Question 2: What happened to Apple's 64-bit operating system?

OS X 10.4 -- Tiger -- is a 64-bit OS, remember, yet Intel's 64-bit chips -- Xeon and Itanium -- are high buck items aimed at servers, not iMacs. So is Intel going to do a cheaper Itanium for Apple or is Apple going to pretend that 64-bit never existed? Yes to both is my guess, which explains why the word "Pentium" was hardly used in the Jobs presentation. Certainly, he never said WHICH Intel chip they'd be using, just mentioning an unnamed 3.6-Ghz development system -- a system which apparently doesn't benchmark very well, either (it's in the links).

Question 3: Where the heck is AMD?

If Apple is willing to embrace the Intel architecture because of its performance and low power consumption, then why not go with AMD, which equals Intel's power specs, EXCEEDS Intel's performance specs AND does so at a lower price point across the board? Apple and AMD makes far more sense than Apple and Intel any day.

Then what is the driving force?

Microsoft.

The vaunted Intel roadmap is nice, but no nicer than the AMD roadmap, and nothing that IBM couldn't have matched. If Apple was willing to consider a processor switch, moving to the Cell Processor would have made much more sense than going to Intel or AMD, so I simply have to conclude that technology has nothing at all to do with this decision. This is simply about business -- BIG business.

Another clue comes from HP, where a rumor is going around that HP selling iPods could turn into HP becoming an Apple hardware partner for personal computers, too.

Microsoft comes into this because Intel hates Microsoft. It hasn't always been that way, but in recent years Microsoft has abused its relationship with Intel and used AMD as a cudgel against Intel. Even worse, from Intel's standpoint Microsoft doesn't work hard enough to challenge its hardware. For Intel to keep growing, people have to replace their PCs more often and Microsoft's bloatware strategy just isn't making that happen, especially if they keep delaying Longhorn.

Intel is fed up with Microsoft. Microsoft has no innovation that drives what Intel must have, which is a use for more processing power. And when they did have one with the Xbox, they went elsewhere.

This scenario works well for everyone except Microsoft. If Intel was able to own the Mac OS and make it available to all the OEMs, it could break the back of Microsoft. And if they tuned the OS to take advantage of unique features that only Intel had, they would put AMD back in the box, too. Apple could return Intel to its traditional role of being where all the value was in the PC world. And Apple/Intel could easily extend this to the consumer electronics world. How much would it cost Intel to buy Apple? Not much. And if they paid in stock it would cost nothing at all since investors would drive shares through the roof on a huge swell of user enthusiasm.

That's the story as I see it unfolding. Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates. And with the sale of Apple to Intel, Steve accepts the position of CEO of the Pixar/Disney/Sony Media Company.

What's really behind Apple-Intel alliance?

By John Markoff

Story last modified Sat Jun 11 11:20:00 PDT 2005


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SAN FRANCISCO--Nearly a quarter-century ago, Apple Computer ran a snarky ad after its onetime rival encroached on its territory: "Welcome, IBM. Seriously." This week, however, Steven Jobs had a different message for Big Blue, which had since become a chief ally: "Goodbye. Seriously."

Jobs, 50, a co-founder of Apple, is famously brash and mercurial. Even so, the Apple faithful--not to mention IBM itself--were caught by surprise by Apple's decision to end its 14-year relationship with IBM and team with Intel for its computer chip needs.

The buzz that began Monday among developers, bloggers, analysts and Apple followers trying to guess Jobs' true designs has not let up. After all, Jobs is a legend in no small part because he defied the monster combination that is Wintel--as the digerati call the Windows and Intel alliance--and lived to talk about it.

Apple's decision in the 1980s to use a different chip from the one put in most personal computers "fit in with the idea of Think Different," Stephen Wozniak, who founded Apple with Jobs in 1976, said in an e-mail exchange. "So it's hard for some people to accept this switch."

So what could a Macintel possibly hope to accomplish?

Potentially, quite a lot. In striking the deal, Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has opened a range of tantalizing new options for his quirky company.

Many people in the industry believe that Jobs is racing quietly toward a direct challenge to Microsoft and Sony in the market for digital entertainment gear for the living room. Indeed, Sony's top executives had tried to persuade Jobs to adopt a chip that IBM has been developing for the next-generation Sony PlayStation.

An Intel processor inside a Macintosh could put the vast library of Windows-based games and software programs within the reach of Mac users--at least those who are willing to run a second operating system on their computers.

Moreover, having Intel Inside might solve an important perception problem that has long plagued Apple in its effort to convert consumers who are attracted to the company's industrial design, but who have stayed away because the computers do not run Windows programs.

There is an immediate risk in the tie-up with Intel, however: Jobs could soon find himself trapped if his best customers stop buying IBM-based Macintoshes while they wait for more powerful Intel-based systems, which are likely to begin arriving in January 2006.

Complete coverage
Apple's new core
Read all of News.com's stories on Apple's dramatic decision to switch to Intel processors.
"There is going to be a long wait," said Mark Stahlman, a Wall Street analyst at Caris & Company. The power-conserving 64-bit Intel chips that Apple is counting on to rejuvenate its laptop products will not be available until early 2007, he pointed out.

In an interview, Jobs rejected the notion that Apple might suffer from what is known as the "Osborne Effect," a term that describes the fate of the computer pioneer Adam Osborne whose firm went bankrupt when he announced a successor to his pioneering portable computer before it was available.

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Jobs talked of a transition that would appear almost seamless to customers. "As we look ahead we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you and we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map," he said.

How the deal came to be
Nothing was seamless about how the deal with Intel came together.

Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and IBM said that Jobs waited until the last moment--3 p.m. on Friday, June 4--to inform Big Blue. Those executives said that IBM had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks.

Each side disputes what led to the breakup. People close to IBM said pricing was a central issue, while Jobs insisted on stage Monday that IBM had failed to meet promised performance measures.

On stage, Jobs noted that he had promised both a 3-GHz Macintosh as well as a more powerful PowerPC-based portable computer, promises that he had not been able to deliver.

In the end, Jobs was given no choice but to move his business to Intel, when IBM executives said that without additional Apple investment they were unwilling to pursue the faster and lower-power chips he badly needs for his laptop business.

"Technical issues were secondary to the business issues," said an executive close to the IBM side of the negotiations. Because the business was not profitable, IBM "decided not to continue to go ahead with the product road map."

But Jobs disputed this assessment, simply stating that IBM had failed to meet its technology road map. The issues in the end, he said, came down to speed and the absence of a chip that consumed less electricity than traditional processors designed for PC's.

"As soon as I heard Steve say that the factor where Intel's road map was superior was processing power per (watt) I knew right away that it was exactly what I have been reading and saying and so have many others, that this is the real key to the future of high performance computers," Wozniak wrote.

As it happens, Intel's was not the only alternative chip design that Apple had explored for the Mac. An executive close to Sony said that last year Jobs met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, then the chairman and chief executive of the Japanese consumer electronics firm, and with Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation.

Kutaragi tried to interest Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by IBM for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.
Now that Jobs has broken with IBM, however, Apple is free to pursue a potentially intriguing consumer electronics strategy with Intel.

Now that Jobs has broken with IBM, however, Apple is free to pursue a potentially intriguing consumer electronics strategy with Intel.

Intel has been looking for ways to get its chips into devices that can compete with game consoles as living-room entertainment hubs. In fact, all three next-generation video game machines made by Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are based on IBM chips. And analysts say that both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3, scheduled to arrive next spring, will be positioned as home media hubs in addition to being video game machines--and priced far lower than the Intel-powered, Windows Media Center PC's that are also aimed at the living room.

Should the new consoles find wide acceptance as broad-based entertainment engines, Intel will need to respond--and one attractive alternative would be an inexpensive Macintosh Mini based on an Intel processor, able to run the vast library of PC games.

Before he can set his sights on that new market, Jobs faces the task of shoring up his base, his customers and developers. On Monday, he made the case to the software designers who must be willing to rewrite their software for the new Macintel world.

"The reason people buy Mac is the software, and I think the real fun is yet to come," said Scott Love, the president of AquaMinds, a software concern in Palo Alto that sells a Macintosh program called NoteTaker used by writers, researchers and students. "We'll be able to develop a program that will just work on both IBM and Intel-based computers."

Even more important will be Jobs' ability to persuade the Macintosh faithful to join him in his journey from IBM to Intel. That is where he has an advantage over virtually every other executive.

"He is still committed to the idea of an Apple culture," said Peter Schwartz, the co-founder and chairman of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm in Emeryville, Calif. "It is the counterculture to the dominant Windows culture."

Indeed, Jobs has always set himself apart from other corporate executives. After all, which other American business executive would have thought to name the holding company for his executive jet airplane "Marmalade Skies"?

Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York for this article.

Entire contents, Copyright © 2005 The New York Times. All rights reserved.

'Mactel' Desktops May Offer Triple-Threat OS
June 15, 2005
By John G. Spooner
Apple won't stand in the way of people who want to run Windows on its forthcoming Intel-processor Macs. But whether or not users will be able to run Windows directly on the machines is still a mystery.

Apple Computer Inc. last week announced plans to begin selling computers based on Intel Corp. processors by June 2006. ADVERTISEMENT

While Apple developers initially looked upon Apple's choice to move to Intel processors with mixed feelings, the ability of the new Macs to also run Windows—a practice long since adopted by some Mac users who run virtualization software such as Microsoft Virtual PC—may be the fulcrum for the company to gain some new customers, ranging from computer enthusiasts to businesses.

So far Apple hasn't discouraged the idea of running Windows on its forthcoming Intel gear. Meanwhile, Microsoft, sources familiar with the company's plans said, is considering how and whether to support Windows on the forthcoming Apple hardware as well.

Although it has no plans to license its OS X to other PC makers, such as Dell Inc., Apple will not prevent Windows and applications that run on the operating system from working on its future Intel-based Macs, company executives said.

That raises the possibility of companies or individuals creating dual-boot Mac OS/Windows machines in the future. However, many of the details of what it will take to allow Windows to operate directly on "Mactel" hardware, including Apple's specific choices of Intel hardware and its software driver model, are still shrouded in secrecy.

"Apple doesn't plan to sell or support Windows," said Brian Croll, Apple's director of software product marketing, during an interview at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference last week. But, he said, "We're not planning anything on the hardware side that would preclude it from running."

Croll declined to elaborate on Apple's Mactel hardware or software plans.

"The focus right now is [on letting] our developers understand that they have to develop universal binaries" that work for PowerPC and Intel chips, he said.

Apple is expected to start by using Intel's Pentium M chip, and to use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) versus a standard BIOS for waking up its processor and other hardware bits. But it has yet to detail whether it will use off-the-shelf Intel processors and chip sets or take another route.

Right now, the company uses standard IBM PowerPC 970FX chips and designs its own chip sets for them, analysts say. Having details on Intel's hardware plans in hand, along with details on the software drivers for the systems, will be vital to getting Windows to run natively on Mactel hardware.

Read more here about why Apple is expected to use Intel's Pentium M chip in its new computers.

Running Windows as "a primary OS on [Mac/Intel] hardware is going to require OS support at the driver level. There may or may not be BIOS issues and that sort of thing," said Dean McCarron, analyst with Mercury Research. "Going off the assumption that the [Intel] Mac hardware is not a PC—that it's their own layout hardware-wise—in order to make Windows run on that, it's going to have to have the appropriate drivers."

This means that supporting Windows on Mactel would require Microsoft Corp. or others to gain in-depth knowledge of the Apple hardware, McCarron said. Apple would have to weigh the potential benefits of making its machines somewhat more attractive versus risking helping people who seek to use Mac OS X on other hardware.

Microsoft executives have already conducted internal meetings on what Apple's move to Intel could mean. Microsoft's thinking, according to sources familiar with its plans, is although Apple faces the potential for an initial dip in shipments following its processor switch, it ultimately could recover to gain a couple points in market share.

Thus it would seem like a simple decision for Microsoft to support Windows running natively on Apple hardware, given the software giant's interest in boosting Windows' market share. But there are several potential hang-ups, sources familiar with the company's plans said. If Apple uses non-standard hardware, such as chip sets or unique software drivers, it might not be cost-effective for the software giant to support Windows for Intel-based Mac, the sources said.

Indeed, Apple "could opt to make it (legally) impossible (through hardware or licensing, for example) to run Windows natively on their Intel hardware," said Peter O'Kelly, an analyst with Burton Group, in an e-mail. "I think that would ultimately be perverse and counterproductive, but weirder things have happened. Perhaps it will end up being passive support, as Sun has done with their Windows Certified servers—but for which Sun won't directly sell Windows Server."

Even if full hardware support isn't offered, there's a fallback position for more enterprising Mactel owners. Virtualization technology built into Intel chips—desktop Pentium 4 chips will sport built-in virtualization this year and the Pentium Ms will gain it next—will allow the machines to be partitioned to run numerous different types of software at the same time. Thus, there is no reason the machines couldn't run Windows or Linux and all of the associated applications on top of Mac OS X.

Click here to read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' commentary arguing that Apple's Intel move threatens Linux and Longhorn desktops.

"In theory, you could run Windows on top of Mac OS, which is how it works on Mac today with Virtual PC," McCarron said. "The difference is, with hardware virtualization, you'd be running at almost full speed. By and large you'd end up with a full-speed virtual system."

Although it's unlikely that an individual or a business would buy an Intel-based Mac and wipe its operating system just to install Windows, the capability could woo enthusiasts who might prefer Apple's designs but still want to run Windows. It could also make it easier for others, such as educational institutions, government agencies, and small and midsize businesses, to choose Apple hardware.

The company has shipped about 3 million Macs in the last few years—it shipped nearly 3.3 million units in its fiscal year 2004, according to its annual report—so even a small increase could boost its fortunes.

"The enthusiast will buy it because it's Apple," said Leslie Fiering, an analyst at Gartner Inc. However, "We think there will be a small cottage industry on hacking [Apple hardware] to run Windows on it," she said.

But, even with Windows on board, don't count on an upswing of sales to big business, Fiering said.

"Apple has been pretty explicit in saying that it's not going to invest in supporting businesses [by offering things like PC life-cycle management]," she said. "It's just not going to do it."

Editor's Note: Mary Jo Foley and David Morgenstern provided additional reporting for this story