<<< Sunday, June 05, 2005 10:49 PM

Home

RSS feed splintered >>>


wrapping up Apple on Intel

Wednesday,  06/08/05  10:21 PM

Okay, I was wrong.  Completely.  So be it.

The "good call" award goes to Gary Lang, who emailed on Sunday:

BTW Apple's move is not about video or a WMC combatant, it’s about notebooks.  Most PCs sold, including Macs, are notebooks.  IBM has not made a competitive fast chip for notebooks.  It’s as simple as that.

No doubt it isn't quite as simple as that, but Gary nailed it.  You can watch the Stevenote here, or view Engadget's liveblogging here.  Not Mr. Jobs best performance, IMHO, but he did a good job with a tough message.  Left unsaid (but certainly not unanalyzed) is the extent to which Apple will be "Osborned" by this.  The Economist published a good analysis (including the stock price graph at right, entitled "still juicy"), and you may enjoy this Slashdot thread.  Scott Loftesness thinks new laptops will be out soon (this year?), and John Gruber tries to cover up his bad guesses :)  Tom's Hardware drinks in the irony of an Apple - Intel alliance.

[ Later: my favorite take so far comes from Robert X. Cringley: Going for Broke, in which he suggests Apple and Intel are taking on Microsoft.  Hmmm.... ]

Now, as someone working on porting Windows software to the Mac, I wonder, what does this mean?  In the short term, not much.  In the slightly longer term, use Xcode instead of CodeWarrior.  And in the longer term, who knows?  Stay tuned :)