Quote of the day: 'What changed?'

Speaking Monday at Microsoft's TechEd customer conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer questioned whether Apple's move to Intel for its PCs changes the competitive dynamic between Microsoft and Apple.

"Will there be more device drivers because of this? No, Apple has their device model--we have ours. Will there more hardware manufacturers that build Apple machines other than Apple? That's a whole business model change. No reason to believe so," he said. "Frankly, if people wanted to do that, they could have been buying parts from IBM. What changed?"

[Dachi]

Answer: R&D cost to Apple

This is not my area of expertise, but for the most part it is Apple that has to make chipsets work with PowerPC, RAM types, different FSB's etc.<br /><br />The change means not just commodity processors but also cheaper chipsets (lower R&#38;D costs), and also lower cost motherboards. <br /><br />Also, for reasons I don't understand Apple does not use standard PC graphics cards forcing ATI and nVidia to make a PC version _then_ also make them work with Apple computers. This change may let Apple package standard "off the shelf" PC graphics cards.<br /><br />Also, the laptops are still on G4's for power/heat reasons, the Intel Centrino platform I believe has a great deal to do with this shift also.<br /><br /><br />So the answer to "what changed" may be both price and performance. Lets also not write off the fact that the move to a low cost headless system (iMac mini) is someething that just happened and so far looks to be a success.<br /><br />But this is not my area of expertise, so I am looking to see what imput others say to my above hardware claims.

[Earl Benser]

The shift to Intel...

... does not mean a shift to PC components or motherboards. <br /><br />The Mac/Intel motherboard will be significantly different from a <br />PC motherboard. The Mac/Intel machine should be able to run <br />both OS X and XP in native mode (no emulations). The PC/Intel <br />machine will be able to only run XP. But that doesn't mean that <br />PC manufacturers won't shift their designs in the future to match <br />the Mac/Intel.<br /><br />Mac doesn't use 'standard' PC video cards because sometimes <br />they fail to meet Mac performance specs, and generally lack the <br />on-board ROM to properly interface withe a Mac. But, quite <br />often manufacturers offer a Mac and a PC version, which differ <br />only in the ROM vesrion.<br /><br />Intel offers the processor(s) Apple wants. Apple will design and <br />build the Mac motherboards, et al, just as before. What's <br />changed is just the processor supplier, and maybe the future for <br />a real Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP)

[Earl Benser]

Hang on to your hair, Mr Ballmer,

The hand is beginning to write on the wall. And I don't htink that <br />you're going to like the messge.

Hang on to your hair, Mr Ballmer

And that message Mrs Gates &#38; Ballmer is <br /><br />"There is an iceberg headed your way" Remember the Titanic

[bigbwai2000]

An explanation for Apple's change

I think this article by Walt Mossberg does the best job yet <br />explaining both what Apple's switch to Intel chips means for <br />consumers (not much), and why they're making the switch.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html" target="_newWindow">http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html</a>

[Andrew J Glina]

The Comedy of Walt Mossberg

That article is so biased it is funny. I wonder if he is on Apples payroll...