Apple the Start of an Empire?!

[Stunt]

Interesting take on things...Discuss.

(sorry if repost, I searched)

Apple Theory

Going for Broke
Apple's Decision to Use Intel Processors Is Nothing Less Than an Attempt to Dethrone Microsoft. Really.

By Robert X. Cringely

The crowd this week in San Francisco at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference seemed mildly excited by the prospect of its favorite computer company turning to Intel processors. The CEO of Adobe asked why it had taken Apple so long to make the switch? Analysts on Wall Street were generally positive, with a couple exceptions. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE!? Are these people drunk on Flav-r-Ade? Yes. It is the legendary Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field at work. And this time, what's behind the announcement is so baffling and staggering that it isn't surprising that nobody has yet figured it out until now.

Apple and Intel are merging.

Let's take a revisionist look at the Apple news, asking a few key questions. The company has on its web site a video of the speech, itself, which is well worth watching. It's among this week's links.

Question 1: What happened to the PowerPC's supposed performance advantage over Intel?

This is the Altivec Factor -- PowerPC's dedicated vector processor in the G4 and G5 chips that make them so fast at running applications like Adobe Photoshop and doing that vaunted H.264 video compression. Apple loved to pull Phil Schiller onstage to do side-by-side speed tests showing how much faster in real life the G4s and G5s were than their Pentium equivalents. Was that so much BS? Did Apple not really mean it? And why was the question totally ignored in this week's presentation?

Question 2: What happened to Apple's 64-bit operating system?

OS X 10.4 -- Tiger -- is a 64-bit OS, remember, yet Intel's 64-bit chips -- Xeon and Itanium -- are high buck items aimed at servers, not iMacs. So is Intel going to do a cheaper Itanium for Apple or is Apple going to pretend that 64-bit never existed? Yes to both is my guess, which explains why the word "Pentium" was hardly used in the Jobs presentation. Certainly, he never said WHICH Intel chip they'd be using, just mentioning an unnamed 3.6-Ghz development system -- a system which apparently doesn't benchmark very well, either (it's in the links).

So is 64-bit really nothing to Apple? And why did they make such a big deal about it in their earlier marketing?

Question 3: Where the heck is AMD?

If Apple is willing to embrace the Intel architecture because of its performance and low power consumption, then why not go with AMD, which equals Intel's power specs, EXCEEDS Intel's performance specs AND does so at a lower price point across the board? Apple and AMD makes far more sense than Apple and Intel any day.

Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers?

This is the biggest question of all, suggesting Steve Jobs has completely forgotten about Adam Osborne. For those who don't remember him, Osborne was the charismatic founder of Osborne Computer, makers of the world's first luggable computer, the Osborne 1. The company failed in spectacular fashion when Adam pre-announced his next model, the Osborne Executive, several months before it would actually ship. People who would have bought Osborne 1s decided to wait for the Executive, which cost only $200 more and was twice the computer. Osborne sales crashed and the company folded. So why would Steve Jobs -- who knew Adam Osborne and even shared a hot tub with him (Steve's longtime girlfriend back in the day worked as an engineer for Osborne) -- pre-announce this chip change that undercuts not only his present product line but most of the machines he'll be introducing in the next 12 to 18 months?

Is the guy really going to stand up at some future MacWorld and tout a new Mac as being the world's most advanced obsolete computer?

This announcement has to cost Apple billions in lost sales as customers inevitably decide to wait for Intel boxes.

Apple's stated reason for pre-announcing the shift by a year is to allow third-party developers that amount of time to port their apps to Intel. But this makes no sense. For one thing, Apple went out of its way to show how easy the port could be with its Mathematica demonstration, so why give it a year? And companies typically make such announcements to their partners in private under NDA and get away with it. There was no need to make this a public announcement despite News.com's scoop, which only happened because of the approaching Jobs speech. Apple could have kept it quiet if they had chosen to, with the result that not so many sales would have been lost.

This means that there must have been some overriding reason why Apple HAD to make this public announcement, why it was worth the loss of billions in sales.

Question 5: Is this all really about Digital Rights Management?

People "in the know" love this idea, that Hollywood moguls are forcing Apple to switch to Intel because Intel processors have built-in DRM features that will keep us from pirating music and movies. Yes, Intel processors have such features, based primarily on the idea of a CPU ID that we all hated when it was announced years ago so Intel just stopped talking about it. The CPU ID is still in there, of course, and could be used to tie certain content to the specific chip in your computer.

But there are two problems with this argument. First, Apple is already in the music and video distribution businesses without this feature, which wouldn't be available across the whole product line for another two years and wouldn't be available across 90 percent of the installed base for probably another six years. Second, though nobody has ever mentioned it, I'm fairly sure that the PowerPC, too, has an individual CPU ID. Every high end microprocessor does, just as every network device has its unique MAC address.

So while DRM is nice, it probably isn't a driving force in this decision.

Then what is the driving force?

Microsoft.

Here is my analysis based on not much more than pondering the five questions, above, and speaking with a few old friends in the business. I won't say there is no insider information involved, but darned little.

The obvious questions about performance and 64-bit computing come down to marketing. At first, I thought that Steve Jobs was somehow taking up the challenge of making users believe war was peace and hate was love simply to show that he could do it. Steve is such a powerful communicator and so able to deceive people that for just a moment, I thought maybe he was doing this as a pure tour du force -- just because he could.

Nah. Not even Steve Jobs would try that.

The vaunted Intel roadmap is nice, but no nicer than the AMD roadmap, and nothing that IBM couldn't have matched. If Apple was willing to consider a processor switch, moving to the Cell Processor would have made much more sense than going to Intel or AMD, so I simply have to conclude that technology has nothing at all to do with this decision. This is simply about business -- BIG business.

Another clue comes from HP, where a rumor is going around that HP selling iPods could turn into HP becoming an Apple hardware partner for personal computers, too.

Microsoft comes into this because Intel hates Microsoft. It hasn't always been that way, but in recent years Microsoft has abused its relationship with Intel and used AMD as a cudgel against Intel. Even worse, from Intel's standpoint Microsoft doesn't work hard enough to challenge its hardware. For Intel to keep growing, people have to replace their PCs more often and Microsoft's bloatware strategy just isn't making that happen, especially if they keep delaying Longhorn.

Enter Apple. This isn't a story about Intel gaining another three percent market share at the expense of IBM, it is about Intel taking back control of the desktop from Microsoft.

Intel is fed up with Microsoft. Microsoft has no innovation that drives what Intel must have, which is a use for more processing power. And when they did have one with the Xbox, they went elsewhere.

So Intel buys Apple and works with their OEMs to get products out in the market. The OEMs would love to be able to offer a higher margin product with better reliability than Microsoft. Intel/Apple enters the market just as Microsoft announces yet another delay in their next generation OS. By the way, the new Apple OS for the Intel Architecture has a compatibility mode with Windows (I'm just guessing on this one).

This scenario works well for everyone except Microsoft. If Intel was able to own the Mac OS and make it available to all the OEMs, it could break the back of Microsoft. And if they tuned the OS to take advantage of unique features that only Intel had, they would put AMD back in the box, too. Apple could return Intel to its traditional role of being where all the value was in the PC world. And Apple/Intel could easily extend this to the consumer electronics world. How much would it cost Intel to buy Apple? Not much. And if they paid in stock it would cost nothing at all since investors would drive shares through the roof on a huge swell of user enthusiasm.

That's the story as I see it unfolding. Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates. And with the sale of Apple to Intel, Steve accepts the position of CEO of the Pixar/Disney/Sony Media Company.

Remember, you read it here first.

 

[Mrvile]

I would QFT but the quote would be too long so meh I'll just say

QFT!

 

[suse920]

i thought that the new p4s supported 64 bit

 

[RaiderJ]

If Apple opens up their OS, you'll have a mass rush by the Linux & Apple community to provide support. I'd buy OSX for my computer. Outside of that, I really don't see toppling Microsoft.

 

[RaiderJ]

Just read all of that... very well thought out. I think it's a little far reaching however.

In my opinion, and Apple/Intel company would be less powerful than the two staying separate. I think a merger would in effect drown out both brands - especially to consumers who would be confused as to what everything meant.

 

[Stark]

ms still owns the corporate workstation market... 2003 server and AD integration can't be matched by anything apple has.

but this definately puts apple/intel in a good place for the next 20 years.

 

[nageov3t]

I won't try a mac OS until I can pick it up off the shelf and dual-boot it with Windows XP with little-to-no work on my part (at least no work that wouldn't also be assosiated dual-booting a linux os at least).

 

[ElFenix]

a bit far fetched.

first, intel would seriously incur the wrath of government if it were to drown out AMD by locking AMD out of the OS.

second, intel hates stuff not invented there.

third, i think steve jobs likes his job too much, and he would never ever fit in at intel.

Question 3: Where the heck is AMD?

If Apple is willing to embrace the Intel architecture because of its performance and low power consumption, then why not go with AMD, which equals Intel's power specs, EXCEEDS Intel's performance specs AND does so at a lower price point across the board? Apple and AMD makes far more sense than Apple and Intel any day.

i really have to wonder why people are asking this. apple is dropping IBM because IBM can't get their fab to work quite right. continual delays, ginormous heat problems, etc. and, while AMD has been firing on all cylinders and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future, they do not have the track record intel does. intel gets their stuff up and running before anyone. AND intel's processors for apple are likely to be a continuation of P6 rather than P7. and as any hardware junkie knows, the P6 architecture, in its current form, is extremely competitive in sheer numbers performance (and will no doubt get better with sse3, em64t, an integrated memory controller, etc), plus, nothing comes close to it in thermal performance. p7 is dead anyway. plus, is apple really concerned with price? i'm sure IBM was charging a boatload for G5s, so there is almost no doubt a pentium-m is less expensive (you have seen the notebook prices at dell, haven't you?)

 

[phisrow]

The scary thing would be if this becomes a vehicle for a new era of serious DRM. Unfortunately, it might well be that. Look at the pieces: Apple has already shown their willingness to use DRM in order to make a splash in the entertainment market(Ipod/Itunes/Fairplay/etc.) and it looks like they want to move into video as well(Itunes supporting video/downloads on their site/working with Sony/new compression scheme/etc.). Intel, too, has its fingers in serious low level DRM. They actually do the crypto behind HDMI's content protection schemes, have announced support for various DRM standards in their graphics drivers, they don't seem entirely convincing in their rebuttals of DRM in the latest Pentiums, they also would like to become entertainment hardware providers, and they have certain plans for the next generation of BIOS which include some creepy stuff.

So, with all those pieces available, will they be used? Hard to say for certain but it seems all too likely to me: Apple needs to be able to keep their OS fixed on their hardware, which is harder on x86. They want to sell media content, and have shown a willingness to play fairly nice with the content owners in order to do so. Apple gear traditionally has slow turnover, and Apple knows that. If they want to make sure that pretty much all mac users have DRM in five or ten years they need to start now. It may not be turned on immediately; but they can always release a critical update "Providing general feature enhancements" or something to turn it on. Intel, for its part, has a great opportunity to ignore issues with breaking legacy apps, that have kept them from doing all they would like with the PC x86 platform, and really go all out with their new stuff. Since whatever standard they set will probably be in effect for quite a few years, they'll want to get everything they can in now.

Anybody else worried?

 

[ElFenix]

all that said, i think this platform switch will be much easier than the first one. back in the system 7/macos 8 day i bet the user level programs were far more dependent on the underlying hardware. that switch took forever. this new one, if all the apps were done properly to begin with, should require very minor changes beyond a recompile. only apple will have to do any real work.

this will be the macintosh's 3rd major platform overhaul. imagine that. first the xk to ppc switch, then from whatever os model they were on to OSX, and now ppc to IA.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I think your argument makes a lot of sense....but I have to wonder why anybody would go after Microsoft. To do so you'd need to offer compatibility with Windows software. Plus it would take years to build any serious credibility and get into the business environment. It would be like trying to run underwater...imo.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: suse920
i thought that the new p4s supported 64 bit

Its not suprising a journalist doesnt have his facts straight. The P4 is now 64bit, the Pentium M will be 64bit by June of next year. Its no wonder Apple is releasing the Mac Mini around the same time next year.

 

[digitalsm]

second, intel hates stuff not invented there.

Uh? Their 64bit extensions on the P4 are little more than AMDs. So...

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, it's ridiculous.
A) AMD wouldn't be providing Apple with both integrated desktop and laptop solutions because they simply don't make them.
B) He's looking at Intel and AMD's current offerings when comparing heat and performance, Apple is looking a year out.
C) This speech was delivered to developpers because they need to start building universal binaries. This is for performance, because native is always better than emulated regardless of how good Rosetta is.
D) Very likely Apple's chips will be 64-bits when they get them one way or another, I doubt they would be moving back to 32-bit only to move back to 64-bit
E) "The dev kit doesn't perform very well so it must be an Itanium". Stupidest logic I've ever heard.
F) Cell isn't a great general purpose processor, it is craptacular with integer code, which is why it's billed for scientific apps. People should let go already and stop billing the Cell as God's gift to CPUs.
G) Intel didn't buy Apple

Summary: The author is a douche that's completely speaking out of his ass.

 

[Mo0o]

Wishful thinking

 

[neutralizer]

Steve Jobs will become full of himself again and bring down Apple. Again.

 

[Shawn]

That's crazy. As much as I dislike M$ I hope to hell that doesn't become true.

 

[Goosemaster]

To think that moving to a new core will create a new multibullion dollar core based on an apple and some chips....

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I wonder if this is more a shot over IBM's bow? With the XBox2 using 3 of their PowerPC chips per XBox and at least 2,000,000+ XBox2s about to be sold that's 6,000,000 chips IBM will be producing....bare minimum.

Also, the moment Intel tries to use their existing OEM contracts to push an Apptel OS over Windows, Microsoft could simply give those OEMs an ultimatum and, presto, AMD and Intel marketshares flip-flop.

 

Originally posted by: Shawn
That's crazy. As much as I dislike M$ I hope to hell that doesn't become true.

 

[Stark]

they didn't go with AMD because they don't make their own chipsets. especially when it comes to laptops, the chipset makes all the difference.

 

[loic2003]

Man, what a clown. There's no links and it's all specualtion. No evidence, just statements based on nothing.

This kid obviously hasn't read up on the topic sufficiently to formulate a reasonable opinion. He just wants some recognition in this time of uncertancy.

 

[Neurorelay]

The post is by Robert Cringely, long time silicon valley consultant, he was around when apple and microsoft first began, so he does have some idea what he is talking about, do your research.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: Neurorelay
The post is by Robert Cringely, long time silicon valley consultant, he was around when apple and microsoft first began, so he does have some idea what he is talking about, do your research.

So why's he talking sh!t then? One example: he's totally not thought about why they chose intel over AMD. An interesting article by someone who isn't a magical consultant gives the matter more than a moment's thought: link.

Looking at just today's performances of chips and evaluating the entire situation in 2 sentences to me is pretty lame and stinks of a lack of research.

You tell me to do my research? I'm reading what this joker has posted. You can tell it's crap without knowing what the guy's background is. Stop being overwhelmed my someone's 'credentials' and actually read what the guy's posted. It's an act of sensationalist speculation, very loosely based on 'fact', at best.

 

[Schadenfroh]

hhahahahahha