But it soon became apparent each man had very different ideas of how this was supposed to end up.
Jobs reached out for Otellini's hand, but Intel's emotional boss decided this was bear hug time--and in an unscripted moment the two men literally bounced off each other as they managed a fleeting embrace.
It wasn't quite up there with the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, but this very awkward display of forced public camaraderie between sworn enemies says a lot about the confusion felt by many Apple partisans after the company's decision to dump IBM as a chip supplier in favor of Intel.
"This is kind of like if your two best friends decided to get married and you don't know what it means," said Matthew Woolrums, a technologist with the Denver Public Schools attending Apple's developer convention. "You feel sort of conflicted."
The obvious difference is that these two rivals were never friends of any type. To be sure, Intel had some early investment money in Apple, but that was overshadowed by the competition that has raged between them. Since the mid-1980s, the Mac faithful have reveled in their underdog narrative in the battle against the Wintel duopoly formed by Microsoft and Intel.
Apple's new core
For many, Apple's decision to embrace Intel comes as too abrupt an about-face. Judged by Apple's own rhetoric, some might even despair that management is going over to the dark side. But let's get past all the sappy stuff about Apple being different. This isn't the first time the company has chosen pragmatism over ideology.
A decade ago I personally saw a Macintosh prototype running an Intel chip. Apple subsequently decided to kill the project, but many insiders were disappointed. They believed that project was just the ticket. More recently, Apple has had teams working on projects to make sure OS X code got compiled to run on Intel machines--"just in case," Jobs said. He didn't need to belabor the obvious: Apple was simply looking out for No. 1.
The same sober world view governed Apple's relationship with the other half of Wintel. In 1997, Apple surprised the industry when it announced a $150 million investment from Microsoft. Earlier that year, Jobs helped orchestrate the ouster of Gil Amelio as CEO. Now he was making a hard-headed business bet: In exchange for Apple's embrace of Internet Explorer as the Macintosh's default browser, Microsoft provided needed funding.
When Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' face appeared on the big screen for a live transmission, some in the audience at Macworld Boston gasped. But their shock faded after they learned about Microsoft's cash infusion.
So it was when Jobs confirmed the Intel transition--a murmur went up. Jobs is such a master showman that he soon had the crowd eating out of his hand. He even acknowledged that there will be rocky patches during the two-year transition from PowerPC to Intel (mostly because of software compatibility). But if the outcome is a line of new computers with ever-more powerful chips, you don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to figure out whether the loyalists will buy Intel Inside.
Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.
See more CNET content tagged:
Steve Jobs, Wintel, Apple Computer, Paul Otellini, Intel
partnership: ten years I waited for this PowerBook, and suddenly
it isn?t the brightest apple on teacher?s desk. So it?s superior
cousin won?t be out for a couple of years, still I?m not happy.
Then I got over myself?
I?m genuinely excited by this arrangement and can?t help but
feel that this is going to be used to Apple advantage more than
it is Intel?s. The iPod firmly established as the first great icon of
the twenty-first century and those high-contrast adverts leading
the marketing campaign, Apple are undoubtably the coolest
computer company in the world right now: you can talk about
Apples without sounding like a geek. Intel are sticking to the
four note ?doon-don-doon-don?/Blue Man Group image. They?re
loosing custom from Microsoft. In the battle against Wintel, you
might say the first casualty has fallen. And now *they?ve* switch
sides? A lot of people are keen to point out that Apple are
linking up with a former rival, but no one?s admitting that Intel
are doing the same. This isn?t Bill Gates covering all the bases by
pumping $150million into a computer better than his own, this
is a mutually beneficial exercise: Apple are going to get the
faster chips (that will one day exceed the capacity of my
PowerBook?s G4 ? and that won?t please me? until I buy one),
Intel are going to get the kudos they just will not achieve on
their own.
Having said that, if that four-note ?doon-don-doon-don?
signature tune of Intel?s infiltrates Apple in anyway, I?ll start
building my own computers at home?
have an 8086/8088 as a processor. However, INTEL are good,
very good, at making sure companies stay with them and Apple
will be tied into INTEL for years, even if there processors aren't
the best. When I tried to buy an AMD processor based PC for a
office from a well known company they told me to go away. Why
the because they had a deal with INTEL.
My Mac is quite and energy efficient, but it won't be quite with
an INTEL processor and all the cooling.
I don't want to buy INTEL computers.
This is a bad mistake by Apple they will just become another PC
manufacturer.
Long live Linux..... Apple and OS X is dead
the leg work. They have been running OS X on Intel for 5 years
now. The keynote demo was done on a PowerMac powered by an
Intel Pentium 4, 3.6 GHz CPU. The base of OS X is BSD. They
have done their homework and all will work out fine. Even the
transition will be smooth. Apple's Macintosh will still remain the
best alternative to Windows, and who knows, it might even
overtake it someday. As of today, you cannot think that is
impossible. Anything is possible. Heck, Apple is putting Intel
CPU's in their Macs.
the present. I to am a die-hard Apple fan. But they didn't
announce Mac-Intel clones. They announced a new chip supplier.
They did more than just alluding to the reason behind their
decision. They practically stated that what Intel is providing in the
future, is exactly what they want.
These new CPUs and Chipsets allow an implimentation of the Microsoft Digital Rights Management (DRM) Copyright Protection Scheme at the motherboard level. This would keep MS protected materials from being copied. In addition Intel included a new feature set called Advanced Managment Technology (AMT) that allows remote, operating system independant, control of the computer over the network. A subset of this called IDE Redirection allows absolute control over drives, access to the drives, and all information, including the operating system by network managers.
Apple probably wants the DRM access for streaming video over broadband for it's as yet unannounced "iMoviePod" or something similar. It wouls also allow them to compete on a nequal footing with WMP . They already want you to plug your iMac into your TV to watch videos, what do you think is next besides DRM??
But thinking that owners of "artistic" material do not want to protect their assets is ignorance. They don't want to control YOUR life, they want to protect THEIR income by keeping YOU from copying it too many times.
And as for network access to monitor components, tell me one Network Manager who wouldn't linke this in their macs? I would!
Nothing evil, just a company offering joining in with what it needs to do to provide a competitive and viable product.
Mac will be a significantly different computer than those sold
with Windows. The Mac should be able to run Windows natively,
hopefully as a dual resident OS with OS X (switch between OS's
by switching between windows), But, initial expectation are that
the current PC designs will NOT be able to run OS X or universal
binaries.
That's the current PC designs won't be able to. Now, will we see
changes in the PC designs to broader their 'view'?
I'm not even a Mac guy and I don't think this will be the death of Apple. Far from it. If anything, I'm betting this will strengthen them. Further, if they can attract game developers with their new architecture, I'd bet my bottom dollar that the Apple market share would at least double in a relatively short time frame.
It's important to stress, though, that right now, nobody knows anything. We don't know what sort of architecture the new chipsets will be. Sure, it's possible Intel will regurgitate something old, but it's also possible they'll cook up something new. I'm of the school of thought that change is good. All this idealogical rambling about how Intel is evil and so-and-so is the devil is just plain foolishness. When you look at this from a business perspective, it makes sense. Motorola hasn't been doing so hot (I should know, I'm a stockholder), and a move was inevitable.
The sky isn't falling. We're just getting a light show.
Microsoft Windows to run natively on it's hardware. I'm sure
they will still allow VirtualPC though. Simply switching the CPU
would not be enough to enable this. The entire hardware
platform would have to be re-designed and re-engineered.
Conversely, Apple will not, nor will it ever, allow OS X to be run
on anything other than an Apple Macintosh computer.
These two scenarios would be akin to Toyota allowing Honda to
produce the 2008 Corolla, or Aston-Martin allowing Mercedez-
Benz to produce the next Vanquish.
In the late 80's/early 90's Apple tried opening up it's hardware
platform and allow companies to produce "generic" Mac's. It was
a disastrous move. Everyone who thinks they'll be able to get a
Dell with OS X 10.5 or 10.6 is sadly mistaken. I really don't see
why people don't understand this, you can get a Windows
machine with either Intel or AMD, and in a few years you will be
able (for a short time) to get an Apple with either PPC or
whatever Intel chip they will settle on.
My guess is that they will use a 64-bit processor (perhaps not
Itanium as it contains the DRM feature that Intel has stated will
not be included) or some variant of the Centrino line for the
notebooks. I suspect they will work with Intel (or they are
currently working on) some kind of proprietary or Mac-only
processor that will not be available to the Windows platform.
Apple can and will continue to lead the pack when it comes to groundbreaking user interfaces. They'll also continue to innovate with cases that emphasize form over function. And the Wintel PC world will continue to copy Apple's ideas instead of be true innovators themselves.
As far as I can tell, the only quantitative differences most Mac users will notice are increased speed, a lower price tag, and a larger chunk of the market. Certainly not things that should make us act like Chicken Little.
So instead of lamenting the loss of a fictional holy war, we should thank Steve Jobs for wisely seeing that this is the best way to continue to secure a solid future for the Mac.
quite excellent performers. Unfortunately, Apple's shared
memory controller architecture hinders G5 and Xserve G5
performance. Otherwise, it's quite good - IBM's own PPC servers
can attest to this.
What really disappoints me is that Apple chose Intel over AMD.
Opteron plus HyperTransport are a killer combination in HPC
circles. I guess Intel $ won out in this equation...
fast as compared to x86 (clock for clock). Just take a look at the
super computer list of 2003 (and even 2005 - with BlueGene/L a
PowerPC-based system being #1 currently).
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
Va Tech Super Computer (Mac Cluster) is faster than the almost
twice as fast NCSA Super Computer (Dell Cluster). Of course
neither PowerPC nor Intel are runaway leaders in the CPU race,
each has its strengths and weaknesses. Microsoft sure saw
something in PowerPC (for the Xbox 360) to switch away from
Intel, so obviously neither CPU is perfect for everything.
not able to produce an acceptable G5 Mobility chip. This is the
reason that we have not seen a G5 Powerbook.
The Mac faithful WILL follow, because there is nothing less
appealing than bringing the Microsoft operating system into
your home.
PPC products will always be supported by Apple. New Macs with
the Intel chip will run like a Porsche, while Microsoft PCs will
continue to run like a rusted heap.
will be a Pentium chip.
Possible speculation is the Itanium line, but I'm thinking that, as
they did with IBM/Motorola, Apple and Intel will jointly develop
some sort of Apple-only chip for Apple lines. This could be just a
slightly modded version of either Pentium or Itanium and Centrino
for laptops, but we'll just have to wait and see. I don't know that
Pentium 4 is 64 bit, which is most likely what Apple will require.
living (or even a hobby), so I have no first hand experience when
it comes to dealing with x86 vs. PowerPC chips. However I have
studied what a variety of more knowledgeable people have said
on these issues in the past (ArsTechnica, AnandTech, etc ...), so
right or wrong I have a few opinions (some of which I've posted
on other forums).
First, regarding both x86 vs. PPC performance: Everything I?ve
read on the subject ranks PPC chips with Altivec as stronger
overall performers than most of Intel?s products at any given
clock speed (the Pentium M and Pentium III being exceptions).
Further, like AMD?s Athlon, current IBM G5s seem capable of
anything a Pentium 4 is, and in some tasks are better, despite
almost a full gigahertz ?penalty?. Finally, all supercomputer lists
show systems with PPC chips doing more with less (and Apple?s
systems at a lower price point) than anything else out there.
Here again, AMD?s offerings are very strong as well, if not quite
as cheap. So for those reasons, if nothing else, I can?t accept the
notion that Intel's x86 is the architecture for Apple to be basing
its future on from a performance standpoint, especially without
the help of Altivec or even 64bit capability (which apparently is
going to be the case). Cooling issues are where Intel has
advantages, but the G4 is no slouch in that regard either.
Therefore, unless Intel has something truly amazing coming
down the pike in the next 2 years, this wholesale switch to their
chips could easily result in a loss of performance on the Mac
platform. I don?t think that?s out of the realm of probability, let
alone possibility.
Second, regarding OSX performance: As a recent ?shootout?
against Linux and Windows conducted by Anandtech has shown,
most real world performance problems found on the Macintosh
platform originate in the Mac OS itself. The deficiencies they
found in OSX were predominantly as a server - the gist being
that, while the BSD/Unix kernel is very capable, the OSX ?overlay?
is horribly un-optimized for dealing with high numbers of hits
that a server OS has to contend with. They found a few areas
where the competitors could match or exceed OSX capability as
a desktop OS too. This may be why each version of OSX has
given its users a performance upgrade; there?s simply been a lot
of room for improvement. Regardless, while OSX is clearly more
usable and secure than Windows, and probably is roughly equal
in performance as a workstation, there are still things that could
be done on the software side of the equation to make overall
performance on a Mac better, that have nothing to do with the
CPU at all. The point being that making a major CPU change
across the entire product line, at least for performance reasons,
again becomes a less than compelling argument.
Third is cost and supply: Every report I?ve read says IBM sells
chips to Apple at prices equal to or less than Intel sells to their
present customers. There?s no advantage there. Supply issues
were a big problem in the beginning with the G5, but that had as
much to do with industry-wide problems transitioning to the
90nm process. I haven?t heard of anything to suggest IBM isn?t
meeting demand now. Perhaps expectations of future growth
can?t be met? That?s a question I have yet to see addressed. But
if all the above is true, then what?s left for motivation? Is Jobs
not getting a 3Ghz G5, even when all other CPUs are hitting a
similar wall, really the primary reason for something so radical?
As I said, I am not an expert ? all of the above is based solely on
what I?ve read for the last few years. However, this info is even
halfway correct, it doesn?t seem to me that this move is a ?no-
brainer? for Apple. In fact, if the performance argument (not the
only one, but arguably the most important) can?t be clearly made
for changing the CPU across the entire product line, then it
makes me wonder how other factors will impact this transition.
Apple isn?t anywhere near mainstream yet; if their loyal
customer base is alienated enough (and many seem to be at
least a little ruffled over this), could that derail the company?s
current upward sales trend? Could possible performance issues
(either from a new CPU architecture, a software emulation
induced slowdown, some combination thereof, or just general
bugs & teething problems inherent in such a wholesale shift)
turn off a large number of potential new customers? Could
simple uncertainty about the platform, which such news is
certain to engender in some quarters, do the same? Could all of
these issues, and others I can?t even think of, all snowball in a
negative way?
I don?t know the answer to those questions, but I do believe they
have to be asked. What Jobs didn't mention during his
presentation is that all of Apple's transitions prior to this point
(PPC chips and OSX) have been almost by necessity ? the upside
of moving was been too big to ignore. This one doesn?t seem to
fit that mold. And if the most obvious and compelling reason for
an undertaking like this is lacking ? higher levels of performance
? then that might mean substantial problems for the rest of the
plan. Call it the Law of Unintended Consequences, but if the
fundamentals aren?t sound, then smaller and unforeseen hurdles
have a much bigger impact on the outcome than objective
forecasting might anticipate.
Personally, I think Apple should have hedged their bets and
stuck with PPC, at least in PowerMac & XServe, in conjunction
with an infusion of new Intel ?blood? in the Mac Mini and perhaps
high end PowerBooks ? but that?s it. You not only take
advantage of Intel?s only real strengths (supply certainty and
cooling), but also potentially light a fire under IBM?s butt
regarding totally valid concerns about future growth and
support. Assuming shipments of Macs continue to rise, with the
growth potential of the platform thus being impossible to
ignore, IBM would certainly make the smart business move and
put more resources into it?s Apple partnership. In fact, I think
the absolute likelihood of this shows the shortsightedness
behind IBM just sitting back and letting Apple slip away, even at
this 11th hour.
The 5 million current Mac PPC units per year vs. the 20 million/
year expected from game console sales is IBM?s Great Seducer,
apparently. Yet that?s only the present state of affairs. Given
Apple?s current sales trajectory (and no ?ahem- unexpected
development messing it up) it would be foolish to not anticipate
greater Mac yearly sales, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 the number of
consoles in the next few years ? that?s real money. There are
many more people in the market for computers than for
Xboxes/PSwhatevers/Nintendo stuff combined, so the upside
could be huge. IBM?s position sort of reminds me of the
ridiculous rebuff of cash generating Pixar by Eisner/Disney.
Barring the 'hedged bet' option coming about however, it is my
humble opinion that the current ?all-Intel-or-nothing? state of
affairs is far more risky for Apple than it appears. Certainly no
other player has as much to lose. For the record, I like Apple
products and would be happy for this to work out. But, other
good reasons notwithstanding, if I had to make a bet today I
would lay my money against an Apple going 100% with Intel x86
technology.
three years out and seeing that the PowerPC picture being
painted by Freescale and IBM leaves them in the lurch. For
Apple's use, the G4 is dead, or nearly so. Freescale has no
particular reason to try and squeeze any more performance out
of the G4 than they already have, because the G4 they make now
is fine for their bread-and-butter markets.
The G5 doesn't fare much better. It's competitive now, but it
won't be indefinitely. Even allowing for the megahertz myth, at
some point the P4 and its successors will pull away from where
the G5 is currently. Will IBM expend the resources to keep up?
Why would they? They'll sell the current configuration millions of
times for their non-PC markets. They'll sell more of the current
G5 to Sony and Nintendo over Christmas than Apple sells in a
year. Apple is so far down on IBM's priority list it's almost not
worth mentioning. We'll see dual-core laptop and desktop
Pentiums before IBM will bother with dual-core chips for Apple's
use. You can forget about Apple using the triple-core Xbox
processor. That's a contract job for Microsoft, and there's no way
Microsoft is foolish enough not to have an iron-clad exclusivity
clause.
Neither IBM or Freescale do enough business with Apple to
justify keeping the G4/G5 lines competitive with whatever Intel
has coming. They can sell the same chip 20 million times to
game manufacturers, over a much longer product lifespan.
Game consoles seem to be on a four or five year upgrade cycle.
Apple needs new chips to speed bump the various Mac lines at
least once a year.
That the G5 does so well vs. the current generation Pentium is
great, but there's nothing to indicate that it'll stay that way, and
there's also nothing to indicate that IBM is even remotely
interested in making something Apple can use in Powerbooks.
Something had to give.
Look at it this way: for those of us who love the Macintosh (like
me), this is really the best possible option, right now. If Apple
sticks it out with IBM and the PPC, the Mac will end up lagging so
far behind the rest of the PC market that it'll never recover. This
move - as drastic as it is - at least gives us a chance to stay
competitive.
My only concern is compatibility with my existing software, and it sounds as if Rosetta will take care of existing PPC apps, although the fate of OS9 programs (of which I occasionally use about two) is still unclear.
Speaking as a shareholder, I think Steve Jobs has done all the right things recently, and I gotta believe that there had to be some pretty darn good reasons for dumping IBM. Seems he made it pretty clear in his presentation that Apple--for whatever reason--just couldn't get to where they wanted to be in the future without making the switch. And building a platform that lets current PC users run their existing software as well as all the great Apple stuff does away with yet another reason (one of the biggest, I think) for PC users not to switch to the Mac.
Lots of the discussions I've seen about Apple's decision to go with Intel have been by technogeeks who seem a lot more concerned about which processor is in the box than I am. Will the change affect what I see on the screen? I think not. Will it affect the usability of the system? I think not. Will it affect system security? No. And I'm guessing that about 95% of computer users could care less if their machine is the fastest on the block--as long as it accomplishes what they want it to do.
Apple, in my experience, has been a class act. I don't expect that to change in the future, and I'm certain they wouldn't make this transition so painful that it would alienate their loyal customer base. All in all, Apple's long-term future looks pretty doggone bright to me. I'm keeping my Mac and my stock!
You will need to find alternatives to your OS 9 applications. They will not run on a Mac that has Intel inside.
,dave
This is a great move for apple, although it will be rough. Apple will be like a merging of sony and alienware on steroids. Style and power will be widely avalible to the world.
This change will devestate microsoft. People will see the simplicity, power and stablity of the mac and happily convert. In fact, Bill Gates himself said that windows would not exist if mac converted to the x86 platform back in the early ages of pc computing.
Don't panic mac faithful, this is not a disaster.
In business, Macs aren't used much outside of graphic design, publishing, and other creative fields. Switching to Intel will allow Macs to run a great number of custom written and legacy applications that companies use. Emulating Windows or MS-DOS will be easier, more reliable, and much faster on an Intel processor. I'd bet that such an emulator will be standard with the new Intel based line. This means that businesses won't have a platform barrier preventing them from using a superior OS, and they won't have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars re-writing software either.
Now think, what if Apple was to sell the Intel version of their OS so that you could install it on any Intel based machine? Why limit itself to just its own machines? Sure, the Mac looks better, but if it can sell an OS that can run on the millions of Intel machines AND can run all their existing applications AND provide a better, more secure, easier to use OS -- then why wouldn't people switch to Apple? Everyone loves their iPod and associates Apple with quality -- while the opposite is true of Microsoft.
Creating a true alternative to Windows is a brilliant move on Apple's part. They're the only company in the world that could possibly take on Microsoft's dominance of the desktop and win. The only way to do this is by switching to Intel.
Wake up people! This isn't about DRM, investment by Microsoft, or other devious plots. Intel does not equal Microsoft. Intel does not equal bad software. Intel and Apple does equal a serious threat to the Microsoft dominated world of desktop computing as we know it today!
Now consumers can compare apples to apples (Dell) which that can't compete with on price. Either AAPL will need to have a tremendous growth in lifestyle products or software (both blended together wolud work well) to accompany this shift or they are gone!
I'm sad as I was about to make the shift to AAPL but won't now b/c the OS is not performant and they're moving to an even more inferior chipset (AMD>PowerPC>Intel).
But hey, I AM the crazy one, the ***hole guy from Seattle that doesn't know what he is talking about.
And YES the V-Chip is just an anology(TV), but turns out to be the D-Chip (Pentium-D)or Apple ROM
chip...
MAC OSX ON 64AMD/INTEL? MAYBE...WITH V-CHIP.
Posted by: Llib Setag
Posted on: May 23, 2005, 12:47 PM PDT
Story: Apple to Intel: Some advantage, lots of risk
MacOSX86:
First it would have to be with an AMD64/Intel64 bit chip system to operate like it does on the IBM PowerPC 64 bit G5 chips on Macs.
Second, WHAT IF Apple manufactured the PC Box with a proprietary V-Chip from Apple WITH a PC-64?
Apple could quality control the box,QC testing, install high end graphics cards, use 8 MB RAM,install all the drivers needed for PC devices (USB2/FIREWIRE) from a large variety of vendors (like they do on a MAC)so plug&play works right out of the box. Apple Monitors already work with Wintel PCs.
High end Industrial Design for box, etc.
MAC-G5 computer with MacOSX Tiger & 64 bit PowerPC, PLUS MAC-86 computer with MacOSX86 & V-CHIP. MacOSX86 only works if V-Chip is installed on an APPLE-PC (i.e. not Dell/HP/Gateway PCx86)
Apple sells software & hardware to Windows/Linux people, in ADDITION to Mac base.
Third: What if this was like the Mac Mini? A AMD64/Intel64 bit chip based Mini with Tigerx86 + V-CHIP?
Use any Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse/external devices that you want OR already own.
iPods work on Macs / Mac86 / Wintel PCs.
Win/Win for all...!
If Apple can "switch" to a UNIX based 64bit chip/OS system in just a few years, they can do this too.
It has been rumoured (not confirmed) that deep in the vaults under Cupertino IS a version of Mac OSX that can run on Intel/AMD/x86 chip as a "plan B". NeXT was UNIX platform that ran on Intel chips, & this was a Jobs Project too PLUS NeXT was integrated into MacOS to create Mac OSX/UNIX...
Just a thought...
- re: will the Apple faithful listen - of course
- by June 9, 2005 4:44 PM PDT
- Of course - what processor inside is of importance - as long as
- Reply to this comment
-
(50 Comments)the MAC OS is the same - it'll always be a MAC - the OS is the
soul of Apple/Mac - NOT the processor.
I'll always buy adn use Macs - have since 1984 and will never
buy a PC machine..=*^)