John Dvorak - MacIntel
- Thread starter LVzardoz
- Start date
malexgreen
Contributor and PB User
Here are some plausible negative consequences to this strategy:
Phase One:
I don't think it's likely that they could release a Itanium-based workstation or server AND a PPC970 based server simultaneously. Getting OSX to work on the Itanium would require a large amount of resources (people+time+money). The ROI from Intel's perspective would not justify them giving a big customer (from a market share perspective) like IBM, or HP the stiffy to win a 3% growth in MSS in enterprise server CPU's with Itanium, which desperately needs large growth, and will most likely do so with an IBM, HP, or Dell running Windows Server 2003. If they do release an Itanium it will be in mid 2004 at the earliest (more like 2005 before it takes off), and will not be cost competitive with other Itanium servers, and won't have the essential apps ported to it, 'cause those people decided to port to Windows Serv '03 instead.
Phase Two:
Seeing that trying to sell workstations or servers (and in their wettest nocturnal emission a notebook - 20" powerbook) based on Itanium flopped because it was either late to market, too expensive, and no applications support in the distant future, they go ahead and try to port OSX to the x86 and have this ready by mid '04 at the earliest. The Office app they bundle with the OS for some reason isn't fully compatible with the latest version of MS Office, and the version of MS Office that runs on this version of OSX costs $650.00. Even though OSX-x86 is neat, and the Apple Office has some unique features, the fact that it's not 100% MS compatible (like can't access exchange servers), and the OSX MS Office alternative costs as much as a PC, most PC OEM's stay with Windows Longhorn/XP, which allows them to bundle MS Office for cheap. Apple abandons the OSX-x86 shrink-wrap as changes Intel makes in their hardware to cater to MS (DRM/Palladium/Athena) makes the OSX-x86 team jump through hoops they are not staffed for.
Phase Three:
Apple next trys to really take matters into their own hand by manufacturing their own PC's. They try to cajole Intel to make changes in their CPU's or chip-sets to provide some sort of market differentiation between their PC's and everyone else's PC's. Intel seeing that they would invest a lot of money only to increase their cpu/chipset MSS by 3% (from 90-95%) they balk. Apple searches desparately for alternative (IDT, that company Linus Torvalds works for, or National Semi, maybe AMD) to come up with an x86 alterative. But they see the market opportunity is not so good, so Apple ends of being left hangin'.
They go ahead and try to rely upon the Apple brand to sell a PC you can get from Dell or Gateway, or Walmart running OSX at a 5-10% premium. Customers look right through it, and Apple's margins erode as they try to clear out excess inventory and see their MSS drop to less than 1%.
Dvorak is dead wrong: Apple has to pay for it's OS in the cost of development and productization. This cost will skyrocket when it try's to port to Itanium. MS will do something underhanded to kill OSX-x86, just like they did with BeOS.
I think Apple should remain independant both from a hardware and software perspective. The reason why they have been able to hang on is because they have been able to have total control of the product features. This has served them well: first 17" notebook, first notebook with gigabit ethernet, sleek designs, first to mass produce a UNIX based desktop, can run windows, unix, and osx apps all at the same time.
If Apple wants to increase MSS, they need to increase the compatibility with windows withouth relying upon semiconductor suppliers who are sold-out to MS, and increase the performance by finding new easy-to-port-to, higher performance, lower-power silicon (which is what I think the PPC970 is and x86 and Itanium are not [easy to port to, and perf. on Itanium is questionable at this time]).
MSS = market segment share
IMHO
Phase One:
I don't think it's likely that they could release a Itanium-based workstation or server AND a PPC970 based server simultaneously. Getting OSX to work on the Itanium would require a large amount of resources (people+time+money). The ROI from Intel's perspective would not justify them giving a big customer (from a market share perspective) like IBM, or HP the stiffy to win a 3% growth in MSS in enterprise server CPU's with Itanium, which desperately needs large growth, and will most likely do so with an IBM, HP, or Dell running Windows Server 2003. If they do release an Itanium it will be in mid 2004 at the earliest (more like 2005 before it takes off), and will not be cost competitive with other Itanium servers, and won't have the essential apps ported to it, 'cause those people decided to port to Windows Serv '03 instead.
Phase Two:
Seeing that trying to sell workstations or servers (and in their wettest nocturnal emission a notebook - 20" powerbook) based on Itanium flopped because it was either late to market, too expensive, and no applications support in the distant future, they go ahead and try to port OSX to the x86 and have this ready by mid '04 at the earliest. The Office app they bundle with the OS for some reason isn't fully compatible with the latest version of MS Office, and the version of MS Office that runs on this version of OSX costs $650.00. Even though OSX-x86 is neat, and the Apple Office has some unique features, the fact that it's not 100% MS compatible (like can't access exchange servers), and the OSX MS Office alternative costs as much as a PC, most PC OEM's stay with Windows Longhorn/XP, which allows them to bundle MS Office for cheap. Apple abandons the OSX-x86 shrink-wrap as changes Intel makes in their hardware to cater to MS (DRM/Palladium/Athena) makes the OSX-x86 team jump through hoops they are not staffed for.
Phase Three:
Apple next trys to really take matters into their own hand by manufacturing their own PC's. They try to cajole Intel to make changes in their CPU's or chip-sets to provide some sort of market differentiation between their PC's and everyone else's PC's. Intel seeing that they would invest a lot of money only to increase their cpu/chipset MSS by 3% (from 90-95%) they balk. Apple searches desparately for alternative (IDT, that company Linus Torvalds works for, or National Semi, maybe AMD) to come up with an x86 alterative. But they see the market opportunity is not so good, so Apple ends of being left hangin'.
They go ahead and try to rely upon the Apple brand to sell a PC you can get from Dell or Gateway, or Walmart running OSX at a 5-10% premium. Customers look right through it, and Apple's margins erode as they try to clear out excess inventory and see their MSS drop to less than 1%.
Dvorak is dead wrong: Apple has to pay for it's OS in the cost of development and productization. This cost will skyrocket when it try's to port to Itanium. MS will do something underhanded to kill OSX-x86, just like they did with BeOS.
I think Apple should remain independant both from a hardware and software perspective. The reason why they have been able to hang on is because they have been able to have total control of the product features. This has served them well: first 17" notebook, first notebook with gigabit ethernet, sleek designs, first to mass produce a UNIX based desktop, can run windows, unix, and osx apps all at the same time.
If Apple wants to increase MSS, they need to increase the compatibility with windows withouth relying upon semiconductor suppliers who are sold-out to MS, and increase the performance by finding new easy-to-port-to, higher performance, lower-power silicon (which is what I think the PPC970 is and x86 and Itanium are not [easy to port to, and perf. on Itanium is questionable at this time]).
MSS = market segment share
IMHO