Apple, Scully, And Intel vs. Motorola 434
fsharp writes "I've heard too many comments suggesting that Apple should have moved to Intel (x86). The Register has an article exploring John Scully's recent comments about his failure to move the Mac to x86. Scully critiques his decisions based entirely on hindsight, and in doing so, identifies Dell as a the chief competitor and the way Apple could have slayed this evil dragon would have been to move to Intel early on in his tenure. Not so fast. Hindsight can be 20/20, however it can also be quite myopic if one suffers from selective memory. The article does a good job of examining the options available at the time when Apple rewrote the MacOS for the Intel x86. How safe a bet or great a risk would it have been for Apple to switch, given the quality of chips offered (at that time) from Intel?"
Hindsight (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hindsight (Score:5, Insightful)
1) OS X runs on commodity x86 hardware. Apple's hardware sales get eaten alive by Dell's ability to build machines in mass and cheaply. Then Apple is forced to survive as a software company on the sales of an OS squaring off with the 800 lbs gorilla of marketshare, Windows. Don't get me wrong, OS X is my baby, but the sheer numbers and monopolistic presence of Microsoft would make me very wary of the outcome.
2) OS X runs only on Apple-made x86 boxes. After doing a magnificent job of figuring out how to stick two G5s in a PowerMac, Apple engineers get to throw that all out the window and do it with Xeons or Athlons. Not to mention the aforementioned porting done by developers. And the pissing off of customers who now have incompatible software. All this for what, a chance at a slight speed increase? Depending on which benchmarks you believe, the G5 is either just below, on par with, or just above high-end x86 systems. You are telling me Apple should go through all this hassle for what's going to end up being unnoticeable in the end?
Maybe if you had suggested this in late 2000 when Motorola was beginning to show how they were going to fuck up G4 production in the future but before OS X was released, you might have had a case. But right now, things are looking the best they have in a very long time for Apple. Switching to x86 would be just about the dumbest move possible.
Re:Hindsight (Score:2)
Apple has been able to maintain a seperate and focused market (now becoming a bit less-focused, but not to the point of a Sun-like mess) quite successfully and with moves like the G5, there don't seem to be any push for them to exert time and effort in changing architectures and trying to dip the
Re:Hindsight (Score:3, Interesting)
Motorola didn't 'fuck' Apple, Jobs screwed Moto (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me channel text from Apple Recon from that period:
Jobs had a meeting at Motorola. Topic of discussion was the 'working relationship'.
Jobs had cancelled the Mac clones. This meant that Motorola has lost 87 million dollars directly in the shutdown of the clone line. In addition to screwing up the %age of PPC chips that would be produced and put into general purpose computers.
Instead of th
Re:Hindsight (Score:2)
Their involvement with KDE is pretty much limited to KDE's libraries, like it's html and javascript libraries, which Apple uses in OSX.
As for the rest of KDE, the rest is almost in competition with OSX.
Re:Hindsight (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay Mr Harvard MBA or what ever you are... out of interest what was the last billion dollar company you founded.
Look at the companies that DON'T exist right now that went intel back then, and you can include IBM's desktop OS division in that, and say that it was wrong then.
And now explain why dilluting the market would be a good idea, why creating incompatible OS X release would strengthen their brand.
Or is it just that you want to play on that "cool" OS X but can't afford/be arsed to buy a Mac ?
Re:Hindsight (Score:2)
Apple for x86! (Score:4, Interesting)
All the Apps are there
Itunes = JuK
Safari = Konqueror
Finder = Konqueror
Dock = Kicker
Menubar = Kicker
bbedit = Kate
Quicktime = Kmplayer!
Appleworks = Koffice!
Re:Apple for x86! (Score:2, Insightful)
And what would be your analogue for Poisoned?
It is really neat you can do all this with KDE, that's really a kind of a very "basic user" sort of configuration. When I am in my OS X, I tend to be using the set of apps you mention. However, I also tend to always have open ProjectBuilder, to code Cocoa apps in, and Logic Audio. While there is GNUStep to satiate my coding needs, I don't think GIMP or Soundforge can be thought of as dr
Re:Apple for x86! (Score:2)
Probably Apollon [sourceforge.net].. both of them use giFT after all.
I'm sorry... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hail to the thief, indeed.
Re:I'm sorry... (Score:2)
Well, it used to anyway. Someone at Apple smoked too much crack though and decided a Brushed-metal Java-esque theme from 1997 was preferable to Aqua. As a MacOS X user I am NOT happy with the way their newer apps like Safari look. I love the Aqua interface, but brush metal is so fucking dated.
Re:Apple for x86! (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? How well does it handle smart playlist synchronization with your iPod = KPod?
Re:Apple for x86! (Score:3, Funny)
Not as good as zsh though or Zmodem.
Troc
Apple's "mistakes" (Score:2, Interesting)
Look at what was available (Score:5, Interesting)
Using an alternative archetecture has also allowed Apple to hold on to its uniqueness, which has in turn guarded it somewhat from fierce comparison to the x86 crowd.
No-one in the PC business saw Dell coming, if Apple had been just another x86 vendor with a nice OS they would be facing the same problems as HP, Compaq etc did when confronted by Dell's better supply chain model.
I think that Sculley is being remarkably revisionist in his views. The article points out a lot of the folly in his musings.
The G5 and the relationship with IBM is more than enough to now justify the choie of the PPC architecture.
Re:Look at what was available (Score:3, Insightful)
No-one in the PC business saw Dell coming
I think this point cannot be emphasized enough... I think anyone out there who says "oh we could have been Dell" is talking rubbish.
About the only people who were close to what Dell was, was/is Gateway, and they're not anywhere as powerful as Dell is now...
Re:Look at what was available (Score:2, Insightful)
The (ppc) future looks bright too (Score:3, Interesting)
not to mention that the G5 now beats the penitiums in every area: raw cpu perfromance, vector processing, wide data busses, and hyper transport. Plus its loping along at a mere 2Ghz and a rather small chip area while the x86 techno
Ridiculous article (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all so one-sided. Let's all talk instead about what would have happened, had Apple switched to the X86 architecture, shall we?
I think Apple would have lost control of their hardware, lost control of the drivers, and would be forced to give up, as their share of the marketplace dwindled. I think that without complete control over the peripherals, Apple would have had to negotiate with each hardware vendor, somehow coercing them into providing two driver sets, or making some sort of intermediary bytecode-like driver. Apple would slowly become Windows compatible. Windows would slowly evolve to run Mac software. Then Mac would be history, failing to compete in the price category. Apple would have to do just as much work as MS, but would sell 1/4 or less the number of copies. After a while we would have seen a true monopoly instead of a near-monopoly.
Discuss.
Re:Ridiculous article (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're spot on.
There's an exceptional counter-argument to Sculley's regret over at El Reg, entitled "Sculley explains how he missed the chance to trash Apple [theregister.co.uk]". I think that pretty much sums it up.
-- james
Re:Ridiculous article (Score:2)
I assumed (mistakenly) that the article link was to the original interview. It is not, instead to the Reg's follow up.
So instead here is the original interview [com.com] over on CNet which the Reg article is based on.
Re:Ridiculous article (Score:2)
of course, if they just kept it to themselfs, and _their_ x86 machines, they could have the needed control for everything to work like they do on macs now, and get around such (monopolistic bully) practices of ms(but then, what's the point of turning to x86 if you sell just machines 'set to stone', and push the os along that? cheap cpu power? i guess, it wouldn't d
If it's gonna, now's the time (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever they decide, with the Windows world stalled until 2006, now's the time for the *NIX based solutions to make hay, whatever their CPU architecture of choice...
Re:If it's gonna, now's the time (Score:2)
Re:If it's gonna, now's the time (Score:2)
How certain are you that the way computing goes in the next few years will favor the Intel approach versus the IBM approach?
what about iPod/iTunes? (Score:2)
Replacing Windows with OS X is a big change for any computer user. Adding an iPod and iTunes to Windows is much, much easier. They don't have to beat Micros
Re:If it's gonna, now's the time (Score:3, Insightful)
if they went down the intel route, they'd have to make the decision about whether to go for using a wintel compatible platform (ie format windows and install osx) in which case
Apple and hardware (Score:2)
Anytime I've dealt with a PC OS, I've had to worry, will the sound work (onboard or not), will the ethernet card conflict with anything. Do I need to worry abot th
Apple to switch themselves? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think that it would have been a very good move for Apple if they switched. It is like saying Sun should ignore their hardware developments and just rely upon x86 / commodity for everything.
It would have been difficult for Apple to maintain their quality control, especially when any Joe could have installed their OS. IIRC the article states that Apple would have become just another relatively small PC supplier and essentially just a competing OS company.
While a lot of Apple's decisions have seemed bizarre to the public, history has shown that they have something special (especially their HIG and provocative industrial design), and their ongoing relationship with Big Blue will be profitable for a long time. They haven't looked stronger than this for a long time, and are guaranteed of their future without needing to go x86 (although it took the G5, iMac, iTMS and iPod to do it).
Anybody saying that they should be going x86 is just pissing in the wind. If you don't like the Apple tax, don't pay it (although it doesn't really exist for comparable specs), but don't bleat about Apple not giving you beige box pricing, I don't hear anyone calling for Sun to sell their HD's for $100.
Does Sculley have any clue whatsoever? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Sculley just proves how little he still understands about Apple and its customers, and the core values of the company. For those of you ancient enough to remember those days: Imagine the badwill among the late 80's Mac u
No regrets (Score:2)
Apple=Hardware Manufacture (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple makes money by getting people to buy boxes with the highest profit margin in the PC industry. They do this by making them fairly tasty to a small group of folks with cash. So far, this has given them a 25 million user market, which is slowly expanding, though not at the rate that the X86 market is expanding. The thing is, it is still growing. Yes, their market share has dwindled, but the market has grown so large, it's not life threatning to them. Same thing goes for developers. It's argued that no one's going to want to develop for a platform with miniscule mindshare. Bullshit! How'd Linux happen, then? As long as there's even 100,000 Mac users, you're going to have developers. It's even more true, now, with OS X, as so much stuff is readily available for porting/compiling.
Even if Apple switched to X86, they would not go and step into the ring, going up against Microsoft and Dell. They'd have propietary logic boards/boxes that would keep people buying their stuff at premium prices. You'd never see OS X able to run on a Lindows machine.
A great example of what happens if you move into the X86 world is both BeOS and NeXT. They both started out making their Motorolla based machines, switched to X86 and then, when selling hardware didn't pan out, became software only companies, duking it out with MS. NeXT was smart enought to go and take over Apple, moving away from X86 while BeOS has whithered on the vine. Personally, I was hoping for Apple to bring BeOS in and use that as their new OS. That could have been interesting.
You can see a couple other hardware companies trying the X86 route as well; Sun and SGI. While they have slightly different market segments, they still face the problems of trying to make money off of software as opposed to hardware in X86 land.
Re:Apple=Hardware Manufacture (Score:2)
x86 market is expanding? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have one quibble with this - is the x86 market still expanding? In the developing world, I suspect pretty much everyone who needs a computer already has one, and unless they do video or games their raw hardware is fast enough for what they do (word processing, spreadsheets, email, web browsing).
If this is true, then what we're left with is competition of style (ease of use, fit and finish) versus externalities (compatibility with the rest of the universe). If there's any justice, Apple ought to continue to grow.
Though I hope they don't "win" - a monopoly Apple would probably become just as fat, lazy, and obnoxious as Microsoft.
Re:Apple=Hardware Manufacture (Score:4, Insightful)
At the time Apple and NeXt "merged", I thought BeOS was the better choice. It seemed faster on smaller hardware, had some really unique features (BeFS, etc), and seemed more polished.
As it turns out, Apple's move to a real UNIX-based OS was smart and well-timed. BeOS was written in C++ and had fragile base class issues. It was not multi-user. Lots of drivers didn't work right or had not been written yet. It was a nice proof of concept, but it was not complete.
NeXt on the other hand, had what we now call Cocoa, a rich development and deployment framework that makes app development easier than on any other OS. With its UNIX roots, OSX has been able to take advantage of Linux's growing popularity (porting all the popular Linux tools is pretty trivial), and thus all that software is now available to Mac users. And with NeXt's Display PostScript being replaced with the similar Quartz (PDF) rendering engine, the OS has complete OS-wide PDF support, which is brilliant.
Re:NeXT took over Apple? (Score:2)
Scully but no Moulder (Score:2, Funny)
Hahahahaha I'll be here all week.
Vendor lock-in. (Score:3, Insightful)
I tried to post this comment about like four times, and every time comments.pl timed out on me. So use your imagination and pretend that the above post was much more erudite and detailed.
Good lord, what is happening tonight? I feel like I'm on kuro5hin.
Either way, it is at least somewhat beneficial for Apple-- being a dual hardware/software company-- to be using a microchip that they have some direct control over, such as the PPC.
Would have been wild.. (Score:2)
Other wishes?
The Amiga O/S on the PC in the late 80's.. (with optional plug in vid board)
I brought one of the first books
Not important. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not important. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, make that a music, software (Final Cut) and consumer electronics (iPod) company.
And since they'll be less dependent on Mac hardware to generate a revenue stream, they may be more amenable to opening up the Mac platform than they have been in the past. Allowing cloning wouldn't have the potential to do them t
Intel vs Motorola or Dell vs Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is to use good and cheap components, simple and build on order product lines, and to avoid competitors. Apple decided to avoid competitors with a dedicated architecture (PowerPC, dedicated hardware+software) and Dell decided to avoid competitors with obsessive efficiency and speed.
Let's see the result now: we meet two companies working well (I mean earning some pennies) in the "PC" business. Both are improving their product lines with inexpensive (eMac, iBook, Axim, 1U servers, etc.) and top performance (G5, Precision 650) offers.
The strange experience I did recently was to compare some Dell & Apple products for my personal wish list: a solid desktop for development/office tasks, able to handle some multimedia for free-time and a laptop for mobility (web surfing/ messaging/ coding) and audio connection. Basically the performances where close, prices were really close (+/-10% max on both sides) and the differences were on accessories (nice looking good LCD screen or basic one, RAM, disks, all of them compatible with competitors).
I'll certainly choose Apple because of the nice looking/ well assembled machines and because I haven't got to choose between Linux and XP as best of both is integrated in MacOS 10 (plus some little more, thanks to integration).
That leads me to a simple conclusion: these two companies have made a similar good choices which are not at all in the Intel vs PowerPC discussion but standard components choice, build on order based on the client needs, firmly choose an OS and some markets to work on. This leads to a similar result: two companies doing well in the business with satisfied customers.
Re:Intel vs Motorola or Dell vs Apple (Score:2)
Everyone seems to be forgetting what is important! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would Apple be interested in an endeavor that guarantees massive headaches (heterogenous hardware support), sends a mixed signal to the marketplace (about which platform is better) in order to run their OS on a platform that would have no (ZERO, NADA) application support for years and, again, would run slower than what is currently shipping from Apple?
This whole article seems like FUD to try to cloud the issue (that Apple has surpassed WinTel) to me.
Re:Everyone seems to be forgetting what is importa (Score:4, Insightful)
Until Apple can release decent spec machines at vaguely realistic prices there is no merit whatsoever in the claim that "Apple has surpassed WinTel". At the moment here in Australia I could buy 4 or 5 very quick AMD based boxes for the price of one shiny metal G5, and I am guessing the situation is the same in the US.
I am no Intel/Windows apologist - I have been itching to buy an Apple for a couple of years now. Sadly, there's just no way I can justify springing A$3000 for the equivalent of an A$1500 PC.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is - even if the current Apple lineup is 'faster' (whatever that means) that the Intel crop, (a) it won't last longer than 6 months tops before Intel and AMD have shot past again and (b) I'm sure if Intel and AMD produced hardware aimed at the same prince-point as Apple it would be twice as quick. Fortunately for their stockholders they prefer to aim at the price-point that people are actually going to buy products at.
Re:Everyone seems to be forgetting what is importa (Score:3, Insightful)
One other thing that needs to be considered is what your going to use the computer for. Sure I can buy a car for less
Re:Everyone seems to be forgetting what is importa (Score:3, Insightful)
I've refuted this before [slashdot.org], but then again, I'm not sure you've seen my post. It's still valid, even after the Athlon 64 (since that proc is not dual-capable).
Re:Everyone seems to be forgetting what is importa (Score:2)
I'm not saying you're wrong, but it is possible that a bunch of dirt
Re:Everyone seems to be forgetting what is importa (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if anyone's done a serious test to see, for example, what is the best number crunching performance you can get for $6000. I guess the intricacies of setting up a distributed system would be rather prohibitive. It would also be cool to see how different types of application would go - even though overall the memory would be slower on the P3s there would be a heck of a lot of cache if you add it all together, which counts for something.
Blades would be nice... plus your gee
One Word: SUN (Score:5, Insightful)
As Feynman says and Dell shows, here's always room at the bottom. As the existence of Apple shows, there usually is room at the top, too. In between, that's where the crowd is. To move to an intel platform is not the issue for Apple, and it never was. Not becoming just part of the crowd when doing so is.
Look at SUN. They made the best machines you could buy for internet applications at a time back in the nineties, and charged you a lot of money for it. Today the rest of the world has caught up, we all stack our racks with linux pizzaboxen now, and SUN is in trouble. The company has to decide: is SUN a hardware company? that would mean investing a lot in the development of SPARC, killing the Solaris x86 line and fighting Linux, or move entirely to Intel, giving up software development altogether and become like Mike. Or is SUN a software company? that would mean cancelling further SPARC development and concentrating on Solaris and Java. Eventually, this would kill SPARC.
Strengthening the hardware section in SUN would hurt the software guys, and beefing up the software department could easily hurt the hardware sales. Not a good strategic position. Apple could easily be (or have been) caught in the same situation. To compete with Dell you have to become like Dell. If you don't want to do this, you must find a different market for yourself. Or be just part of the crowd.
Re:One Word: SUN (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you can buy a 1U Sun SPARC now for less than a comparable 1U Dell. Sun is price-competitive now at the low end, for the first time. And, they have an edge Dell can't match, namely that Sun guarantees forwards compatibility - you can take an old app from old hardware and an old Solaris, and run it on the latest kit and OS. If you can't, and you stuck to documented APIs in your code, Sun treats it as a bug in Solaris and fixes it. Dell can't provide that because they don't control any of the OSs they offer. Not only that, but Sun's hardware is of a higher quality. I recently experienced my first Sun hardware failure in years - two SPARC processors failed in a production server. The machine just kept right on running, as it was designed to do, and we swapped a new board in when it was convenient. What can you hot-swap on a Dell these days, just disks?
What I'm getting at is that Sun is not a hardware company nor a software company. It's a platform company, like IBM's mainframe division, and like Apple. If you want to compare it to Dell, a more subtle analysis is required than just "price per box".
Re:One Word: SUN (Score:3, Insightful)
The most likely outcome of IBM buying Sun would be the migration of Sun's product line (and Solaris) over to the Power architecture, and then slowly being absorbed into the P-series.
Which, actually, would be an interesting development.
Pepsi, x86, Apple and John Sculley (Score:5, Insightful)
Because John Sculley, with his wonderful hindsight, still doesn't "get it" and that says a lot about him. His absolutely idiotic remarks about Apple moving to x86 are worth less today than they were when Apple had actually ported Mac OS to x86 in a project called "Startrek" in 1994, only to call it off at the last moment.
The Brand is everything with Apple. Check it out. Go to the website, go to an Applestore. The design of the hardware, the design of the software, the design of Steve Jobs' stage appearances, the design of the Website, the design of the Apple store, everything is made to fit into the brand. There is practically NO other company that does this as well as Apple. No one. Nada. Zilch. Or why do you think that mac OSX doesn't have themes and skins as part of the basic OS? (Yes, I know that 3rd party people make skins, but they are not endorsed or supported by Apple)
I hate car analogies, but in terms of branding, Apple is the BMW of computing. The designs are timeless in a way that makes my 4 year old Lombard Powerbook as interesting to look at as my 2 year old Titanium Powerbook (Ever notice that Apple used two shades and textures of black plastic in the Lombard/Pismo design?). It's a design that makes a 4 year old B&W Tower interesting and a design that makes you stop and stare when you see a G5 from the outside as well as the inside.
It's something that "cheap and ugly as you can be as long as it's fast" tech nuts and ex executives of bottled sugar water don't "get".
Technically, it would have all been possible, and in 1990 Apple stood a good chance of beating Microsoft at its own game as all the graphical applications would have been forced to move over to x86 along with Apple, and Mac OS 7 was way better than Windows 3.0, but by 1994, when the "Startrek" project was underway, it was already too late. Apple had gotten lost in the future OS dealings with Taligent, Pink, Starttrek and the miserable Copland effort.
Buying NeXT was the best thing NeXT (excuse the pun) ever did. And while the clones being lost was sad. Apple would not have been able to turn its business around with the clone competition. It would have diluted the Brand, which was something that Jobs understood correctly in doing.
Today Apple could in no way switch again. They came very close to losing Adobe and Macromedia with the switch to OSX and would almost certainly lose them if they switched to x86 (or Itanium or Opteron or whatever). Those applications are part of Apple's bread and butter business and Apple knows it. But the G5 and the coming G3 with Altivec look good for the near future despite or because of Intel vapourware announcements to scare of opteron customers.
D'oh! And double d'oh! (Score:2)
Copland wasn't that bad. OK, so it wasn't the second coming of Christ but it's probably Sylvester Stallone's best movie since Rocky and it's got some great performances by an awesome cast - Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, John Spencer, etc.
Definitely worth two hours of your time.
Huh? Whatcha mean that's not what you meant? You did say Copland, didn't you? D'oh!
Oh, and by the way, h
(Anal)ogies (Score:2)
I'm not some luddite, who is overburdened with the concept of having to use a computer. I was until recently a sysadmin in a mixed Windows and Novell shop, and have done my time as a web developer as well as just about everything else in between. I actually quite like Windows XP, but I abhor the
Dell, logistics, and patents (Score:2)
This is why Dell can outperform its competitors: because competitors cannot really match its business processes. It's yet another example of how such patents harm competition. And, you already know, most of those patents are for things that would be considered o
Bill Gates' memorandum to John Scully, June 25, 19 (Score:5, Interesting)
Selected quotes from a confidential memorandum from Bill Gates to John Scully of Apple dated June 25, 1985.
Source: Wired Magazine, November 1997, page 126-128.
A memo on "Apple Licensing of Mac Technology."
Apple's stated position in personal computer is innovative technology leader. This position implies that Apple must create a standard on new, advanced technology. They must establish a "revolutionary" architecture, which necessarily implies new development incompatible with existing architectures.
Apple must make Macintosh a standard. But no personal computer company, not even IBM, can create a standard without independent support. Even though Apple realized this, they have not been able to gain the independent support required to be perceived as a standard.
The significant investment (especially independent support) in a "standard personal computer" results in an incredible momentum for its architecture. Specifically, the IBM PC architecture continues to receive huge investment and gains additional momentum [...] The investment in the IBM architecture includes development of differentiated compatibles, software, and peripherals; user and sales channel education; and most importantly, attitudes and perceptions that are not easily changed.
Any deficiencies in the IBM architecture are quickly eliminated by independent support [...] The closed architecture prevents similar independent investment in the Macintosh. The IBM architecture, when compared to the Macintosh, probably has more than 100 times the engineering resources applied to it when investment of compatible manufacturers is included. The ratio becomes even greater when the manufacturers of expansion cards are included.
Conclusion:
As the independent investment in a "standard" architecture grows, so does the momentum for that architecture. The industry has reached the point where it is now impossible for Apple to create a standard out of their innovative technology without support from, and the resulting credibility of, other personal computer manufacturers. Thus APPLE MUST OPEN THE MACINTOSH ARCHITECTURE TO HAVE THE INDEPENDENT SUPPORT REQUIRED TO GAIN MOMENTUM AND ESTABLISH A STANDARD. [emphasis mine]
The Mac has not become a standard:
The Macintosh has failed to attain the critical mass necessary for the technology to be considered a long term contender.
[...]
Recommendation:
Apple should license Macintosh technology to 3-5 significant manufacturers for the development of "Mac Compatibles".
US manufacturers and contacts: ideal companies - in addition to credibility, they have large account sales force that can establish the Mac architecture in larger companies:
- AT&T, James Edwards - Wang, An Wang - Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen - Texas Instruments, Jerry Junkins - Hewlett Packard, John Young
Other companies:
[ list of companies and contact names deleted ]
Apple should license the Macintosh technology to US and European companies in a way that allows them to go to other companies for manufacturing. Sony, Kyocera [...] are good candidates for OEM manufacturing of Mac compatibles.
MICROSOFT IS VERY WILLING TO HELP APPLE IMPLEMENT THIS STRATEGY. We are familiar with the key manufacturers, their strategies and strengths. We also have a great deal of experience in OEMing system software.
Rationale:
1. The companies that license Mac technology would add credibility to the Macintosh architecture.
2. These companies would broaden the available product offerings through their "Mac-compatible" product lines:
- They would each innovate and add features to the basic systems [...]
-
PowerPC was *supposed* to become a commodity chip (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestly enough, the reason IBM canned the personal powerpc systems was that OS2 for PPC completely blew its schedule several times over. IBM had a personal AIX edition for PPC ready but chose not to go with that. The reason. Unix would never make it as a mainstream operating system for PCs.
PREP and CHRP, wasn't it? (Score:2)
I really hope Apple won't ever port OS X to x86! (Score:2, Funny)
For me Apple has the best hardware, best designs, best OS.
This won't be true anymore if they have to deal with every x86 hardware. And I prefer they tweak the OS for a few hardware configs (including mine) than spend their time working on configs I don't even care of. Plus, PPC is better. We forgot that because of Motorola but IBM will remind it to us, starting now.
And even if Apple have to go x86 one day, i'm sure they won't make Os X (or XI, XII...) open to every hardware.
They are an hardware ven
They don't need to switch (Score:3, Insightful)
But would it? Why would it be cheaper? Who's to say that Apple wouldn't use their own BIOS, so you can't use/make a hombrew clone, and that they wouldn't tack on their "Apple Surcharge" because this is apple h/w?
Now, the reason that Apple considers switching, IMHO, is two-fold:
1. the promise of expanded marketshare
2. they currently have OS X working on Intel already w/ limited driver (er extranous hardware) support.
I would cease buying Apple. (Score:2)
One reason I like Apple's products is the fact they aren't x86. x86 is very behind the times when compared to the PowerPC architecture. Especially considering Intel's efforts to butcher design principles to get higher and ultimately meaningless clock speeds. There is no doubt in my mind that what Apple has now is superior. No reason to fuck that up.
Furthermore, if Apple made "the switch", they would really become very disinteresting from a layman's point of view. Having an x86 processor means they ar
If Apple released an x86 port... (Score:3, Interesting)
20/20? More like 20/240 (Score:2)
Because of the restrictions placed on PC vendors by Microsoft it was almost inevitable that a company like Dell would appear. Few options were available to vendors. They could innovate on form factor. But the corporate world sees that as just fluff. They could innovate on peripherals. But that doesn't do much to sell PCs. Or, they could innovate in the area of business processes. That's what Dell did and it has work
Porting to the x86? (Score:2)
As the Apple turns says (Score:2)
You Intel users should be glad Apple chose PPC. (Score:2)
Had Apple chosen to go with x86, the fire under Intel's ass that was and is PowerPC would never have been lit.
In the years since the introduction of the PowerPC 601, Intel and AMD have both shown themselves to
Well a live real-life example (Score:2)
If "mac" was just a cool looking x86 box (or even Itanium) having custom themed XP or something I wouldn't think it even.
So its end of discussion on x86 on macintosh...
Yes it continues to be a CHOICE. Thank god for that guy who left/got fired from Apple couldn't be suscessful on his Intel idea....
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
A hardware company chooses what OS they will release drivers for and as a result Apple would completely be at the mercy of companies that produce them.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
I think at least the big-name hardware vendors would develop OSX/x86 drivers; many already do for hardware that is compatible with both systems. You might not get it for every $15 widget out of Taiwan, but the decent graphics cards and such should be supported pretty quickly.
And I don't know if the OSX architecture support
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2, Insightful)
Right... now who was it that really pioneered the use of USB? Oh, that's right.... It was Apple.
"it's time they make the final leap and get out of the hardware business"
Hello!!!! How many times does it have to be said? Apple is a Hardware company if you don't want to invest in an Apple that's fine, but they are never going to try to be a software company only.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
He didn't say that Apple wrote the standard, he said Apple pioneered the use of USB. Are you even aware of what happened at the time? USB was languishing in PC land, because every system had both USB & legacy connections, so no one migrated. Apple converte
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
How much have you dumped for the priviledge of running Windows so far?
Re:OSX for x86 NOW - NOT (Score:2)
This enables Apple to deliver a quality product without having to dedicate a massive amount of resources for development on "generic" platforms.
If Apple were to go the x86 route, they probably would create their own proprietary x86-based systems, and develop OSX to run on these systems only.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2, Informative)
First off, the hardware is not proprietary. The BIOS, however, is.
Second, you can get a Mac for under $1000.
Lastly, Apple's profits are not from software sales. If they were to start licensing the BIOS out AND port OS X to x86, they'd be sunk. Go back and take a look at how hard Apple got hit the first time they tried licensing the BIOS. Think of how much worse it would be if they
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
No. There is no BIOS. Macs use Open Firmware [openfirmware.org], which is (you've guessed it) open. The motherboard, however, is proprietory, which is one of the reasons why you can't build your own Mac.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
Contrary to what you say, it would be a mistake release OS X for x86. It would lose it's integration and ease of use which constitutes a large part of its value and it would s
Um, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
- If Apple releases an x86 OS X, the chances are it will NOT be a product you can walk to the store, buy in a box, and install on your current PC. First off, the margins are relatively slim on software OSes. Apple hardware is so expensive BECAUSE it's subsidizing the production of OS X. To survive as software, Apple would have to charge prices people wouldn't pay for software. Much more importantly, though, the fact apple has a working "x86" OS X in the lab doesn't mean they have an x86 OS they can sell. The "PC" hardware world is simply massive. At the time Windows 95 was released, the press was saying that more than half the code in W95 was hardware compatibility. Apple does not have the resources to spend huge amounts of time supporting and debugging every sound card, video card, joystick card, etc, in the universe.
Moreover, once you have this x86 OS X, what will you run on it? All the OS X software in the world would have to be compiled specifically for your x86 OS. Apple would have to convince ALL its developers to recompile and spend forevermore having to clumsily offer dual downloads/distributions of EVERYTHING based on target chip. There goes a big portion of the "it just works"-ness of OS X. Moreover some developers might refuse to compile for OS X out of spite. Apple could alternately try to create some kind of wine-like layer to let os x/x86 run windows software, which would be extremely costly and take away most of the "mac experience" feel of using the OS.
- If Apple did release their x86 OS X, it would most likely just be the same as today-- premium boxes based on commodity PC hardware parts, but in a shiny apple-branded case and with a high price tag. The only reason for this would be if for some reason they could put PC hardware together so much cheaper than PPC hardware it would justify the difficult switchover. (It is unlikely the price savings would be THAT much.) That would be about the only difference. But if they did this, they lose almost all of their justification for CHARGING their high prices in the first place-- you're no longer buying some kind of "special" apple box, you're buying a PC that just happens to be more expensive because it has a shiny case and can run OS X. Since the boxes would still be expensive, this would mean that you would lose the ENTIRE thing that all of you PC people clamoring for an x86 OS X want [Mac OS X on a $500 computer].
- "But wait", you say, "if apple were selling x86 computers, they could open up the hardware for cloning, or people could build their own, thus meaning the prices would be cheap again!" Well, no. Apple can do this just as easily while still using the PPC. Moreover, Apple has tried this with the PPC already. It didn't work. The other clone vendors, not having to use their money on R&D and developing the Mac OS, undercut Apple's prices and took away all of Apple's sales in the high-end, high-margin area. Apple lost a lot of money during the cloning experiment.
Apple is making money with their current scheme. It is questionable whether Apple could make money after changing the scheme to "something x86-based". The only x86 strategy that would significantly make more money than Apple's current strategy would be selling boxed OSes, which would be risky since it would require apple to drop their per-sale margins and spend massive amounts of time and resources on supporting the myriad of x86 hardware.It isn't going to happen.
Um, yes. (Score:2)
They could not realistically hope to do anything worthwhile in the x86 market without giving people who *already own computers* the chance to 'switch.' If they somehow linked it to proprietary hardware they would just get the same customers they already have taking advantage of the cheaper systems - and they ain't making a lot of money right now. The other market segment they might get with this kind of move would be Li
Re:Um, yes. (Score:2)
Re:Um, yes. (Score:2)
Whereas when Apple does it it's a lifestyle thing...
Re:Um, yes. (Score:2)
Re:Um, no. (Score:2)
You mean iMacs?
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:3, Interesting)
I did. And I do not regret it. I've been a computer-user since the 70's, and as far as I'm concerned this tiBook has been the best computer I've ever invested in, and I've owned many. I've gotten more done with this than I ever did with a PC, I've had *NO* virus problems, no crashes (really, not a single system-failure type crash in the 3 years I've had it), and it has been around the world w
Re:This is a tad expensive (compared to a PowerBoo (Score:2)
Unfortunately go-l [go-l.com] seems to be all a hoax [plex.us].
But a pretty good one.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
You can get a new eMac for $799 [apple.com]. These are like the original iMacs, but with a G4 and a 17" CRT monitor. Maybe $500 used. Or get a used G4 tower for a few hundred and share your existing monitor.
Re:OSX for x86 NOW (Score:2)
Yes, you can get a PC for $299. Yes, you can build one yourself for not much money. But once you get into the corporate, workstation-quality and performance area, the prices are very similar.
Personally, I dislike the Dell machine I have to use at work. The build quality is pretty poor - my CD drive has died, the keyboard/mouse are
Re:AMD and Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, Apple is backed by IBM and they already got G4, then G5 to run on multi-processor consummer computers.
I guess, we're only in the beginning of this story and I consider the
Re:How safe a bet (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward certainly is threatened by non-microsoft software. If google really is the measure of market share, it also suggests that you don't want any UNIX type system, either. We should get rid of those, too. After all, your ``market share'' research suggests nobody needs or wants UNIX systems, either.
Re:Are you all mad....?? (Score:2)
Well, Intel makes CPU's and related chips. How can those chips be loud? Does the CPU scream when it crunches numbers? The chipset yells as it handles mem-access? And it seems to me that the chips are about the same size as the chips in Macs.
Re:Are you all mad....?? (Score:2)
This is an honest question. Can anyone recommend a very quiet, but also high-performance PC? All of the new PCs I've used recently are on the loud side.
Re:Are you all mad....?? (Score:2)
Or maybe something like this [hushtechnologies.com]
Software is the problem (Score:2)
Re:How hard it is for Apple to port OSX to Intel ? (Score:2)
They HAVE ported OS X to x86, they simply won't release it, because within months of releasing it, Apple dies the death of a thousand cuts. Apple makes all of their money from hardware, not software. The people who want Apple buy Apple boxes anyway. Maybe Apple would double, or even triple, their OS marketshare overnight by releasing on x86; but their hardware marketshare would drop like a stone.
Here's a question for you: why don't you switch from Intel to the G5? I can tell you that my single-processor
Re:The real value of an x86 port (Score:2)
Sometimes, hindsight is a lot less than 20:20. It is worth noting that a bunch of companies tried to compete directly with MS for the windowing operating-system market. Do you even remember their names? I had to look them up: VisiOn, GEM, DesqView. But M
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Except, of course, that Apple's current chips are speed-competitive with top-of-the-line x86 chips, so there's no reason why MacOS would run any better or faster.