“Should you purchase a Macintosh with a PowerPC microprocessor between now and when the switchover is final? The answer: a definite yes! For the next few years, including even after the x86 machines are introduced, you will get more for your money by purchasing a desktop Mac with a PowerPC processor. As Apple can now offer only slower portables, buying a new portable PowerBook with an Intel chip might give you a much faster machine. For portables, we will have to wait to see what’s introduced,” Allan Warner writes for Geek.com. Warner then looks at why you should purchase a desktop Macintosh with a PowerPC microprocessor.
Then Warner asks, “Will Apple still be selling Macs in, say, 2008?”
“I doubt it,” Warner writes. “It looks to me like Apple will be going out of the desktop computer and, possibly, the portable hardware business, evolving instead into being mainly a software company.”
“Apple’s future operating systems will, in some way, work on any of the newer Intel x86 chips, which means just about any computer, even if Apple attempts to stop that from happening. The market will devise methods that allow the average person to overcome Apple’s restrictions. If you don’t believe this, you’re naïve. It’s doable technically and is an attractive economic reality. Steve Jobs is not stupid; I believe that he understands what will happen, and might even be planning it,” Warner writes. “Apple will sell computers as long as it can earn a very good return. However, soon it will compete with the Dells, Gateways, and Lenovos of the world, which sell commodity computers. Apple wants to unseat Microsoft, and Mr. Jobs thinks that he might be able to do it–but that means only high-profit hardware or no hardware at all.”
Warner thinks that the changeover to Intel-based Macs will cause a marked drop in Mac market share and cause developers to stop writing Mac applications. Warner writes, “The only solution is to place the Mac OS on a hell of a lot of Windows machines, and fast.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The crystal balls are out in force today. What do you think of the prediction?
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