Apple will switch to X86 processorsTalking to AMD tooBy Charlie Demerjian: Sunday 05 June 2005, 06:40THE RUMOURED APPLE MOVE to x86 is true, the INQUIRER has gotten independent confirmation of this. Prior to publication of this, sources had told the INQ that a switch was in the works. More importantly, they also said that Apple was playing the AMD card at full force, so don't be too surprised if a green logo shows up on some models.The Intel chips are almost assuredly going to start with a mobile part, probably Yonah, then on to Merom. Both use the same FSB technology, but Merom is faster so the switch will be a fairly painless one. The markets pointed out by CNet back up the idea that Yonah will start it all off, then Conroe and Woodcrest will take over. These sure are interesting times.
Jobs’ blueprint for success in the PC businessOpinion Microsoft and Dell look on. In alarm?By Jeff Lawson: Tuesday 07 June 2005, 15:55MAKE A NOTE of this date, Monday 6 June 2005. It may well become logged in the annals of commercial computing as a turning point for Microsoft and Dell.Microsoft, the company whose operating system software brings daily GUI crashes and folder locks. Dell, the company that proffers market-stall computers with all the glamour of dishwashers.Enter, Apple.IBM’s inability to deliver G5 PowerPC processors running at portable temperatures scuppered Apple’s G5 PowerBooks. With IBM’s semiconductor capacity soon to be thrown headlong into production of Cell processors for Sony PS3 and PowerPC processors for Microsoft XBox 360, Apple was compelled to look elsewhere for a reliable horsepower vendor.Enter, Intel.Microsoft’s alliance with AMD has brought high-calibre multi-core processors to the PC world and brought it discord with Intel. Intel is bracing itself for the announcement that its pre-eminent customer will be shipping AMD-based systems. Riding on the colossal Dell marketing machine, Athlons and Opterons will get the exposure that AMD would like to give them but cannot afford. In short, Dell is about to take AMD mainstream. Not that Dell particularly wants to lose its cosy relationship with Intel but it wants to lose customers to AMD vendors even less.The real action will come from Apple and Intel who are too savvy to let their long-standing differences prevent them collaborating in a new PC venture of gargantuan potential. Furthermore, Jobs won’t find the move to Intel quite so distasteful now that his nemesis, IBM, no longer manufactures PCs.Apple’s receipts from its 76% dominance of the MP3 market plus Intel’s cash mountain gives them the financial clout to take on Microsoft and Dell. Luckily for the Apple-Intel team, they have superior technology too. Granted, Intel’s latest processors are dogs but the main event is eighteen months out, when Microsoft ships Longhorn, so Intel have the interim to get their act together. The next revision of Mac OS X, named Leopard, will be launched then too. Expect to see games running on x86 Leopard as fast as on x86 Longhorn: no need for gamers to run Windows.In the meantime, Microsoft have the distraction of XBox 360 that will soak up cash in its futile battle against Sony’s PS3. PS3 not only has better hardware but is backward compatible with its predecessors. Dell has seen the writing on the wall and tried to pre-empt Apple by announcing, just a few days ago, its intent to produce upmarket PCs. Well, Dell, you can put lipstick on a pig but that won’t make it more appealing.On Monday, at the Apple developers’ conference, Steve Jobs demonstrated Mac OS X Tiger running on x86 hardware…without the audience realising that it wasn’t on a PowerPC! Later this month that same hardware will be in the hands of developers. Developers will also get tools to migrate their software to x86. Any software that, due to neglect, doesn’t make it will run on top of a binary translation layer just like the PowerPC version of Microsoft Office did on Monday. The transition is said to be quick and easy and Mathematica was cited as taking just a few hours to recompile with slight tweaks.Eighteen months and counting. Eighteen months and the choice will be simple: buy a solid operating system running on a PC designed by the coolest computer company ever or buy something of dubious ancestry out of a car boot. Time for fickle investors to repopulate stock portfolios. Time to think different!
