Steve Jobs, like Howard Hughes, Mystifies
Confirmed at WWDC today. What’s even more crazy, Steve wasn’t wearing jeans. or the turtle neck? He is finally growing up? So perhaps hell is freezing over!
Some men dream the future. He built it.
Steve Jobs, the maverick who has architected one of the greatest comebacks in the history of Silicon Valley, continues to prove that he is a modern day Howard Hughes. Unpredictable, charming, loving, petulant, and perhaps more than anything deviously mysterious. But more than anything brilliant. When everyone including Intel’s own CEO designate said, that it would be a cold day in hell, before Apple uses Intel’s x86 chips, Jobs goes ahead and does it anyway.
It is a Machiavellian move, directed to rattle the Rajahs of Redmond. It is a subtle message – all things equal, Apple OS is much better than Microsoft’s Windows and the market place will prove it. You might think it is bit of conjecture, but look at the reality of the situation. Now Apple can get Intel’s marketing subsidies. The economics of x86 that Microsoft so adroitly has made work over decades now start to benefit its rival, in the mainstay PC business. The price and speed factors, two issues the Wintel PC makers have so often touted are now working for Apple as well. That leaves the platform – Windows XP versus OS-X! Insecure versus Secure! Work versus Fun! Bill versus Steve!
So how do I see this playing out?
First, this deal is going to be all about the laptops, especially those which can handle OS-X nicely, are light weight and consume less power. Because if that was not so, then Apple could as easily have signed a deal with AMD, which makes better x86 chips for the desktop. IBM has failed to deliver the low power consuming yet muscular versions of its G5 chips fine tuned for Powerbooks. Secondly, I think Apple will exploit Intel’s chips for often rumored Tablet PC, that could have features in common with Nokia 770 tablet. I would not be surprised that Monday morning, the announcement circles around XScale, or low powered Centrino chips.
The implications of this announcement for rest of the industry are not trivial. Intel, with this deal, and its previous efforts with Linux, is willing to part ways with its partner in crime, Microsoft. Expect, Microsoft to get cozier with AMD. It also would ensure that AMD chips might end up in Dell machines, since all bets are off. These are trying times for Microsoft, but I would not even wager even a dime against Chairman Gates.
There is more to this move, and it has got nothing to do with the PC platform. Its all about the consumer electronics devices. Jobs knows that he has to get the Apple a bigger footprint in the computer business, if he can successfully execute on his CE strategy. It needs to ensure that it can still use iPod as the carrot and the stick, not just for consumers but also for the media business. He needs to ensure his DRM is a better option than Windows. In his own autocratic way he wants the world to march to his tune. And if consumers respond well, he might get his wish.
Wall Street Journal has just confirmed that on Monday, Apple is going to announce that it is slowly going to transition to the x86 chips. C/Net had reported on Friday that Apple would make an announcement on Monday at WWDC. WSJ had reported about the likelihood in its Heard On The Street column on May 23rd. (Thanks Bill!)
PS: Just to clarify, this means Apple will make computers that will use Intel x86 chips, not that you can run OS-X on a Stink Pad.
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Holy Crap! Tiger on a Thinkpad, love it!
No it will be tiger on a powerbook running x86 chips
Wow…this is going to have a profound impact on the industry. I cannot wait to get the Tiger on a powerbook with x86. Also, this sets the course for their foray into consumer electronics.
“Unpredictable, charming, loving, petulant, and perhaps more than anything deviously mysterious..”
you forgot megalomaniacal, and paranoid…
matthew … i knew you would weigh in so left a soft opening for you. :-)
Soon the three OSes–Windows XP Pro, Fedora Core and FreeBSD–on my dual-PIII box will have a new neighbor? They sure are excited about it. ;-)
Om:
Look at it from the other side. What if Intel was the aggressor in this deal? They close out a possible AMD deal, plus they have a new platform for their lonely daughter Itanium and the whole 2-core processor crew.
I bet Intel orchestrated the CNET and WSJ stories. Who’d believe another Apple rumor?
Good grief, you can’t even correctly spell what you’re talking about. It’s called Mac OS X or OS X — anything but OS-X.
Is this what we can expect from Apple using Intel processors — every Wintel mouth now some sort of Mac “expert”?
Here is the deal,
IBM is overcommitted to supporting their PowerPC console clients, namely, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, in that order of importance and timeline. Granted, MS holds all the IP on all chips involved in XBOX360 so they can have it fabbed wherever with whomever as many fabs as they so like to manage their BOM cost. Sony will fab their own chips as well, but may need process help from IBM. Nintendo….not enough data till end of 2005 to know.
Apple has ridden the PowerPC architecture for a fair number of years now. Apple has shown they can and know how to pull off both a major CPU arch change as well as a major OS framework change. In the consumer computing space no one but Apple has done the first and you could probably argue that MS has done the second with the Win9X->WinNT change.
All that being said however, to have a MAC you need a few things:
OpenFirmware, a.k.a. Mac ROM
Rigid hardware spec
Hardware control
The rest really is just software. Apple already has the ability to support multiple archs in application bundles (this is an ability they have had since NeXT days [check the manpage of ditto in a Terminal session on a Mac to understand this] and kept around when OS X was forged).
Expect Apple to adopt an Intel WiMAX chipset for their PowerBook line. Apples Airport Extreme is looking long in the tooth compared to the 802.11 pre-N/MIMO/Super-Duper-”Turbo”-108Mbps G products.
Apple would FINALLY have a CPU supplier that has easily enough fab capcaity to squirt out however many processors Apple needs to sell. Every time Apple has speed bumped the G4 or G5 there is a big queue up of sales online and at the stores and you see countless posts of Mac fanatics waiting for their systems to finally ship.
Intel means they would get cheaper (then IBM I suspect) CPUs as well as being able to possibly tap into the Intel Inside marketing money. However, I will be very surprised if Steve lets them put a damn sticker on their nice shiny PowerBooks or other systems. Maybe they will get away will just an Intel Inside logo on the box the computers come in?
Also, Apple can use AMD as a baseball bat against Intel for CPU pricing pressure here. However it remains to be seen how critical AMDs fab capacity situation is. Right now they are probably skating on thin ice but doing a remarkable job of it until the new Dresden fab opens up in 2006/7?
The biggest question mark however in all of this is a hardware one. Who will make the motherboards and the motherboard chipsets? Will Apple design the mobo, but use the Intel south and northbridges? Will Apple design their own mobo chipset under Intel’s guidance?
Other factors to take into account here:
1. Current cash on hand for Apple. I’m lazy and I forget but I recall it was somewhere in the 4-5 billion dollar range. Expect hardware sales numbers to behave wierd (i.e. low and unpredictable) while Mac faithful decide what this means to them. Expect something like the 4 stages of denial or something similar but I think people will eventually reach the state of “If it still runs OS X, and is secure as OS X is now, and my apps will still be supported on either platform, then why do I care if its Intel or PPC under the hood?” Plus, Mac guys know their chips are fast, but not the fastest (except in very narrow application that take full advantage of the vector capabilities) so now they would be on cutting edge CPU performance too.
2. Developer response – Check the WWDC keynote video when its eventually put up on the Apple website (by 3PM typically). The big players here would be Apples Pro apps, Adobe, and Microsoft. Everyone else can rot if those three show they are supporting it, then the rest will follow I suspect.
3. Vector units – Apple loves them. Intel has never had one, unless you count SMID/SSE/SSE2/SSE3 as a kind of vector unit, but it seems obvious that Apple may possibly influce Intel into looking at/adding a vector unit to future CPU designs….or maybe toss in a Cell SPE or two on the die? Who the heck knows, not me for sure.
Hope this helps clear some things up. It is not an impossible task but it sure as hell isn’t going to be easy either. However, once they finish this transition, well, its pretty safe to say that they are never going to have to do it again until Intel/AMD decide to totally drop the x86 family and lord only knows when that will happen. It’s ugly as all hell from a cpu level standpoint but its what every Tom, Dick, and Jane uses nearly so its the standard.
Let me know if I missed anything here guys.
Just to get on record, here’s how I see it playing out.
It’s not really a wholesale switch. Steve’s pissed a Big Blue but he’s going to keep our options open and maintain fat binaries for both going forward.
After the dust settles, the high end goes to Cell the middle and low end go to Intel/AMD.
On the fringe – the bombshell may be that Apple resurects 4-way fat binaries (form the NeXT days) and extend support for Sun, HP, Power, X86 and AMD.
The fact they brought back system-wide dictionary lookup (Oxford this time instead of Webster’s) tells me there are some folks around ready to deliver some payback.
Ron