What's really behind Apple-Intel alliance?

In striking a chip deal with Intel, Steven Jobs has opened a range of tantalizing options for his quirky company.
The New York Times

The story "What's really behind Apple-Intel alliance?" published June 11, 2005 at 11:20 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Earl Benser]

In a nutshell....

... IBM couldn't/wouldn't deliver on speed andor low power
PowerPC chips. Apple would not let IBM cripple their market.
Intel has the products and the devlopment path for Mac
spectaculars. Since IBM's failur has been a long time developing,
Apple covered all bases by designing the Mac/Intel design and
support to match the Mac/PPC. This is a no sweat move, good
for everyone. And in the meantime , the Mac/PPC machines still
a prime quality.

In five years, Redmond might be a very worried place. Right now,
I can't wait to see what comes next.

[furian]

I agree...

I want to see whats coming next, I run Win / Mac 10.3 and Suse Linux. I like the Mac just not the lack of applications, I like Linux as well and am in the process of converting a third of our servers and desktops.... but MAcintel could draw more developers and applications... hmmm maybe I should scale back on the Linux.... we still run G3's and G4 laptop and desktops and a couple G5's

We all hate XP with a passion so we rolled back to 2K with 2K/2K3 servers. LongHorn is totally out of the question which is why we are looking at Linux, but with Macintel since it runs a modified BSD kernel MS could be in real trouble from our perspective, we even quit rolling out MS Office and went to Star Office..

[Christopher Hall]

I'll third that

I'm not a Mac user, but I'm excited to see what's next.

[Filip Remplakowski]

Why wait for one???? when you can buy one now.

In my opinion there is no point waiting, if you need a computer
then you need a computer, it will do the same thing tomorrow as
it does today, most people won't even use it to it's full potential
for a while.

Just bought a PowerMac G5 today, no point in waiting. It's still a
fantastic computer and will serve me well for a couple of years,
even with the move to intel processors. i'll still be able to get
software for both chips so no biggie. the best thing about
owning a mac is the software and being part of something where
people actually care about the products they produce. There are
some developers out there who are so passionate about the
apps they produce it just shows in their creative use of OS X
technologies to the really friendly customer support they
provide. It may sound frivolous but it's like being in a tight
community, something that NEVER felt while being a windows
customer (for most of my life). Macs are Ace *sigh* sorry i just
had to, some people just don't know what they're missing.

[furian]

Uhhh hold on

If Mac had the price and software now that fit our needs we might use more of them in our enterprise. Now I like my old G4 I have extra HDD that I swap and run Linux or 10.3. But it just became useful with some open source enterprise apps (ERP/MRP for one)running on linux server with Mac client support. When Mac grows up past Marmalade Skies and starts offering corporate applications it might climb out of it's religeous nich. Hell it's bad enough with software lock in on several apps by MS PArtners. Harware lock in is as bad if not worse.

Apple not a chip company

IBM asking Apple for money for PowerPC R&D, what a lousy excuse, Apple sales ware indeed growing, more Macs sales equals more PPC chip sales.

Given that chip engineering IS expensive, they probably would never make any money ... forever. Unless there is a bigger market for PPC chips.

They probly just decided to focus on the more lucrative game console market instead, that theory actually points to IBM secretly wanting to dump Apple more than the other way around. IBM were OK with Apple not making any product progression, no new products, less and less demand, eventaully no more need to make PowerPC chips for anybody. Apple was smart to move on.

Yet IBM says it will stll make PPC ... for uhm an even smaller market than before and lesser money? Does that make sense?

[Thomas, David]

IIBM was passing the buck.

IBM believes, and the numbers are there, they can make more
money with PPC cpus aimed at game consoles.

They really, did not care about their alliance with Apple. Yes, IBM
sucks as any kind of partner, because they will screw you. You can
take that to the bank. It's funny how so many IBM employees dis-
like Microsoft because Bill Gates beat them at their own game.

FYI .. I am not an MS fan.

Did this guy even talk to apple users?

"An Intel processor inside a Macintosh could put the vast library of Windows-based games and software programs within the reach of Mac users--at least those who are willing to run a second operating system on their computers."

If these people were willing to run Windows to access windows apps they'd be windows users not mac users. Somehow I don't see the ability to wun windows and apple will matter that much to either group.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Osborne Effect

If Jobs was expecting the "Osborne effect" then NOW is the time for the switch, Apple is still riding high on the wave from it's iPod and the revenues from that will help it tide over the losses in sales of PPC based machines.