past have hurt the Mac's worldwide market share, which now is at 2.3 percent, according to the research firm IDC.
For starters, it must convince users and potential buyers that today's Macs will not become the technology equivalent of lame ducks. And it must get programmers to develop software that works on both versions of the Mac.
Speaking to thousands of software developers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the transition will start by mid-2006, with the entire Mac product line switched by the end of 2007. He said it won't be a fast change, and the company is taking steps to make it easier.
"This is not going to be a transition that happens overnight," he said. "It's going to happen over a period of a few years."
Programmers can immediately start developing software in a format that will run natively on both existing and future Mac chips, he said. Apple also will have a technology in place that will translate the code so that older programs will run on the Macs with Intel inside.
Jobs revealed that Apple has been working on the move for at least five years, creating two versions of its Mac OS X operating system for both the current Mac chips and those built by Intel.
"Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life," he said.
More Powerful Processors
He said the move was driven by the fact that its current chip suppliers IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Freescale Semiconductor could not promise the same horsepower and power efficiency as Intel, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.
Intel, on the other hand, has plans to make its chips more powerful without dramatically increasing electricity demands.
That's critically important for notebook computers, which by some accounts are beginning to outsell desktops in the United States.
Intel, which reported about US$34 billion in sales last year, isn't expected to see a huge increase in revenue from the deal. But it doesn't hurt to be associated with a company that doesn't treat computers like a commodity.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who joined Jobs onstage June 6, said the chip maker was pleased to have Apple as a customer.
"I suspect there is a whole bunch of you that never thought you would see this logo on this stage," he said. "I was one of them for a while."
The news was greeted by a mix of cheers and laughs at the conference and uncertainty among Mac fans who believe a switch to Intel chips is like joining forces with the dark side.
Developers On Board
Calming fears that Apple's switch would ignite a revolt among its most important software programmers, Jobs was joined on stage by two major developers Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Systems and Microsoft. Both announced that they would support Macs running the existing and new hardware.
Apple also quickly snuffed out the possibility that computer makers other than itself might someday offer Mac OS X. But it did not say how it would prevent users from installing a pirated copy of the software on their computers.
It's also not clear whether the move might make Macs more vulnerable to attacks by viruses and other malware. To date, they've been mostly exempt. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 8:30 AM |
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