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Apple ditches IBM and Motorola and moves to Intel chips
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| starsearcher |
Good? Bad? I don't know...but it looks like it'll bring down the price and I really want a powerbook :crazy:
| quote: | Taking care of its core
Jun 6th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda
Apple is set to announce that it will switch its computers from microprocessors supplied by IBM and Motorola to those made by Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker. Emboldened by the success of its iPod music player, this is Apple’s latest move in an attempt to return to the mass market
ASK people to describe their computers. Most, with a shrug, will mention a couple of grey-coloured (or is that cream?) boxes, and software that crashes occasionally. But the sliver of the population who own one of Apple’s products are more likely to enthuse about the cool design of their hardware and the robustness and user-friendliness of their software. It is a surprise, then, that more people don’t chose the American firm’s computers. This is what Steve Jobs, its chief executive, hopes to put right.
On Monday June 6th, Mr Jobs was set to use the platform of Apple’s annual developers conference to announce that the firm will switch from the chips supplied by IBM and Motorola for over a decade to products from Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker. The first products with Intel chips should be available next year. Most observers suggest that the move is part of a strategy dedicated to returning Apple to the mass market for computers, which it dominated before the advance of Microsoft and Intel in the 1980s.
There are several suggestions about what prompted the change. Apple blamed it current chip suppliers for slow delivery last year, which held up production of some lines. And chip development has not lived up to promises Apple made for improvements in processing speed. Intel’s chips are faster and run cooler than Apple’s current chips. And cooler chips are important for the production of better laptops, a market growing considerably faster than that for desktop PCs. But there is much speculation that Intel can simply supply chips more cheaply than IBM and Motorola, and that Apple can use the saving to cut the retail price of its computers.
Apple’s problems in increasing its market share are, to a large extent, a result of the high prices it charges for its computers compared with similar products from the likes of Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Apple sold only around 2.3% of new desktop and laptop computers worldwide in the first quarter of 2005, according to IDC, a research firm. Dell commanded 18.9% of the market, HP 15.4%. But Apple is concentrating hard on ways to improve its market share and is banking on the huge success of the iPod, its digital music player, to create a “halo effect” and speed the revival of Apple as a force in world computing.
The firm’s recovery has been apparent for 18 months, after several years in the doldrums. In 2004, Apple’s net profits were four times higher than the year before, at $276m, and in mid-April the firm announced another blistering set of quarterly results: revenues up by 70% compared with the same period the year before, and net profits 530% higher, at $290m; Apple shipped over 1m computers (a 43% rise) and a staggering 5.3m iPods (over six times more than the year before).
The iPod has done wonders for Apple, providing not only profits but a positive brand image to a swathe of new young consumers. Though the iPod was derided by some as exorbitantly expensive at the time of its launch in 2001, it has amassed some two-thirds of the world market for hand-held music devices. And not content with anything less than total domination, in January Apple introduced the iPod shuffle, a flash-memory player, which is naturally smaller and better looking than anything the competition can yet muster. No wonder iTunes, Apple’s online music store, leads the field.
But Apple still makes most of its cash from computers, and to extend its product range it introduced the Mac mini at the beginning of the year. This small, relatively cheap computer comes without “peripherals”—customers can add their own keyboard, mouse or screen. This helps to keep costs low and so, it is hoped, will nudge more users of Microsoft’s Windows to switch to Apple. Mr Jobs hopes to spread the Apple message further still through a network of Apple retail stores. There are now over 100 around the world in prized locations.
The lead that the iPod has in the hand-held music player market looks unassailable for the time being. That said, Bill Gates is touting Microsoft’s own software format, Windows Media, to several online music services and hardware firms, hoping to set a rival standard with greater interoperability. At present, iTunes offerings only work with the iPod. Mr Gates suggests that the convergence of mobile phones and music players (using his software, of course) could threaten the iPod’s dominance. Apple should take the threat seriously. Nokia recently announced that it was preparing to launch a handset with a hard drive. Sony Ericsson will unveil its first Walkman phone later this year. To counter these threats, a deal between Motorola and Apple is expected to spawn phones with iTunes included in a couple of months.
If Apple is to make the most of the halo effect from the iPod to push its upmarket computers on greater numbers of customers, it would be well to do so as soon as it can. Such is the importance of the iPod to Apple that on June 3rd the firm’s shares fell by 4.5% after analysts suggested that sales of the device may be flat in the current quarter. If the halo slips, Apple may have to content itself with selling its wares just to the select, fashion-conscious bunch who presently make up the company’s loyal fan base. |
Source: http://www.economist.com/agenda/dis...tory_id=4052665 |
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| malek |
WOW!!
I expected this the day Apple embraced the *nix kernel as the basis of their kernel...
Now it all make sense.
Expect OSX to direclty compete Windows on the Intel platform. |
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| zokissima |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
Expect OSX to direclty compete Windows on the Intel platform. |
Ha, that'll be the day. It's been known that IBM is getting out of the consumer PC market, so I don't know if this has anything to do with that ,or if Apple were just forced to go to another manufacturer. Either way, I don't really see this being a HUGE boost to Apple. People can bitch and complain about Microsoft all they want, bottom line is, the product is out there cuz it DOES work. If, on the other hand, Apple actually gets the support of the thousands of developers that are currently Windows-exclusive, then we could see some big changes. |
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| PartyHarlequin |
Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI :) It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from :( and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks :)
It's so... beautiful |
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| starsearcher |
| quote: | Originally posted by zokissima
Ha, that'll be the day. It's been known that IBM is getting out of the consumer PC market, so I don't know if this has anything to do with that ,or if Apple were just forced to go to another manufacturer. Either way, I don't really see this being a HUGE boost to Apple. People can bitch and complain about Microsoft all they want, bottom line is, the product is out there cuz it DOES work. If, on the other hand, Apple actually gets the support of the thousands of developers that are currently Windows-exclusive, then we could see some big changes. |
Well they're saying that OS X Tiger is better than Longhorn already and that one's not coming out for another year...besdies I think Apple is more of a niche product and I think I'd like to see it stay this way - I know they want to get more market share but I hope by doing so they won't start cutting corners and producing cheap crap like everyone else |
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| PartyHarlequin |
| The problem with MAC is that I find their overly graphic intensive UIs painfully annoying. I learned how to use a computer via DOS and anything with funky popup scroll bars for my quicklinks is getting the huge thumbs down. Typing commands and custom UIs are simply more efficient. Not to mention the ugly boxes macs come in. Mac remind me of IKEA furniture... not a good thing for marketing. |
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| zokissima |
| quote: | Originally posted by PartyHarlequin
Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI :) It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from :( and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks :)
It's so... beautiful |
Sweet, Alienware pcs are the . Too bad they're just ridiculously overpriced for what you actually get in the box. The dual 6800s is the coolest thing about that system, you should be getting some INSANE framerates. Damn. |
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| starsearcher |
| quote: | Originally posted by PartyHarlequin
The problem with MAC is that I find their overly graphic intensive UIs painfully annoying. I learned how to use a computer via DOS and anything with funky popup scroll bars for my quicklinks is getting the huge thumbs down. Typing commands and custom UIs are simply more efficient. Not to mention the ugly boxes macs come in. Mac remind me of IKEA furniture... not a good thing for marketing. |
oh god....dude! au contraire...it's beautiful design :crazy: |
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| PartyHarlequin |
I'm comparing it to the Dell XPS alienware Area 51 and most custom boxes. MACs are pure ugly, yuppy, pastel garbage. Nothing about them screams l33t.
A major reason for the overpricing of the Alienware is their "high performance" or whatever hardware. All commercial hardware has a pass acceptance rate usually in the %80+ category. That means that the 6800 Ultra you buy off the shelf might actually be running at only 85% of it's supposed speed. Alienware cherry picks hardware with a 95-98%+ acceptance rating so what you see is actually what you get. Although it makes it hard to justify that I just spent almost 10k on a computer, thank god it was someone else footing the bill int his case. :thepirate |
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by PartyHarlequin
Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI :) It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from :( and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks :)
It's so... beautiful |
what the !?
what the hell do you need all that for!? I understand games will be nice as hell, but if you were using it JUST for gaming, wouldnt it be more useful to just wait for the next gen of game consoles?
If you are using for producing, and graphics then i understand...but thats one sick monster. |
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| malek |
| the reason why Apple couldn't compete directly with windows (which is superior in entreprise environments in so many ways) is due to the expensive hardware Apple was stuck with. Less developpers also, less games, less of everything. |
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| PartyHarlequin |
| Ummmmm, no almost exclusively for gaming. Oh and Signal Processing for testing Acoustic Sonar displays for the military (my day job). My roomie is the console adict, he'll probably have all three on their release dates. So no reason to buy them. |
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