(no subject)

[symbioidlj]

If this is true, then great... Well, better if it were fucking AMD Opteron, but still...

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There has been speculation that Apple would eventually use Intel chips and the announcement on Monday does not chance that, Enderle said, adding that he still expected Apple to announce next year it will use Intel chips.

"I think chances are like 8 out of 10 they will go with Intel," Enderle said. "I know that he's (Jobs) been over at Intel an awful lot and Intel has been over with him quite a bit."
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This Enderle guy is a market analyst at Forrester market research firm... So he sees trends at least... I don't know, but I think it has to happen, if Apple is to focus on the OS... I just think their hardware thing is just a wrong approach. They can totally gain a shitload of market-share if they "switch" to x86 architecture(or IA-64 or Opteron/ClawHammer)... It's just market economics, volume = discount. Granted the fact that there is such an integration does mean that there is a bonus in terms of access to hardware, and ability to not worry too much about the hardware mish-mash that Windows has to deal with. But consumers, generally, want choice. Just my own 2...

Comments

[ziggurat.livejournal.com]

i disagree with this analyst, and your 2 cents strongly. for many many reasons.

if apple switched to x86 architecture, it would be the end for apple.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

ok... how 'bout at least this penny:

price your hardware competitively(yeah yeah... "oh, we're so much more powerful than a similarly clocked pentium" which I tend to think is just more blow-JOBS...) I'm sorry, but as great as the case designs are, and I'd pay a little extra, maybe a hundred bucks or two hundred for that.(which is really said, but if Lian-Li can get a shitload of money for their cases, so can Apple) But in terms of hardware? Lower prices to get market penetration.

Apple simply cannot survive without increasing percent of market. Let me retract that... They can, but it will be difficult. I was a hardcore supporter of apple(ok, not hardcore in terms of buying one, but it was too expensive then... hardcore in terms of disagreeing with all the analysts who claimed apple was marching to the grave.) I think the integration they have works. ipod itunes, etc...

Bah... gotta head to work... Maybe more later if you reply... Curious as to the rest of your thoughts, and more in detail on exactly WHY apple would be killed.

[ziggurat.livejournal.com]

lower prices to penetrate the market? they did that with the iMac iBook consumer line. it worked awesome, the iMac was the best selling computer of all time.

but they still make a lot of their money on their professional line. so you think a powermac is too expensive? get an iMac. easy. sure, with Dell, you have more choices, there are mid-level computers, yadda yadda yadda. apple just doesn t have enough market share to develop more levels.

apple makes all of their money on hardware. they are a hardware company. you seem to be suggesting that they become a software company? and start selling OSX for PCs? well, i don t know if you know this, but microsoft has an illegal monopoly on the PC OS. apple tried selling their OS to Dell once, and Dell wouldn t take it. MS did not allow it.

but suppose apple decided that it did get a contract with some PC developers, and wanted to go head to head with microsoft. they would get killed by microsoft! here s why:

1. they wouldn t make any money on hardware, because who would buy an apple computer when they could just buy the OS and roll it on a cheap ass clone


2. the OS would suffer, because it takes a vast amount of resources to support to support the truly enormous range of PC hardware. right now, hardware vendors release drivers for MS only. what incentive would they have to release drivers for MacOS? they certainly don t release drivers for linux, and that currently has a comparable market share.


3. developers would leave in droves. do you know that apple switched processors once already? they switched from the moto 68k to the AIM (apple/IBM/motorola) PPC processor. that migration took years, and required all developers to rewrite their software. then, 4 yrs later, they switched the OS from old yellowbox to NeXT (OSX). again, all developers had to rewrite their apps. it takes a lot of resources for Adobe to rewrite photoshop every 4 yrs, and they are not happy about it; they drag their feet hardcore. if you were adobe, would you really want to invest that much in rewriting your apps for a new platform that only has 5% market share? and as we all know from BeOS, no applications is a death-blow. this is not speculation. apple tried to test the developers when they switched to rhapsody, and the developers refused to follow. it simply wasn t worth their time. if apple switches to intel, they are dead.


4. all legacy software stops working. apple currently has supoprt for legacy software (the developers insisted on this. see above)


5. x86 means no more 64 bit computing.


6. apple just spent billions on the PPC 970. does this imply a switch to you?


7. and lastly, even if IBM hadn t pulled through, and moto scraps their fab (which might still happen), and Apple were forced to move to intel, despite all the powerful reasons not to, you seem to be under the impression that they will start making an OS for Dell computers. if they do switch the processor, it will not, under any circumstances, imply that they are going to release MacOS for PC clones. it will certainly still be apple hardware for the reasons listed above. remember, apple has tried all these routes before.

this issue gets debated on the forums and on slashdot all the time. no offense or anything, but the consensus is that the analysts who predict a switch to PC hardware are about as ignorant about how apple works as possible.

apple wants to increase market share, but not by becoming a software company. they want to do it on their own terms. and apple has been investing heavily in hardware development, and shows no signs of slowing.

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

This analyst is on drugs. Did you watch the WWDC keynote? Apple is basically sucking IBM's dick the whole time. They just dumped $3 Billion into an IBM fab in NY run entirely by robots for christ sake! There's no way in hell Apple is switching to Intel or AMD.

But lets just say they did. You won't be able to build your own Macs anyway, because apple will control the hardware still. They'll surely still use their proprietary mobo's, and sell hardware like they always have. They're a hardware company. They use their software to leverage the hardware. And the prices would be the same.

If for some stupid reason Apple actually let you use off the shelf components, forget it, talk about the nail in the coffin for Apple. Then you get 50 million hardware conflicts, and you lose the very thing that sets Apple apart. Apple software is so good because it has one common platform to run everything on. Take that away and nothing works properly. Not to meantion the fact that Intel or AMD would have to build an entire new chip for Apple since neither IA-64 or Opteron have Altivec built in. And of course that will cost you extra.

And are Mac's really that much more expensive? Sure if you're buying the cheapest of the cheap parts to put your own shit together maybe, but they're using quality parts. There's a reason Macs last twice as long as PC's do. Go watch the Keynote. The G5 smokes a dual 3ghz Xeon by twice as much in 5 different real world apps. Of course it's probably somewhat rigged to Apple's favor, but at the very least it's caught up at this point. Oh, and that Xeon cost $4000 vs $3000 for the G5.

Besides it's not about marketshare. Last I checked, BMW and Mercedes don't have a big a marketshare as Ford or Chevy but they're doing pretty well. Apple is the only computer company that has consistantly turned profits in this economy. I think that says a lot as to how well they actually are doing.