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Intel Businesses Apple Hardware

Apple Switch to Intel Not a Big Loss for IBM 332

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-seems-like-some-spin dept.
KaushalParekh writes "An interesting article about how Apple's switch to Intel chips may not be that bad for IBM after all. "Apple sees an opportunity with Intel. But IBM continues the same chip development that allowed Apple to claim several firsts and fastests. Now, Big Blue will plow its research efforts into processors for game consoles and other consumer products that might one day knock the PC down a rung." Also, "a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities." And, "Large firms like Sony, Microsoft and Comcast are betting that a home-entertainment device, evolved from a game console or set-top box, will replace many of the PC's functions. IBM plans to be inside these new systems.""
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Apple Switch to Intel Not a Big Loss for IBM More

Apple Switch to Intel Not a Big Loss for IBM

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  • Powerhouse (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mfloy ( 899187 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:32AM (#13053857) Homepage
    IBM has so many area they are excellent in that I doubt Apple's departure will be all that bad. They are moving to be a very service oriented business and that seems to be a big market in the future. Add to that their dominance in the supercomputer market and their future looks very positive to me.

    • Re:Powerhouse (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Okonomiyaki ( 662220 )
      Apple's departure may not remove a significant revenue stream now, but if the Mac lines are truely growing at 3x the rate of the rest of the industry, it could look like a huge missed opportunity within a few years. Yeah yeah, I know. I can't seem to remember where I put my RDF protective goggles.

  • ThinkPad G5? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tgrimley ( 585067 )
    What are the possibilities we could have Thinkpads running on PPC chips?

    • Re:ThinkPad G5? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      None at all. IBM no longer makes the ThinkPads.
    • About the same possibility of having a laptop buring a hole in your desk.
    • If Microsoft releases Windows 64-bit edition for PPC, and Lenovo decides that they want to build a G5 laptop...

      Yeah, probably not too likely. But it'd still be cool. Especially if someone then hacked it to run OS X.
    • would be very good, BUT what OS would they put on it? A MS Windows PPC Edition? I don't think so.

      It's still interesting to ponder that scenario though.....IBM hardware with a factory installed Linux or BSD. I'd get one in a heart beat.

  • Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thomas DM ( 895043 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:33AM (#13053873) Homepage
    It was already known when Apple announced the switch that it wouldn't mean a huge financial loss for IBM.

    The demand from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo is a lot higher so IBM doesn't need to cry ;)

    • Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Interesting)

      by henrywood ( 879946 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:39AM (#13053945)
      Might even turn out to be a financial gain in the long run. Having to service a fussy, idiosyncratic customer like Apple, who didn't actually buy a huge number of chips, must have caused quite a lot of noise in the system.
    • And while this story isn't an direct dupe (that I'm aware of, don't bother correcting if I'm wrong), I had seen plenty of articles about the switch when it was still a shock that said even mentioned that Apple was supposedly getting shafted on the heirarchy due to IBM giving more attention to game console CPU development.

      • Re:Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)

        by myrick ( 893932 ) *
        It has also come to light more recently that IBM was in the dark on Apple's switch, and now that the mobile 970 chip is out, it makes you wonder what the real reason was. I think IBM was fully capable of supporting the design effort, but because they were only building the chip for Apple, they had to guess (conservatively) at what Apple would want. When Apple's demand was greater, it took a while to ramp up production, and those delays were unpleasant for both sides. The way Apple does business, they rea

        • Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)

          by notthepainter ( 759494 )
          It has also come to light more recently that IBM was in the dark on Apple's switch,

          I can believe this. An unnamed company that I used to work for found out our long standing talks with Apple were for naught when we saw our competitor on stage with Steve Jobs at a MacWorld in SF.

          Oh well...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The cycle begins (Score:3, Funny)

    by lwriemen ( 763666 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:33AM (#13053877)
    Game console becomes set-top box; set-top box becomes PC; game console gets invented.

    "Forward into the past!" - Firesign Theater

  • Most People (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kaos.geo ( 587126 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:34AM (#13053882)
    Yesterday I went to a client's home that has 2 PCs and 2 Macs, they are the Design/Publicity kind of crew. They are utterly unaware of the switch, and believe me, the will remain so AFTER it. IBM is probably right in pursuing this path, but I dont honestly see embedded/game consoles taking over corporate turf anytime soon.

    • Re:Most People (Score:3, Insightful)

      by megarich ( 773968 )
      IBM has other products to push on corporate turf like their own servers. How many Macs are used for corporate use anyways? I don't know but I imagine it wouldn't be many. At least definately not as many as IBM's own PowerPC servers.

      As far as the home market is concerned, I wouldn't be concerned either of Apple since more gaming consoles will find their ways into homes than Macs. How many people I know personally with a mac? One, my girlfriend and it is a laptop. How many people I know with at least o

      • Re:Most People (Score:3, Interesting)

        by kalidasa ( 577403 ) *
        A lot of graphic arts, music production, and film production folks use them. Some folks who have serious security concerns also use them because of FileVault.

  • Intel/IBM Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nizcolas ( 597301 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:34AM (#13053885) Homepage Journal
    "Certainly, Apple sees an opportunity with Intel. But IBM continues the same chip development that allowed Apple to claim several firsts and fastests."

    How much of IBM's innovative chip design was pushed forward by Apple? I'm honestly not that familiar with the design/manufacture process but certainly IBM and Apple were working together on new designs for at least Apple hardware.

    With Apple and Intel working together now we're sure to (eventually) see some products that Intel wouldn't have developed on their own.

    • Re:Intel/IBM Innovation (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:15PM (#13054324) Journal
      How much of IBM's innovative chip design was pushed forward by Apple?

      None. It was all pushed forwards by the high-end server market. The POWER line (which are really PowerPC these days, just to confuse everyone[1]) has seriously high performance. They have been shipping dual-core chips since the POWER4+ (the POWER5 is currently top of the line).

      The chips they are selling Apple are cut-down versions of the POWER4 (not POWER4+, or POWER5) with a vector unit bolted on. They are not the fastest chips IBM make, they are the consumer versions of an old IBM design.

      [1] Originally, there was POWER and PowerPC. These were two slightly different instruction sets with a large common subset. It was possible to compile code that would run on both, or that would only run on one. More recently, IBM dropped the POWER instruction set, and recent POWER-series chips have been server-grade PowerPC chips.

  • I don't think they are crying about it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:35AM (#13053897)
    I've heard that Apple was a real pain in the ass for IBM. They may have even broke out the good campaign and threw a big party after Apple sent their "Dear John" letter.

    • Re:I don't think they are crying about it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by repetty ( 260322 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:01PM (#13054182) Homepage
      >> I've heard that Apple was a real pain in the ass for IBM.

      The first thing I thought when I read the Intel CEO's positive spin on their new relationship with Apple is, "Dude, you do not know what you are in for."

      If Intel is ignorant, then they are in for a very unpleasant surprise.

      But maybe Intel understands what it means to be a partner with Apple and they're figuring that, hell, what doesn't kill me will make me stronger.

      Apple is going to push Intel, make demands of Intel, get moody and pout, and bitch, bitch, bitch. BUT... I think that Intel is aware of this and considers it a fair price to pay to be with a cutting edge, free-wheeling company like Apple.
      • Apple is going to push Intel, make demands of Intel, get moody and pout, and bitch, bitch, bitch.

        What, exactly, will they have to bitch about? Seriously. Are they going to tell Intel they need to make faster chips while Dell and HP kick back and say, "you're cool, dude, slow chips are just fine"? Will Apple really think they can wrangle faster chips out of intel then their competitors get?

        The only real bitch point will be price and Intel is going to be able to show them bar graphs up the wazoo to poin

    • Re:I don't think they are crying about it (Score:5, Funny)

      by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:07PM (#13054249) Homepage
      They may have even broke out the good campaign

      ...I, too, used to have trouble remembering how to spell "champagne". Then, I started pronouncing it as "cham-pag-nee" and I haven't had a single problem spelling it since.

      Of course, the folks at the wine store give me funny looks now, but they're just a bunch of snooty cheese-eaters.

    • Re:I don't think they are crying about it (Score:5, Interesting)

      by diamondsw ( 685967 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @01:01PM (#13054856)
      As an IBMer, let me tell you - IBM *never* thinks losing business is good. Doesn't matter if the customer was the biggest pain in the ass, used up 90% of your support staff, and even lost money on, you still keep the customer as a reference and for potential new business. And before you point to Apple as not much business, I've seen people bend over backwards for contracts a tenth the size of Apple.

      No, IBM may not have particularly liked dealing with Steve Jobs, but they certainly didn't have any desire to lose Apple as a customer.

  • IBM and Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:36AM (#13053905) Homepage
    Historically, they were allies with the anti-WinTel PowerPC platform, but now, with IBM still as a Big Iron vendor and Apple's emergence as a possible supercomputer clsuter provider (a la BigMac), I think they saw a natural business conflict... Apple's supercompute cost was a fraction of IBMs, using the *same architecture*!! Also, given the problems with the G5, it was clear that the relationship was on the rocks.

    Apple and Intel strategically have very little issues (aside from Intel's current partner Microsoft... but that's another story)

    • Re:IBM and Apple (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You sir, are drunk or stupid.

      There is only one Mac cluster in the top 500. There are 259 IBM systems. If 'BigMac' is so great, why hasn't anyone done something simitlar? Maybe because they don't want to play the Apply HW premium for a COTS systems. Any way you slice it, the only market that Apple is not a niche player is personal MP3 players. (and that is undeserved. There are tons of better options than the iPod) Apple 'competing' with IBM is ludicrous.

      As mentioned in other articles, Apple (and sp

      • Re:IBM and Apple (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Actually, there are 4 Mac clusters in the top 500 (only one in top 100).
    • Historically, they were allies with the anti-WinTel PowerPC platform, but now, with IBM still as a Big Iron vendor and Apple's emergence as a possible supercomputer clsuter provider...

      My guess is more that with IBM getting out of the personal computer business (and already a decade out of the PC operating system business), there was no major upside to fighting WinTel, and a lot of nuisance. Like with Motorola, keeping Apple moving forward just wasn't a priority for them.

    • Re:IBM and Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:36PM (#13054553) Homepage Journal
      Apple and Intel strategically have very little issues (aside from Intel's current partner Microsoft... but that's another story)

      Actually, Intel and Microsoft really haven't been getting along so well lately. Intel has become a big supporter of Linux and open source software; it is one of the founding members of OSDL and has contributed compilers and tons of driver code and specs to the open source community.

      On the Microsoft side of coin, Microsoft tapped IBM to produce a custom-made CPU based on the PowerPC architecture for the Xbox 360, rather than using the x86 architecture the original Xbox used. Microsoft continues to work towards a Microsoft PC, which will marginalize Intel's role in the PC business if it succeeds.

      No, Intel and Microsoft aren't the partners they used to be. Microsoft wants total domination of the PC industry, and that leaves Intel out in the cold. From what I can see, Intel's partnership with Apple gives it more than just shipping more units to another customer -- it gives Intel a strategic advantage against its growing enemy, Microsoft.

  • Why don't IBM make PPC linux home pcs? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think IBM should make PPC linux PCs made just for running linux and nothing else. put only well supported proven hardware in them. Give us a desktop with dual core G5s and out of the box support for every bit of hardware via linux. They could price this about mac mini cost and give it commodity accessories like ide ram optical pci etc and make a killing by being THE supplier to the world's geeks.

  • Freescale cheers (Score:2, Interesting)

    by boristdog ( 133725 )
    My amigos at Freescale's Apple support division were actually quite happy that the Jobs monkey was finally off their backs.

  • Linux PPC (Score:4, Interesting)

    by delire ( 809063 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:37AM (#13053916)
    "a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips.."
    Frankly I've been hoping for this for a long time; especially given the fantastic performance of Linux on PPC in it's current iteration in the 2.6.* kernel range. Lenovo, please provide pre-sales contact details.

  • I was inevitable (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:38AM (#13053928)
    I will play Mr. Smith: It was inevitable.

    The cost of producing new leading edge semiconductor processors has always, and will always, grow at a very high rate. The cost of a chip fab is outrageous. It has been doubling for many years now. A new chip fab today costs about $4 Billion US!!! (For a 65nm fab) Most companies have started renovating there fabs to use ever larger wafers instead of building new fabs. Currently many fabs are using 300mm wafers. Many of the older 150mm fabs that have already upgraded to 200mm don't have the room to upgrade further.

    Some big new 300mm fabs are:
    D1C in Hillsboro, Oregon
    F11X in Albuquerque, New Mexico
    F24 in Leixlip, Ireland

    The "break even" point for development costs has been skyrocketing!
    In the 1980's and early 1990's 50,000 units were required to recoup development costs on a chip. At 130nm, fab costs hit more than $1 billion and the break-even point for chips was about 500,000 units. A chip made with a 65nm process needs approximately 5 million units to break even on development costs. With 45nm processes at the edge of the current horizon for chip manufactures, how many markets are there for a chip that has to sell 50 million units to break even!!!

    For many years Motorola, AMD and other chip makers were moving steadily away from having there own fabs. Motorola was outsourcing 7% of its chip manufacturing in 1997, and over 30% in 2003. It seems this might have been a bad idea. Apple sited manufacturing capacity as one of its reasons for choosing Intel over AMD; and well, Motorola it seems just lost the Apple contract... (AMD is expanding its Dresden "Fab 36", and considering building a new fab to be opened early 2008. In the mean time they signed Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor to help make AMD64's starting in 2006.)

    Currently chip fabs are operating at about 85% capacity; new fabs traditionally start getting built when 90% capacity is reached.

    The biggest financial problem that chip manufactures face is the wavelength of light. For several generations of chips we have been using 193nm light. How is this possible you ask when chip feature sizes have been shrinking well below that size for several years now? Well I will let someone else explain:

    Quote:
    Since the 180nm technology node, the feature size has fallen BELOW the stepper wavelength. How can a 193nm wavelength of light expose gaps and widths that are 180nm wide? The laws of optics tell us that in order to resolve or "see" a gap of X nm in width, we must use a wavelength of light that is itself LESS than X nm in width. Today's feature sizes are down to 65nm and are still being printed with 193nm light! This seeming violation of the laws of physics and optics is being achieved by very clever techniques generally known as RET or Resolution Enhancement Techniques. Since the 180nm technology node, RET has been growing in cost and complexity from simple OPC (optical proximity correction) to PSM (phase shift mask) to the combination of OPC plus PSM, and now on to SRAF (sub-resolution assist features) which is ushering in a new category of RET called X-RET or Extreme-RET. The industry could have reduced the stepper wavelength from 193nm to 154nm, but a detailed analysis showed that simply shortening the stepper wavelength would be cost-prohibitive! Instead, use of 193nm has been extended to the 45nm technology node, but the gap between 193nm and 45nm is quite large and cannot be completely resolved even by the most advanced RET.

    Fortunately, something called Immersion Lithography has been introduced. It has been tried before with mixed results, but the need for it has never been as urgent as it is now. By immersing the wafer in water, one can reduce the effective numerical aperture (NA), allowing 193nm light to act as if it were a shorter wavelength. The wafer now has to be immersed in water, however, and this creates new challenges for new types of resist and topcoat materials that can withstand the effects of water contamination. Today, however

  • Interesting article comment (Score:4, Interesting)

    by foobarra ( 869305 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:39AM (#13053951) Homepage
    "one reason Apple switched is because it said IBM could not keep up with Intel's power-consumption technologies" A simple chart on power consumption of Intel/Itanium/AMD/AMD64/AMD_Opteron processors shows that Intel is far behind on increasing performance while stabilizing growth in power use in wattage. While I don't have data on PPC chips - AMD is clearly the leader in keeping power consumption down, while increasing processor performance. The article comment seems a little backwards to me... If taken literally, yep, Intel is on top of sucking more and more watts with each release, and although Intel states they will stabilize power use by 2007, I don't see the trend today.
    • I guess you haven't looked at Pentium M (aka P3); that chip would be perfect for Apple laptops.
      • Intel PentiumM

        "This new processor has 77 million transistors implemented on Intel's 0.13 CMOS process, with six levels of copper interconnect. Its die size is 84 mm2 and its peak power consumption is 24.5 watts at 1.6 "

        PowerPC

        "IBM also announced its low-power 970FX chips, ranging from 1.2 to 1.6 GHz, with power consumption ranging from 13 to 16 Watts, respectively "

    • Re:Interesting article comment (Score:5, Informative)

      by Holi ( 250190 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:49AM (#13054056)
      That is only if you exclude the Pentium-m from the mix. IIRC the Pentium-m has the best performance per watt for any desktop/laptop chip.

    • Re:Interesting article comment (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:54AM (#13054106)
      I am not an Intel fan, but they are good designers as well. This is their latest jawdropping work:

      Intel's Montecito is the first Itanium processor to feature duplicate, dual-thread cores and cache hierarchies on a single die. It features a landmark 1.72 billion transistors and server-focused technologies, and it requires only 100 watts of power.

      Now 1.72 billion itself is beyond even IBM but managing power of 100W is definitely commendable. So please, do some research on latest work as well. Thanks

  • Oooooooohhh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by h2d2 ( 876356 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:41AM (#13053962) Homepage

    And everyone thought IBM was at a loss when it chose the three largest game console manufacturers instead of a computer manufacturer with 4% market share.

  • pc's a dying breed? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by psychopsybin ( 865206 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:41AM (#13053965)
    Is anyone else completly skeptical of the theroy that the home entertainment center will take over the pc? I mean personally I'm not gonna want to do what I do on the computer, on my television. My opinion is surely not indicative of mainstream... but I'm sure there are tons of people who have similar sentiments
    • Dying? I thought they were already dead! Didn't those thin "internet appliance" stations already kill the PC?

      Its just marketing crap! As the PC market gets saturated, the marketers will all try to convince you PC's are dead and you should give them your money for some worthless replacement ;-)
    • "I mean personally I'm not gonna want to do what I do on the computer, on my television."
      My family thinks I'm a geek already.

      Having them watch me edit config files using vi on my 52 inch projection screen TV will definitely confirm it.

  • mac's and pc's aren't ibm's only business (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    do you guys realize that the apple systems aren't where all of IBM's POWER chips go? all of their enterprise servers(pseries,iseries,zseries), use the POWER platform. putting the chips into apple computers is but a tiny tiny fraction of the number of systems running the POWER processor. All the AIX, AS/400 and Z/OS systems are still going to run POWER, and IBM will still continue to churn those out. losing apple as a purchaser is not going to affect IBM's overall plan or development of the POWER chips.
    consi
  • he marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities.

    Come on, big blue, show me the PPC-based linux desktops! I know they're hiding somewhere.

  • Interesting: Xscale's part in the transition... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blakespot ( 213991 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:00PM (#13054158) Homepage
    It's interesting to see what might be Apple's actual motivation for making the jump. Not just Pentium...but also Xscale.

    http://www.maconintel.com/news.php?article=29 [maconintel.com] ( MacOnIntel link )

    blakespot

  • These home entertainment devices are evolving into computers. What will end up determining how well they succeed or fail is the software. If people can't do stuff more complicated than play games and surf the web, they won't find much use for these. People need to be able to:

    -Play games
    -Do office functions
    -Do web stuff to communicate
    -Play music and movies

    And most of that needs to be done all at once. A device that switches between modes won't cut it for regular use. It'll be great for families to have a c
  • -or- Thank you, Captain Obvious.

  • My very guess-based opinion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:17PM (#13054340) Homepage
    My opinion, based on vague things I've seen and heard and a lot of guessing, is that IBM never really wanted Apple's business in the first place. The plan for the PPC alliance always seemed to be that IBM would take the high-end kinda stuff, Motorola would target the PPC area, and Apple would buy chips from Motorola.

    Unfortunately then Motorola lost interest in the CPU market, their CPU group started getting neglected and sucky, Motorola spun off their CPU group into Freescale, and Freescale turned out to be sucky as well. So Apple wound up pretty much having to buy from IBM instead. But IBM never seemed very enthusiastic about this-- for example there were reports they didn't really want to bother with altivec/VMX/"velocity engine", and altivec was the or a cornerstone of Apple's CPU strategy. (Though, ironically, VMX is a really big part of all those new video game CPUs IBM is making, so I guess that kinda turned out well for IBM...) When I heard Apple really was going to Intel, honestly one of my first responses was to wonder whether this happened because Apple was pushing IBM away, or because IBM was trying to push Apple away and Apple was just complying..

    I really wonder what's going to happen to Freescale at this point.
    • I think you're absolutely correct. I worked at a number of places that uses AS/400's (or whatever they're calling them these days) and the RS/6000s (or whatever they're calling them...) and it seemed like a big win for IBM to have a high end processor that could unify their product lines in terms of having to support only one processor type. My understanding is that the z/Series mainframes also use the Power chips, just a whole lot more with a whole lot more infrastructure.

  • Apple was high profile only (Score:3, Interesting)

    by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @12:19PM (#13054359)
    apple probably was a small volume but high profile buyer. they bought a few million units every year but the cache of apple and PowerPC, yada yada, carried more weight than the dollars from Steve and the boys. are PPC chips in the iPod? I don't know, but I'd gather that that's at least as vital a chip demand.
  • This part struck me as somewhat wrong:

    Also, "a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities.

    The problem is, Apple is (soon to be was) the least expensive and most practical way for hackers and programmers to get machines running PPC Linux. Without Apple making PPC machines, it seems to me that fewer people will be developing software for PPC Linux, at least if we're still discussing traditional PCs.

    (

  • It more than about IBM and money..Big loss for PPC (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @01:11PM (#13054965) Homepage
    The switch is a huge mindshare loss for PPC. While most people dont' care what processor is in there computer, it hurts the PPC in software development/ mindshare.

    its only a short matter of time (5 years I guess) before gcc and associated free software stuff is not ported to PPC. Linux will be much more expensive, if available at all. You will still be able to buy compilers from IBM/Freescale and development kits and the like, but for the home hobbiest the platform is dead. Nobody is buying POWER boxes from IBM to develop Linux on due to excessive cost.

    I work on HPUX which is a platform on the outs. Some gnu tools come our way, but not a lot compared to linux/freebsd/solaris. There are not a lot of HP pa-risc machines floating around that allow development testing and optimization to occur.

    Also I know a couple of folks working in the embeded space with PPC. Have a supply of workers that can get up to speed on PPC is much easier when you have a computer platform based on it.

  • console market means nothing long term (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrjatsun ( 543322 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @01:19PM (#13055071)
    PowerPC may be big for the next generation consoles, but that means nothing for the generation after that. Look what happened to the MIPS architecture which was used in some game consoles previously.. Look how easily Microsoft switch from intel x86 to PowerPC...


    IBM loosing Apple is more of a marketing shot to IBM that a $$ one. Now IBM is the only major company producing PowerPC based server/workstations. Not a good sign for the power architecture long term.

  • It might not hurt IBM but it hurts everyone else (Score:3, Insightful)

    by uprock_x ( 855650 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @01:20PM (#13055084) Homepage Journal
    I doubt Apple's move to Intel is particularly harmful to IBM either.

    But it does paint a bleak picture for the future in locking consumers into one architecture (x86) and this is an extremely dangerous and uncompetitive situation for consumers.

    Sure Apple are under no moral responsibility to keep using PPC to avert that outcome, but it hardly represents a step forward for choice.

    Whilst someone could theoretically put G5s into a new desktop PC and bundle Linux with it that doesn't seem a very likely outcome, and you have to wonder about IBM's appetite for continuing a line in PowerPCs suitable for a desktop machine when most of their stuff seems to be geared toward consoles these days.

    The repurcussions of Apple moving to Intel are, in a wider sense no joke and a very real. Quite frankly customers deserve better.
  • But an argument that "great, now IBM can focus on the future of non-PC computing" is silly. Apple has proven time and again that it is the leader in this space. Whatever the "non-PC future" will be, bet that Apple will have created, evolved or otherwise brought it to mass market, as they have with every other "commodity" technology today (USB, IEEE-1394, WiFi, DVI, etc.). By no longer being a part of that, IBM stands to miss out.

    Still, IBM isn't a powerhouse because it makes lots of chips. Rather, it u

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