“Given IBM was the beneficiary of the leaks we believe they are the most likely to have leaked the story and over the next several years will apply similar, and often increasing, opinion on this move in the hope that Apple will reverse its decision,” Rob Enderle theorizes for Technology Pundits.
Enderle scribbles, “With financial pressure increasing on Apple to execute and a likely sharp decline in Apple hardware sales prior to the new hardware hitting the shelves coupled with an already noted sharp decline in iPod sales…”
MacDailyNews Note: Truth break: Apple’s iPod sales are not “in sharp decline.” Goldman Sachs recently stated that iPod shipments are currently tracking in-line with its 5.35 million unit estimate this quarter. Apple sold 5.311 million iPod units during its fiscal 2005 second quarter ended March 26, 2005 and 4.58 million iPod units during its fiscal 2005 first quarter ended December 25, 2004. In its fiscal 2004 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2004, Apple sold 2.016 million iPod units.
Enderle continues, “Apple will be under an unprecedented amount of pressure to reverse itself but, given the lack of trust that was likely created by this move, that reversal, if it happens, will probably have an extremely limited result.”
“Regardless of that, over the next two years IBM is likely to place its considerable resources on forcing Apple to reconsider and reverse its decision. This type of approach will probably not have the desired effect if IBM is sourced as the instigator of this pressure. Intel will have to move to block this if they want to retain Apple and, of the x86 vendors, they remain the most powerful and arguably the most capable of doing this,” Enderle writes. “The battle between IBM and Intel for the hearts and minds of the Apple faithful will not only be interesting, it, for once, places Apple on Intel’s side.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As for Enderle’s anticipated “sharp decline” in Mac sales, there may well be a decline, but there is nothing that would stop us from purchasing a new Mac today. For years, software will be shipping as Universal Binary products. Which, simplified, means the CD or DVD contains both PowerPC and Intel versions of the application. For oddball developers (read: not mainstream) that fail to ship Universal Binary applications, Apple’s Rosetta will translate the PowerPC-only code of these applications on-the-fly for Intel-based Macs. There would be a performance hit for intensive apps, but any intensive app would offer a Universal Binary anyway. So PowerPC Mac owners will have native software for years and Intel Mac owners will have native software going forward and Rosetta translation for the odd Power-PC-only apps. Due to what we’ve seen regarding the relative ease of creating Universal Binaries, we’d say that PowerPC-only Mac apps will soon be a thing of the past.
If you need a Mac today or within the next year, hey, you need a Mac, so get it. It’s not going to stop working. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will run on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. Apple’s not going to stop PowerPC support for years. In all probability, by the time owning a PowerPC Mac ever becomes even a remote issue, you’ll long-ago have purchased a new Intel-based Mac.
Pubert,
It was NOT a quad P4 in there. When Steve did a “get info” on his mac you can clearly see that it was a single P4 3.6ghz. See link below. In fact, I did notice that his system was slightly more responsive 🙁 than my Dual G5 2ghz with 4GB of ram when I paid close attention to the number of app bounces on his dock…
They pull the article because I ( and others i am sure) made them aware of that. So please stop the fud and paranoia. The dual Pentium M that I will buy at the end of 2007 will put my current G5 (which I adore) to absolute shame. I have never felt more giddy about my apple stock (640 shares) which I bought @$22, than I do now. In 3/4 years time, it will pay off my mortgage! Thank you Steve!!
Jerry T. RE: backward compatibility with Intel app.
The main problem with migration is two things:
– if you buy a new computer, can you run the old softwares?
The problem with migrating to Intel is solved in two ways: Rossetta and universal binaries which should be available by the time Apple releases the first Mac on Intel. The problem surfaces only if the softwares are not compatible with Rossetta: Classic, requires G4/G5, kernel extension, etc.. which is rather a short list.
– if you buy today’s computer, can you run future softwares with it?
In this case, it seems the compatibility is going to be much better than 68K to PPC migration. During that migration, PPC only apps required lots of work to run on 68K. This time, the APIs are the same and as long as you code the apps properly, the work should not be too extensive. If you start building a new app after the migration, you should know already that you need to use XCode to make your life easier. If you start with a clean slate, why would you use something else? There are always exceptions but I think the majority of brand new apps are re-compilable for old PPC Mac. The issue is, will developers bother providing the compatibility. Product testing costs time and money.
The problem of this migration is more about perceptions than technical issues, I think. If you absolutely can’t migrate for technical reasons, you simply buy other platforms. It can’t be helped, but I suspect that number is low.
MacBliss, you wrote:
In fact, I did notice that his system was slightly more responsive 🙁 than my Dual G5 2ghz with 4GB of ram when I paid close attention to the number of app bounces on his dock…
Admit it, you have never used a RAID SCSI HD system in your Mac, have you ?
Yes, I readily admit it, never used such a monster HD system. What’s your point? Are you implying that you know for a fact that he was using such a system? with the intent to “fool” us all? lol The same effect could have been realized with a Raptor boot drive couldn’t it have?
Anyways, as I said, I am not sure of your point.
“MacIntel” was first coined ’bout ten years ago. I remember reading an artical before Apple adopted the PPC. The sugestion was that Apple move to Intel and the author coined the MacIntel?
When you read an Enderlie take you must keep in mind which one of his clients he is working for when he gives his take. He is a legitimate Marketing analyst, after all.
This time it looks like Microsoft is the client directly benefiting from this but Intel is also a client and he doesn’t want to piss them off. Apple moving to Intel has made his life more complicated, that’s for sure.
It was not Steve Jobs who supported de Powerpc, when he still was NeXt..
The Apple Macintel thunderstorm will clear up and de G5 with that Pentium installed insite does not look Apple at all, in my eyes.