Steve Jobs confirms Apple switch to Intel
Published June 06, 2005
It's official!
Steve Jobs has just confirmed the rumours during his WWDC keynote. Apple is moving from IBM to Intel. MacObserver has reporters live at the WWDC running an IRC-to-web like updates in near real time of Steve Jobs WWDC keynote.
There has been no wider speculation from both sides — those for and against — in recent Apple history. This ends a 10 year run that Apple had maintained with IBM and starts a new adventure.
Over on MakeYouGoHmm earlier, I wrote about listening to former TechTVer Leo Laporte and PC Mag stalwart, John C. Dvorak debating this last night. Laporte thinks this is suicide for Apple and Dvorak thinks it's one of the smartest business moves they've ever made. Here is some of their exchange on the TWIT podcast #8:
Who will be right? Will this be a good move for Apple or a collosal blunder?
Laporte: "It's Steve Jobs ultimate act of arrogance."
Dvorak: "Possibly the biggest thing Apple has done to dominate the market."
Laporte: "I think we're going to look at this as the day Apple committed suicide."
Jobs addressed the sensitive issue of application portability during his keynote by bringing in Theo Gray of Wolfram Research, the makers of the program Mathematica. Gray reports that it took two hours to port their program, saying: "We're talking about 20 lines of code out of millions from a dead cold start where he didn't even know why he was going."
Apple is calling the emulation layer, also known as middleware, "Rosetta" after the Rosetta Stone. They demonstrated Photoshop, Excel, Quicken all compiled and running on the Intel Mac for display.
Now we can all sit and wonder how long before we have a dual boot Windows / Mac OS X? Might be sooner than anybody thinks.
![Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Family Pack - 5 Client [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HJEQ96XPL._SY90_.jpg "Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Family Pack - 5 Client [DVD]")
- Steve Jobs confirms Apple switch to Intel
- Published: June 06, 2005
- Type: News
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Sci/Tech: Internet
- Writer: TDavid
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All of my mac sites are offline for the conference... glad to finally here it.
Intresting, I wonder could this mean that any of the following mini mac's,
would use intel. That would be a serious concurence for the already existing small desktop systems.
It could also lead to reuse of mini mac like system in new ways. One could for example take the system boards whith processor, memory and hardive connected to it out, and then use them as the max equivalent of blade servers. On of the current difficulties on that path is that there would need to be a a kind of main board and connectors, that allow the system boards to be connected to it, whitout loosing to much speed.
A likewise system could be done using subboards and suns pico jave chips on a subboard together whith for example 256 mb of ram, and those subboards connected onto a main board.
Good thinking there Floris. Over the next 18 months it makes one wonder why buy an Apple. That's what Laporte was concerned about and he makes a good point. If one doesn't _have_ to buy a Mac, then they probably will wait. That won't bode well for the all important Christmas season 2005 unless they can roll out a new iPod that everybody has to have.
Perhaps something with WiFi?
I think he idea of having the same processor that the X-Box 360 is a nice marketing line to have. A dual-processor Mac seems very powerful, plus the Intel chips are said to go to the low-end computers like the Mac Mini and eMac, so the high end probably will still be updated, but probably won't hit the magical 3 Ghz barrier. When I planned to buy a computer next year, that was what I wanted: a dual-processor 3 ghz PowerMac. But alas, I don't think I'll get my wish.
Good lord, is this for real? Time to dump my Apple stock.
Dave
Apple stock has done well the last couple months. Up 6% :) Might want to hold onto at least some of it and ride it out, Dave. This could be a brilliant ... or devasting move by Apple. Time will tell.
Well, Apple stock has always really been a long-term investment. Anyone looking for a quick buck shouldn't be buying Apple stock to begin with.
Dave didn't say how long he had it, Tan. If he had it for a long time then it's probably performed pretty well for him ;) Better than Microsoft stock the last five years.
BTW, Eric - forgot to say hello back on your first comment :) Hope all is going well with you and yours ;)
Soon Apple will adopt MS Windows too and look for new ventures in other areas instead of investing too much only on computing.
DTS.....................
http://www.jobs.co.in/
The Chicago breed of geek is lacking what we non-geeks like to call "common sense" :-)
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thanks TD, big news and nice to see you!