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Author Topic: Apple Moves to Intel.  (Read 4122 times)

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Offline RandomDude18

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« on: June 06, 2005, 11:35:33 am »
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NEW YORK - Mark your calendars. Today is the day that Apple Computer killed the Mac as we've known it.

Today, Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) confirmed reports that it will shift away from using chips from IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) and Freescale Semiconductor (nyse: FSL - news - people ) With the confirmation of the change, Apple is embarking on a transition that could well hurt its computer sales between now and 2007, frustrate software developers and ultimately drive loyal customers away from the platform. The news came in a speech by Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs at a software developers' conference in San Francisco.

Switching to Intel may not even save Apple money. "IBM has been losing money in its semiconductor business," says Shaw Wu, analyst at American Technology Research in San Francisco. "IBM has given Apple very good price points. I don't think Apple can get a better price from Intel than its getting from IBM. The prices at IBM have been competitive with Intel's prices, because they have had to be."

Indeed, since Apple accounts for less than 3% of annual PC sales, it will have a hard time competing for Intel's attention from the likes of Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ) and Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ).

"Every time Apple tries to make a transition like this, many people simply decide it's not worth the effort to try and keep up," says Nathan Brookwood, analyst with Insight64, Saratoga, Calif. "The companies behind the PC platform have paid a lot of attention to stability and backward compatibility than Apple has."

More immediately, by announcing a transition that is going to take place during 2006 and into 2007, Apple can't help but hurt its computer sales during the transition period. In its two most-recent quarters, Apple's computer sales have accounted for about 46%

Since Mac users are habitual upgraders, many of its traditional customers will put off purchases until the new Intel-based systems are on the market. This wariness has happened during previous transitions on the Mac platform, when Apple was shifting away from its established Mac OS 9 platform toward the newer Mac OS X. During that period, customers shied away from buying new systems in part because many important software applications weren't available for OS X, in part because the new operating system software wasn't fully baked.

"There is a risk of a buying freeze among established customers and new potential customers," Wu says.

Then, there's the questions of the developers of the software that has made the Mac the computer-of-choice for so many devoted users--especially designers, videographers and everyone for whom style is as important as substance. Still, many are reserving judgment.

"It can be a big deal," says Adam Fingerman, director of Mac software development at Roxio, a unit of Sonic Solutions (nasdaq: SNIC - news - people ), whose products include the Toast line of CD and DVD burning software. "I'd like to believe that Apple has thought all of this out and will make the transition as easy for developers as possible. Apple has already pushed developers through a series of transitions."

Apple certainly has the cash to withstand the hit to its sales over the course of a year. It had about $3 billion in cash and cash equivalents, plus another $2.5 billion in short-term investments at the end of the quarter ended March 26. Plus, there's also the iPod business.

But the iPod is turning out to be more of a seasonal cash cow. The music player accounted for nearly 35% of sales in the first quarter of 2005, which included the holiday season. While iPod sales were higher by volume in the second quarter, they accounted for a smaller percentage of the overall sales. Apple sold 5.3 million iPods in the quarter for more than $1 billion or 31% of revenue.

It's also not clear how healthy Apple's iPod sales are in the current quarter. Reports last week suggested Apple's sales channel was full of unsold iPod units, which would indicate sales aren't really growing at the rate anticipated. Still, new models of the iPod Shuffle and the main hard-drive based iPods were unveiled during the Jobs keynote today.

Source: Googlenews.
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Offline partiallynothing

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2005, 12:26:38 pm »
Both engadget and slashdot had similar reports.  Interesting move.
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Offline SizzlinSean

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2005, 12:45:40 pm »
Hmm... I don't like IBM anyways, so Intel is a move upwards from my point of view.
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Offline Rocko

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2005, 01:05:27 pm »
If Apple wanted to switch to a x86 processer, they could have atleast gone with AMD. If I can run OS X on something than an Apple made machine I'll get a homemade computer with AMD.
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Offline Isnt Anything

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2005, 01:06:58 pm »
Hmmm. If Intel has both the business of Mac and PC will there still be other processors around? Dont most PCs (if not all) use Intel?
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Offline AppleNick

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2005, 08:23:31 am »
Strange. I don't really see why they made the move.
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Offline RandomDude18

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2005, 08:42:35 am »
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Hmmm. If Intel has both the business of Mac and PC will there still be other processors around? Dont most PCs (if not all) use Intel?
[snapback]188041[/snapback]
No, alot of PCs use AMDs as well like mine.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2005, 08:42:43 am by Red Hat »
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Offline partiallynothing

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2005, 09:11:50 am »
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Strange. I don't really see why they made the move.
IBM was having terrible difficulty in reaching the 3GHz mark; the PowerPC architecture also proved to be very hot.  Also, IBM could not supply the number of units Apple wanted.  This was a long time in the coming.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2005, 09:12:13 am by partiallynothing »
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Offline Rocko

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2005, 10:43:02 am »
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Strange. I don't really see why they made the move.
IBM was having terrible difficulty in reaching the 3GHz mark; the PowerPC architecture also proved to be very hot.  Also, IBM could not supply the number of units Apple wanted.  This was a long time in the coming.
[snapback]188407[/snapback]
Jobs said Apple should have had reached 3GHZ a year ago. That's when it was promised, and IBM didn't deliver. But it's still not as bad when Motorolla had the G4 stuck at 500 MHZ for over a year.
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Offline RandomDude18

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2005, 12:04:23 pm »
I'm kinda confused if there gonna use Xeons or P4s.
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Offline IZ

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2005, 01:55:22 pm »
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Quote
Hmmm. If Intel has both the business of Mac and PC will there still be other processors around? Dont most PCs (if not all) use Intel?
[snapback]188041[/snapback]
No, alot of PCs use AMDs as well like mine.
[snapback]188401[/snapback]

Most PCs use Intel.
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timstapels

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2005, 02:25:31 pm »
This was a long time coming, good on Apple in my opinion.
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Offline cmonkey

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2005, 03:43:22 pm »
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Strange. I don't really see why they made the move.
IBM was having terrible difficulty in reaching the 3GHz mark; the PowerPC architecture also proved to be very hot.  Also, IBM could not supply the number of units Apple wanted.  This was a long time in the coming.
[snapback]188407[/snapback]
Sort of strange, since the IBM-produced Xbox 360 CPU has 3 3.2 ghz cores.
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Offline IceFox

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Apple Moves to Intel.
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2005, 05:39:22 pm »
Now that you think of that, that is starnge,. If IBM made eight core proccesers for the 360, each at at CPU of its ghz, then that is quite starnge and odd how they never made ONE for Mac.


This is a good thing for Mac. That new OSX(I forgot which one it was though) isnt half bad of what ive heard.
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