Apple says could move to Intel, but happy with IBM

[malexgreen]

http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-5103279.html

Could this be the proverbial "shot over the bow?"

[voice-]

He's right, they are quite compedative as it is, and don't need to change. Then why should they?
"if it's not broke, don't fix it"

[fryke]

If you search the forums, you'll find plenty of thoughts about why Apple should or should not, will or will not 'switch' or 'expand' to the X86 side.
I think it's good to hear it from Steve himself: Not gonna happen (anytime soon). I'm still glad that Steve has _also_ made clear that it would be quite easy to make the move, should it ever become a critical move for Apple to do.

A little off-topic: With Windows X86-64 (AMD 64bit Athlon processors) almost a year away, _this_ would have been the right time if ever. But we all know that IBM has good plans with the PowerPC 970 and successor processors (Power5's little sibling, probably called PowerPC 980).

[RacerX]

Originally Posted by malexgreen

Could this be the proverbial "shot over the bow?"

What shot and whose bow are you talking about?

IBM? Until the G5, the only chips that Apple was getting from IBM was the G3s. The G4s were totally Motorola. When IBM was able to make G3s faster than Motorola's G4s, Apple wouldn't buy them (even when it looked like the Motorola's G4s would never get past 500 MHz). I think you may be reading too much into this.

Besides, if any ones bow has been shot over, it was Intel's bow by Microsoft. Else where on this board I pointed out that the PowerPC line sure seems to be the processor of choice in high end computing (with 13 of the top 25 super computers using PowerPC 604e, POWER3, POWER4 and now PowerPC 970 processors from IBM). Now Microsoft seems to be moving from Intel to IBM with their only line of hardware systems, the Xbox.

If anything, Apple should have done more to keep IBM in the picture over the last few years. At least they actually use their processors in their own computers. They had a reason to keep their development moving forward, Motorola really didn't (Motorola's other clients in the embedded market, not desktop/workstation/server systems).

I, personally, have always felt that a company that uses their own products is more likely to keep up quality then one that doesn't. Motorola hasn't made computers for years as I recall.

[Arden]

Sounds like more of Cnet's propaganda bullflippity.

[Jason]

more of? once again, you guys read too much into things IMNSHO

[hulkaros]

[Jason]

.