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Apple rumors start to heat up; could they be lining up an attack on Microsoft?

I have to admit to a little bit of excitement: my first Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as an Apple Guy(tm) is about to go down. As Adam put it, it’s the twice yearly Steve Jobs Christmas. Essentially, Apple uses the WWDC to announce their big news — new iPod models, new PCs, etc.

So far, two rumors have surfaced:

  1. Apple is going to leave the IBM PowerPC as their chip of choice and move to Intel, reports CNET.
  2. Apple is going to announce a G5 Powerbook, reports Gizmodo.

It seems to me that the two items are mutually exclusive, and I think 1) is more likely than 2). If Apple and IBM have finally solved the heat dissipation issues in the G5 that kept it out of laptops for much longer than Apple wanted, one of their major beefs with IBM is settled. But my understanding is even the most recent iMac G5s (like mine) run pretty hot — and same have overheating issues. Not a good sign for the laptop.

Which leaves item 1 — an interesting proposition. It’s long been rumored that Apple will leave IBM for Intel, but this time the rumors seem to have some meat behind them. I like lists, so let’s make some lists.

Pros for moving to Intel and the x86 architecture:

  • No chip shortages, powerful chips in the laptop, your basic “Intel chips are better!” arguments.
  • Competition — IBM is the only company that makes the PowerPC. Both Intel and AMD make x86 chips. In other words, if Intel pisses off Apple, they can just hop skip and jump to AMD, no problem. Not the case with leaving the PowerPC. A changeover such as this will be gradual over a few years.
  • Cost. See Competition.
  • The ability to hit Microsoft hard. People everywhere are saying how Mac OS X beats up on Windows. If Mac OS X runs on x86s computers… then you’re looking at the possibility of Mac OS X being put on non-Apple computers. Suddenly, your available market is a lot bigger.

Cons for moving to x86:

  • Everything Mac-related is compiled for the PowerPC chip. Moving that software to x86 is non-trivial.
  • Apple has spent a lot of time and energy saying how the PowerPC chip is better than Intel chips, that gigahertz don’t mater, etc. No big name company likes backtracking and saying they were wrong, both for pride and money reasons.
  • A possible sloppy transition period that could mean lost customers. For a while, software would have to be able to work on both versions, and that will take more resources.
  • PR hit. The Mac Faithful might see this as a money move instead of a quality move.

My prediction? Apple will move. Steve Jobs is flighty and Intel is probably making some sweet pillowtalk to get them to move. The rumors are loud. I’m going to put my money on this actually going down.

If it does happen, I bet Microsoft will crap their pants. Windows XP is outdated, and Longhorn is late. Longhorn promises to do things that Mac OS X Tiger already does. Microsoft might have actual competition on the OS front. Not only that, Internet Explorer’s dominance is slipping.

Jobs might see Microsoft as being a little vulnerable right now and is going for the attack. Between Google, Apple, and Mozilla, Microsoft is getting attacked from all sides (except on the Office application front). Jobs might figure with Apple’s relative strength (good PR from OS X and the iPod line) combined with Microsoft’s vulnerability, this might be the best window available for a long time.

Sat June 4th, 2005 12:26 am

Filed under Business, Gadgets

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