Can Apple pull another iPod with its move to Intel?
Is there still time for Apple to retake the personal computer market?
Monday, June 6, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
So Apple is going to move to Intel-based CPUs. That MacOS X has had a shadow-X86 version running for years is one of the worst kept secrets in the industry. But few, myself included, ever thought that Apple would ever switch to it. It's quite a risk. Talk about throwing down the gauntlet.
Some pundits had predicted that Apple would have to switch -- economies of scale would force it. But why now? What were the factors leading to the decision? In my view, there were two factors that made the time right for Apple to make the jump.
The first factor had to do with the difficulty IBM was having in ramping up the performance of the PowerPC chip at the price-level Apple could afford. With only 2% of the market, Apple simply couldn't purchase enough of IBM's CPUs to justify the investment in producing faster CPUs at a reasonable per unit cost.
But I think there was a second factor -- the iPod. I think Steve Jobs has concluded that the door isn't closed for becoming a major player in the personal computer market. After all, the iPod was not the first portable media player. It wasn't first by a long shot. But it has around 87% of the portable media player market now.
Apple has seen first hand that a well designed, well engineered product can come into a maturing market and take it over. Hence, what is to stop Apple from taking over much of the PC market? With Intel-based CPUs, it'll be able to manufacture its machines at a price competitive to other PC makers. And with it running on Intel, no doubt emulation software will allow Windows programs to run fast and seamlessly on the Mac as people "transition" to a pure MacOS strategy.
The pressure is on Microsoft to deliver the goods with Longhorn. MacOS X "Leopard" will arrive around the same time as Microsoft's "Longhorn". And with Microsoft asserting that Longhorn will require most users to make a hardware upgrade to benefit from it, users will be faced with a pretty stark choice. Users would have to choose between a machine that runs Windows software or a machine that runs MacOS and Windows software -- both priced in the same range. If Longhorn fails to deliver on Microsoft's promises, it could open the door for Apple to pull another iPod.
Though Apple should bear in mind that Microsoft has faced this situation before with OS/2 and we know how that turned out. If history is any guide, Microsoft is keeping a very close eye on this and won't stand idly by.
Reply #2 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 7:09 AM
But maybe you're right. Apple can probably put more resources into a 100% Windows compatibility layer than a smaller company such as CodeWeavers can. I'm not sure it's possible, but if it is, I think they can be the one to pull it.
Reply #3 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 12:40 PM
The wine projects and its derivatives are very young and going very fast. And theres really no resources as big as the open source community
Reply #4 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 1:01 PM
Emulation is poor at best. It should be a very last resort if anything.
Reply #5 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 2:29 PM
Reply #6 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 3:03 PM
Reply #7 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 4:05 PM
| But it does suck tat dreamweaver and photoshop and office xp are windows only. |
Not sure about the others, but I think Photoshop is available on Macs, too.
Reply #8 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 5:40 PM
Reply #9 Tuesday, June 7, 2005 9:58 PM
) and release OS X (10.6 Moggie) for PC.Reply #10 Wednesday, June 8, 2005 1:16 PM
Its only been the price of Mac computers and then buying all my software again to run on a Mac is the only thing that has put me off getting one. Guess ill just ahve to wait and see what the future brings,
Reply #11 Wednesday, June 8, 2005 1:52 PM
Reply #12 Thursday, June 9, 2005 8:58 AM
But honestly, Macintosh navigation is worse than Linux, and linux has issues.
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Reply #1 Monday, June 6, 2005 10:15 PM
Mac OS has been around - people are familiar with it and it has a great history of being easy to use. Having the option of putting it on a PC which runs Windows might tempt a lot of folks to switch.
Being able to run a fair amount of programs through emulation will help a lot - plus, Mac has several popular Microsoft products made specifically for it.
Apple is really the only other OS manufacturer that offers software you can walk into a store and purchase.
Of course, should they do that how will they deal with the hardware market? I believe one of the reasons Windows has so many issues is that it has to work with hundreds or thousands of parts (old and new). Apple hasn't had to tackle that same situation with MacOS. I'll be interested to see how they tackle that hurdle.