The Wall Street Journal has reported today in their Monday, June 6th edition that Apple Computer has been informing certain business partners about the company’s pending move from IBM to Intel processors.
“Apple will start shifting its Macintosh line next year to Intel chips, in a major change of strategy for the computer maker. The move could be a blow to IBM and Freescale, which now supply Apple’s PowerPC chips. Such a move could help Apple ensure that its Mac systems remain competitive with rivals like Dell Inc., of Round Rock, Texas. It could be a prelude to collaboration with Intel in developing new devices for homes and offices. And it might help Apple reduce its prices, a longstanding disadvantage; an industry executive suggested that the computer maker sought, and won, more-attractive chip prices from Intel than it could get from IBM, of Armonk, NY,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
Full article (paid subscription required) here.
John Markoff and Steve Lohr report for The New York Times, “Steven P. Jobs is preparing to take an unprecedented gamble by abandoning Apple Computer’s 14-year commitment to chips developed by I.B.M. and Motorola in favor of Intel processors for his Macintosh computers, industry executives informed of the decision said Sunday… ‘This is a seismic shift in the world of personal computing and consumer electronics,’ said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a Seaford, N.Y., computer and consumer electronics industry consulting firm. ‘It is bound to rock the industry, but it will also be a phenomenal engineering challenge for Apple.'”
Markoff and Lohr report, “the chips I.B.M. makes for Apple represent less than 2 percent of chip production at its largest factory in East Fishkill, N.Y… For I.B.M., the end of the Apple partnership means the loss of a prestigious customer, but not one that is any longer very important to I.B.M.’s sales or profits.”
Full article (free registration required) here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whatever happens, remember what we’re fond of saying: it’s the OS, stupid.
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