Apple to Intel? My Prediction...
June 06, 2005 @ 01:57 AMWell, as most of you probably know the Apple switching to Intel CPUs rumor has been running rampant over The Internets the last few days. I have been unusually silent about the subject on this blog, largely because I have no information to add, and we still really don’t know what’s going to happen.
Well, with 12 minutes before the keynote, people are flooding into the conference hall (shout out to MacRumors live streaming). I would like to take this time to make a prediction.
My prediction: Apple WILL go to Intel chips, but it will not be x86. PowerPC advocates have spent the last decade laughing at the inadequacies of the x86 architecture compared to PowerPC’s, it would seem almost silly to jump to it now. That laughing has been continually stifled, however, by the PowerPC gang’s inability to remain competitive in price/performance with the x86 gang. And given IBM’s “betrayal” of Apple over the last year, Steve Jobs no doubt would like to get off that bandwagon, and views now as the best opportunity. Apple’s revenues and mindshare are higher than ever, and any bumps in the road relating to a transition will likely be forgiven by the market.
So - you ask - if it won’t be x86, what will it be?? How about Itanium? I don’t know all the details admittedly, but the way I’ve heard it, Itanium was Intel’s “next-generation” chip, primarily for servers and workstations.. in other words, it’s a powerful sonofabitch. The problem is the Wintel world has so far rejected it due to the need to rewrite or recompile software to take advantage of the chip. But Intel still believes in it, and likely would LOVE to score a major customer win for Itanium. Enter Apple. Never ordinary, and unafraid of massive changes (one of the advantages of controlling the hardware and software aspects of your market)... I’m guessing Apple offered to switch to Itanium. They get to give the collective finger to IBM; Intel will hypothetically remain MUCH more price/performance competitive with… well, itself; and Apple can still claim to be on a superior architecture to x86—a claim that would be supported by the x86-king itself, Intel.
I could be completely wrong, but that’s my prediction. Now, if you’ll excuse me, 3 minutes to go and the lights are dimming in the conference hall.