For those who want to keep PowerPC...

[chevy]

Originally Posted by jzdziarski

How is PPC not cutting? Unless Jobs is lying to us, the PPC benchmarks twice as fast as high end Xeons. In other words, you won't see any significant performance increase in Macs until 6+ Ghz intels are available. I think a boycott might at least facilitate a healthy cohabitation between both processors. I've been thinking long and hard about what makes me buy Apple, and I think it's really the "think different" perspective. Moving to an Intel platform makes Apple just another PC manufacturer with nothing to set them apart from the rest of the Borg. I'll run Linux on my Powerbook before I buy an Intel book.

Today's PPC may not be that strong compared with tomorrow's Intel CPUs. The problem is not that much today, it is more that Jobs doesn't believe in IBM's roadmap.

[jzdziarski]

Everything's negotiable. IBM had 3 Ghz chips ready to ship for the new X-Box...so Apple's goals technologically were being met. The problem was, Jobs didn't have the negotiating power that Microsoft had. Introducing a cohabitation of Intel and PowerPC (and Freescale, unless they're affiliated with IBM) would have given him the extra power he needed to negotiate a better deal with IBM. Lets face it, IBM had only one business day's notice of this. This tells me that Jobs' motivation wasn't negotiation, and it also tells me that it was never negotiation. The move was more powered by malice than anything.

[fjdouse]

I heard all the was due to a conversation a couple of years ago, when IBM said that Apple were a relatively small player so why should they move heaven and earth for him, that dented Mr Jobs ego and he decided there and then that IBM would have to go. Don't know if it's true, I'll have to ask the source I got it from again. The guy we spoke to at Apple said it was nothing to do with the 'public' reasons either.

[jzdziarski]

Could be, but why is Jobs acting out of a bruised ego instead of making smart executive moves? On top of this, it's been a few years since the alleged discussion happened. Introducing Intel and PowerPC side by side and negotiating a new deal with IBM would be much more satisfying I would thing, and could even be humiliating, assuming that Intel has a chip that can outperform PowerPCs.

[fryke]

And please do get facts straight, jzdziarski. IBM does NOT have 3 GHz chips ready for the Xbox. They _plan_ on having them ready. People are, in these intel-switching days, often mixing things up. They're talking of dual core PowerPCs, where none are available, but at the same time talking 32bit intels, where 64bit chips _are_ coming well ahead of Apple's switch in 12 months. IBM's _not_ shipping the chips for Xbox yet, AFAIK, and the Cell processor is not aimed at low-power-consumption computers (and is not available yet, either).

The talk is that IBM wanted more money from Apple to further develop the PowerPC (I guess they felt in a good position seeing Microsoft and Sony getting onto the PPC bandwagon...), so it was rather a question of money than bad negotiation by Apple. AFAIK, Steve didn't even negotiate when that happened, he just looked at prices and roadmaps and made the right decision. So I guess yes, it's the ego, yes it's the roadmap, yes it's the bruises (3 GHz and notebook chip missing in action) and yes it's the sweeter grass on the other side... In the end, it probably doesn't matter. We won't even be able to directly compare 'new' PPC and intel chips, because Apple quite surely won't introduce, say, a PowerBook with a new intel chip and a new PPC chip at the same time. Instead, when a line goes intel, the move will certainly involve a performance increase (compared to when they were last updated).

And later, we probably won't hear much about the PowerPCs, anyway. The Xbox PPC will _stay_ at 3.2 GHz for about two or three years, same might be true for the Cell (although that one might get used in other products than the PS3, and thus have a need for further development). Freescale's processors aren't talked about much - besides current PowerBooks and iBooks - and probably won't see desktop/notebook computers from the inside much, after Apple moves to intel.

The primary reason for Motorola and IBM to push the PowerPC as a desktop and notebook processor was Apple. Motorola's main direction was the embedded market, IBM's the big iron servers (POWER Series), the game consoles as well as the embedded market. It was a bit like slapping dead horses.

[fjdouse]

Yep, you're right. I'm in complete agreement with you Fryke. I may have certain reservations but you're right. It's reminiscent of the Monty Python 'dead parrot' sketch.

[MacFreak]

Well said