“Some analysts think there will be as many as 9 to 10 million Macintelatoshes this year, which would be about 2.5 times as many as the 4 million Macs in 2005. That’s a hell of a ramp, and Apple’s never shown an inclination to flood a tight market with units,” Doug Mohney writes for The Inquirer. “By the way, is Intel so desperate for increased business that 1) their CEO needs to dress up in a bunny suit to show up at MacWorld 2) Give Apple first dibs on the Duo Core in its new machines and 3) Having committed these two acts of submission, then let Apple ignore Viiv and instead say ‘Hey, we’ve freed the chip from the box?’ Andy Grove would have NEVER worn a bunny suit for Mr. Jobs. It being San Francisco, Otellini should feel lucky he wasn’t handed a costume including black leather chaps.”

Forget about the iPod Halo Effect says Mohney, “The real pull-through will come when people start thinking about their options when Windows Vista comes to market sometime this year. Since it’s going to be the ‘Largest upgrade since Windows ’95,’ according to Microsoft, that likely means a big hardware upgrade for nearly everything that was produced before July 1, 2005. People are going to go down to their Big Box store, look at the expensive, still-ugly PCs and the nice-looking Macs, compare the two side-by-side. They’ll take a cursory look at the user interfaces between Vista and the Mac and see, well, they look pretty much alike and they have the same chips in them and the Mac can run PC software in emulation (and maybe later more directly in some fashion) but the PC can’t run Mac-ware.”

“A lot of people are going to realize they are going to hang onto their hardware for four to five years, so they might be willing to shell out a little more cash up front and buy the better looking Mac-intelatosh,” Mohney writes. “Exactly how many will switch remains to be seen, however. There are also a chunk of people who are running Windows 98 SE and a lot of Windows XP users that have no rush to get into Vista. On the other hand, aiding and abetting Apple is a large fifth column of journalists around the globe that are unabashedly Mac-worshippers. You can spot them pretty clearly when they start talking about Windows, they’ve dropped ‘poor security’ and ‘bloated’ into the conversation by the second sentence.

“The real winner in all of this is Intel,” Mohney writes. “While Dell, HP, and other manufacturers expand their use of AMD chips, Apple comes on board with a hotter-looking box and a 100 percent (for now) loyalty to Chipzilla. You don’t hear Apple talking about AMD chips, hmm? And Intel doesn’t have to share marketing money with Apple! Mr. Otellini, I apologize for the bunny suit remarks.”

Mohney has more in his full article here.

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