more on Opinions Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips rumor on CNet
Begin forwarded message:
From: Paul Holman <pablos@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 4, 2005 3:42:31 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Ip ip <ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: more on Opinions Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to
Intel chips rumor on CNet
On Jun 4, 2005, at 11:11 AM, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Matt Clauson <mec@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 4, 2005 11:32:29 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Opinions Re: [IP] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel
chips rumor on CNet
On Jun 4, 2005, at 6:39 AM, David Farber wrote:
http://news.com.com/2102-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=st.util.print
I have significant doubts that Apple as a corporation is stupid
enough to shoot themselves in the foot like this. Anyone who
follows the more hardcore tech rags, or even a news aggregator like
Slashdot, will remember the recent PearPC/CherryOS debacle, where
the specifics of emulation of grossly different hardware (in this
case, the PowerPC CPU architecture on the Intel x86 platform) can
have massively horrible results in performance. In this case, it's
allegedly due to the horribly different CPU designs, including
instruction sets and number of registers between the two
architectures. Apparently the reverse type of emulation (x86
emulation on PPC architecture) doesn't have as many problems.
The major question to ask is what will Apple's user base do if this
switch happens? A lot of current (and theoretically non-legacy)
applications will have to run under the emulation, significantly
impairing performance. Does Apple expect that the users will shell
out hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars to upgrade their
applications to something that will run natively on the new
platform? What about the thousands of dollars in man-hours for
third-party software vendors (like Adobe) to port their products to
OSX/Intel platforms? While users pay a premium for Apple hardware
currently (and I'll admit, I've been bitten by the bug recently and
am beginning my own conversion after over a decade of almost-rabid
Linux usage) that premium is usually well justified in the elegance
and performance of the hardware, especially the past few years
under OSX. Does Apple really expect their users to end up paying
thousands of dollars to switch to what seems to me like a
computationally inferior platform?
I pray that they don't, for this would almost be a form of
corporate seppuku if they do.
--mec
While I'm a big fan of the PowerPC, I think it is rash to conclude
that Apple is going to "shoot themselves in the foot" with a move to
Intel processors. It should be recalled that Apple did a
surprisingly smooth job of transitioning from 680x0 procs to PowerPC
when there was a lot less performance margin to smooth things over.
From a user's perspective it was painless. For most developers that
was also true. More importantly, the Next operating system (through
various names and stages) ran on 680x0, PowerPC, Intel, HP PA/RISC &
SPARC architectures. The development environment Apple is using (now
called Cocoa) is what Next used to support the deployment of
applications on those systems in addition to running on other
operating systems - Windows, Solaris, HP/UX. A surprising amount of
this technology is already in MacOS X. Given another year or so to
work on it, I have little doubt that Apple can make it very easy for
most developers to support the new architecture, and nearly
transparent for the user.
Beyond that, this is a kingpin in getting Apple the economies of
scale that Wintel hardware vendors have on processors. This can do a
lot to make it practical for Apple to be price competitive on an
ongoing basis. That price gap is always one of the top reasons for
the Mac being ruled out in hardware purchasing decisions.
Far from seppuku in my opinion.
pablos.
--
Paul Holman
The Shmoo Group
pablos@xxxxxxxxx
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