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Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during a keynote speech at a developers conference that Apple will gradually shift its Mac line to Intel-based chips during the next two years, confirming a timetable first reported by CNET News.com.
In his speech, Jobs revealed that Apple has been developing all versions of OS X since its inception to run on Intel and PowerPC chips. "Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life the past five years," he said.
The move to Intel marks a tectonic shift for Apple, which has used processors from IBM and Motorola (now Freescale Semiconductor) throughout the life of the Mac. However, the company has changed architectures before, shifting in the 1990s from Motorola's 68000 family of chips to the PowerPC architecture jointly developed by IBM and Motorola.
The move appears to spell the eventual end of support for older, pre-Mac OS X programs. Current versions of Mac OS X support the running of Mac OS 9 programs in a "Classic" environment. However, documentation for Apple's Rosetta technology says the transcoding software will not support programs written for Mac OS 8 or Mac OS 9.
Rosetta is the translation software technology intended to help ease Apple's planned transition to Intel-based chips. Rosetta will allow most Mac OS X programs to run on Intel-based Macs even if the software has not been compiled to run natively on Intel chips.
A Silicon Valley start-up called Transitive is supplying the crucial bridge to enable the move to Intel-based computers, but skeptics worry about potential performance problems. Success has been elusive for computer makers trying to support one chip's software on a machine with a different chip.
On the heels of Apple's move, IBM is taking new measures to spread its Power processors and make them a stronger competitor to Intel chips. IBM announced that 11 new members have joined a consortium of Power processor users. It also released specifications and software to make it easier to build computers using the forthcoming Power-based Cell processor that IBM, Toshiba and Sony developed.
Rallying the IT troops
Steve Ballmer wants technology managers to know that Microsoft feels their pain. That was the Microsoft CEO's message at the company's TechEd customer conference in Orlando, Fla. In his pitch--part call to action, part career affirmation for IT workers--Ballmer said IT enthusiasm is in a "growth phase."
"There has never been a more interesting time to be in the information technology industry than right now," Ballmer said, in an attempt to assure attendees that they made the right career move. "I guarantee that the impact of the IT industry will be (greater) in the next 10 years than over the last 10."
Ballmer's message highlighted productivity and potential over product features. He touted the company's latest tools for making developers and administrators more effective.
He also announced that new services for automatically updating patches for several Microsoft products will be available in July. The two services, called Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Microsoft Update, will use a single "update catalog" to provide regular updates for both consumer and business customers.
WSUS was originally slated for release in the first half of last
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Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Windows Server Update Services, IBM Corp., IBM PowerPC, Week in review
- Week In Review
- by Andrew J Glina June 11, 2005 8:05 PM PDT
- I am confused. Why are there two people attacking CNET for rehashing news in a review piece? This is not the first Week In Review article. I like these articles as I skim these to remind myself what was the big news of the week.
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