Apple dumps IBM/Does Apple have a secret plan?

[Seydou Bangoura]

As part of a college assignment, my colleague and I were asked to do
research on Apple switching to the Intel microprocessor. Here is a
result of our findings.
http://www.mochima.com/net/apple_intel

In brief, we found that there is a lot of speculation in regards to the
implications of the switch. It could hurt sales until the Apple Intel
machines are made available. It may also hurt Apple's share price on
the Stock Market. In either case it could cause severe damage to Apple
in the short term and long term.

Although we agree on some aspects of this switch, we fundamentally
disagree on Apple's direction. I believe that the switch is the first
step of a master plan of putting their operating system, OS X on
Windows machines even though Apple vehemently denies this. Whereas my
colleague Robert believes that Apple's decision is actually much more
about moving away from IBM, rather than switching to Intel. This is due
to the fact that Apple's dependency on IBM has been hurting Apple and
the entire Macintosh community for quite some time.

Which viewpoint do you agree with, if any? Please provide appropriate
criticisms and arguments, as this assignment will be evaluated based on
the quality of discussion and feedback.

Seydou Bangoura
Robert Sones

 

[James L. Ryan]

As part of a college assignment, my colleague and I were asked to do
research on Apple switching to the Intel microprocessor. Here is a
result of our findings.
http://www.mochima.com/net/apple_intel

In brief, we found that there is a lot of speculation in regards to the
implications of the switch. It could hurt sales until the Apple Intel
machines are made available. It may also hurt Apple's share price on
the Stock Market. In either case it could cause severe damage to Apple
in the short term and long term.

Although we agree on some aspects of this switch, we fundamentally
disagree on Apple's direction. I believe that the switch is the first
step of a master plan of putting their operating system, OS X on
Windows machines even though Apple vehemently denies this. Whereas my
colleague Robert believes that Apple's decision is actually much more
about moving away from IBM, rather than switching to Intel. This is due
to the fact that Apple's dependency on IBM has been hurting Apple and
the entire Macintosh community for quite some time.

Which viewpoint do you agree with, if any? Please provide appropriate
criticisms and arguments, as this assignment will be evaluated based on
the quality of discussion and feedback.

Seydou Bangoura
Robert Sones

Briefly, my personal take is that Apple's switch to an Intel chip was
motivated entirely by the failure on the part of IBM to deliver competitive
performance on the Power PC and the expectation that this performance lag,
when compared to what Intel will be offering, will continue to grow. The
practicality of this change can be attributed to the emergence of methods of
support of existing Power PC applications via the emulation technology
provided by Rosetta from Transitive. I am not expecting Apple to make OS X
available as a competitor to Windows by allowing it to run on a non-Apple
supplied computer. Yes, Apple will suffer some sales loss because of the
conversion, but I expect this to quickly be balanced by increased sales of
the new Intel based sysems.

 

[ward mcfarland]

Which viewpoint do you agree with, if any? Please provide appropriate
criticisms and arguments, as this assignment will be evaluated based on
the quality of discussion and feedback.

I think that many reasons influenced the decision.

Such a monumental decision would not have been made for any single
reason. Many reasons support Jobs position - IBM's failure to lower
power/price and increase speed being a biggie. Failure of Moto to
develop an alternative 64 bit PPC, effectively leaving Apple with a
single source for their CPU's is another. Another is the marketing
advantage since the public perceives Intel as mainstream, and the PPC as
an odd duck, not to mention that the possibility of triple booting with
OSX, WIndows, or Linux will elimante many arguments against switching to
Mac. Apple could even reduce their hardware engineering staff (and thus
increase their software staff) by being able to use Intel's board design
capabilities.

The one reason I see rarely mentioned that I think was the critical one
for Jobs is that Intel offers hardware DRM. Apple's success with its
music download business and Job's contacts with the movie industry means
to me that he wants to pioneer the legitimate movie download business as
well. The movie industry would likely love such a thing, but would
*absolutely* require a really solid DRM system to permit it. Plus, it
gives Apple another competitive advantage for enhancing their music
business.

-- w

 

[RobertS]

Ward McFarland (also posted at comp.sys.mac.apps): That's an
interesting point about Apple moving over to the movie industry. In all
the research we did on this subject, you are the first to mention this
as a possibility and it seems to make good business sense. Most of the
speculation has been about the possibility of sharing platforms/apps
with Windows (and Linux).

Thanks.

Seydou Bangoura
Robert Sones

 

[Razal19]

It seems to me that apple has been putting all of their marketing into
their IPOD music player and not putting much emphasis on their mac's
anymore. Their marketing campaign for the IPod was aimed at younger
consumers with the flare of "you want one because everyone wants one"
even before the Ipod was popular, and they were trying to boost revenu
to save their company. Now the switch away from IBM to intel will, i
think give them even more freedom to promote their video download. One
problem that has always face Apple is that they are Apple and the
general public wants ibm compatible computers running Windows. If
apple computers start being able to Run windows and windows compatible
software easily without emulation, what would stop someone from buying
a mac instead of a pc? It would be the same difference to the every day
person between and IBM and a Compaq. ???

-Cameron

 

[Felger Carbon]

If
apple computers start being able to Run windows and windows compatible
software easily without emulation, what would stop someone from buying
a mac instead of a pc?

Price? Apple likes to charge a lot of money for its computers. ;-)

 

[Razal19]

yes this is true lol, but this may not hold true for the future... and
some people are stupid, they`ll pay an arm and a leg for anything as
long as a salesman suggests that it is good.

-CAmeron

 

[RobertS]

I don't want to get off topic too much, but that said, ... you are
correct about the initial price for a Mac almost always being higher.
However, when you factor in the price of maintaining the PC vs a Mac
(support, maintenance, etc.), and the life span of both machines, Macs
almost always are less expensive. People don't usually look at that
though, especially after the initial 'sticker shock' up front.

One of the arguments people are putting forth with this Dump IBM/Switch
to Intel move, is a hope or expectation of a price drop from Apple. If
their market share increases this could be a real possibility.

Seydou Bangoura
Robert Sones

 

[keith]

As part of a college assignment, my colleague and I were asked to do
research on Apple switching to the Intel microprocessor. Here is a
result of our findings.
http://www.mochima.com/net/apple_intel

In brief, we found that there is a lot of speculation in regards to the
implications of the switch.

The fact is that people who know what's going on aren't about to talk.
The implications are for historians. All you can possibly gather are
guesses.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I don't want to get off topic too much, but that said, ... you are
correct about the initial price for a Mac almost always being higher.
However, when you factor in the price of maintaining the PC vs a Mac
(support, maintenance, etc.), and the life span of both machines, Macs
almost always are less expensive. People don't usually look at that
though, especially after the initial 'sticker shock' up front.

Okay, going with that, what is the price of maintaining a Mac vs. a PC?
Why would it be any different? As for the lifespan, most PCs these days
are probably about 5 years old on average. There used to be time when
being 3 years old was a death sentence for PCs, they wouldn't be fast
enough to run the most modern software. These days software is way
behind hardware development. New average software that can take
advantage of the added speed of PCs haven't come out. A 5 year old PC is
still able to run the latest software with acceptable speed.

Basically where does your figures come from that Macs are less expensive
to maintain than PCs?

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

As part of a college assignment, my colleague and I were asked to do
research on Apple switching to the Intel microprocessor. Here is a
result of our findings.
http://www.mochima.com/net/apple_intel

In brief, we found that there is a lot of speculation in regards to the
implications of the switch. It could hurt sales until the Apple Intel
machines are made available. It may also hurt Apple's share price on
the Stock Market. In either case it could cause severe damage to Apple
in the short term and long term.

Although we agree on some aspects of this switch, we fundamentally
disagree on Apple's direction. I believe that the switch is the first
step of a master plan of putting their operating system, OS X on
Windows machines even though Apple vehemently denies this. Whereas my
colleague Robert believes that Apple's decision is actually much more
about moving away from IBM, rather than switching to Intel. This is due
to the fact that Apple's dependency on IBM has been hurting Apple and
the entire Macintosh community for quite some time.

Which viewpoint do you agree with, if any? Please provide appropriate
criticisms and arguments, as this assignment will be evaluated based on
the quality of discussion and feedback.

I'm not sure how much you wanted to speculate on what's going on behind the
scenes and as Keith just remarked, you can't know for sure... and Keith
probably knows some of it... maybe a lot.<shrug>

Here's a couple of highly speculative err, flights of fancy(?):

1) Intel is really pissed with M$ right now - basically, when you boil it
down, M$ has told Intel ["make EM64T AMD64 compatible"] they don't own the
x86(-64) architecture any more. The Linux market is developing too slowly
for Intel's liking and is quite fond of AMD64 themselves. In the long term
it's possible that Intel sees a deal with Apple as a way to reimpose their
hold on x86-64 innovations and development directions... maybe even a slow
evolution to EPIC? For the moment the deal is not enough to get M$ upset
but in the long term?.........

2) Have you thought that maybe IBM went to Apple and said: "Look you guys
aren't selling enough of those things to fill our fabs as much as we
want/need. We have this great new Cell processor and this triple-core job
(XBox-2) which we are ramping up to stamp out in the gazillions. Why don't
you take a look at them and see what you can do with them?"

As for Apple's "master plan" I'd think it has to have lots of contingencies
built in. Given the high enthusiasm for current Macs, it's possible that
they expect/hope(?) those folks to take a "buy before it disappears"
stance, giving themselves 2/3 years of comfort zone before biting the
bullet on a different/new computer architecture. OTOH, if that doesn't pan
out and there is a flight from the current Macs, there has to be a Plan B
which allows for accelerating the x86 OS X roll-out.

 

[Robert Myers]

I'm not sure how much you wanted to speculate on what's going on behind the
scenes and as Keith just remarked, you can't know for sure... and Keith
probably knows some of it... maybe a lot.<shrug>

Yeah, right. The company he worked for was out of the loop for a week
before the public announcement, despite repeated unreturned phone calls
to Apple. Maybe they should have called Keith.

RM

 

[keith]

Okay, going with that, what is the price of maintaining a Mac vs. a PC?
Why would it be any different? As for the lifespan, most PCs these days
are probably about 5 years old on average. There used to be time when
being 3 years old was a death sentence for PCs, they wouldn't be fast
enough to run the most modern software. These days software is way
behind hardware development. New average software that can take
advantage of the added speed of PCs haven't come out. A 5 year old PC is
still able to run the latest software with acceptable speed.

The *average* age of a PC is 5 years? I highly doubt that. Most
corporate PCs are on a three or four year replacement cycle and Y2K is
long gone. I'd expect the average age (mean, actually) is more like two
or three years.

Basically where does your figures come from that Macs are less expensive
to maintain than PCs?

They don't run Windows. Does that give you a hint? ;-)

 

[keith]

Yeah, right. The company he worked for was out of the loop for a week
before the public announcement, despite repeated unreturned phone calls
to Apple. Maybe they should have called Keith.

Robert, I always knew you were a twat. You've just shown your colors
and quite brightly, at that.

 

[YKhan]

The *average* age of a PC is 5 years? I highly doubt that. Most
corporate PCs are on a three or four year replacement cycle and Y2K is
long gone. I'd expect the average age (mean, actually) is more like two
or three years.

I'd say the average corporate PC is about 3-4 years old nowadays. And
the average home PC is a bit older than that, about 3-5 years. The
upgrade cycles have lengthened by at least 50% ever since software
stopped keeping up with hardware. Yes, there will always be new systems
bought, but those usually get kept a little longer.

They don't run Windows. Does that give you a hint? ;-)

Not really, once Windows is bought (ahem) what other costs are there to
it?

Yousuf Khan

 

[keith]

I'd say the average corporate PC is about 3-4 years old nowadays. And
the average home PC is a bit older than that, about 3-5 years. The
upgrade cycles have lengthened by at least 50% ever since software
stopped keeping up with hardware. Yes, there will always be new systems
bought, but those usually get kept a little longer.

The cycles have lengthened, to be sure. However, they were *all* replaced
before Y2K, sixish years ago. I'd guess the cycle has gone from three to
maybe four or possibly five years. That still puts the average (mean)
less than five. ;-) Coporate replacement is much driven by tax codes, as
well.

Not really, once Windows is bought (ahem) what other costs are there to
it?

Helpless desk, Malware updates (I have to run and keep three programs
updated), system crashes, and constant Windows updates.

 

[RobertS]

What tells me this? More than 20 years working in a mixed PC/Mac
environment - using thousands of computers.

Outside of the initial cost, Macs won on every front, virtually every
time: Hardware, software and training. When the cost of the hardware
and software were factored in with the maintenance and upkeep, Macs
were always less expensive - considerably less (ranging up from 20%
difference on good PC's (not often enough) to much, much more when we
used clones - big mistake).

Factors involved:
Service on the hardware: time, parts and personnel (more people
needed per PC).
Service on the software: time, training and personnel (more time
needed per PC).

Obviously, time and personnel translates directly to spending more
money.

The most difficult aspect of maintaining Macs was finding qualified
service technicians. PC technicians are a dome a dozen, not so for Mac
techies.

Therefore my earlier statement: It costs significantly more to maintain
PCs.


Robert Sones

 

[keith]

What tells me this? More than 20 years working in a mixed PC/Mac
environment - using thousands of computers.

You have no argument with me! ;-)

 

[RobertS]

George Macdonald: You are correct about speculation - it could go on
forever, from here to Mars and back. Some of the viable options are
interesting and more directly related to our school project. Thanks to
everyone.

re: 1) The deal, in its present form, is really not big enough to get
too many businesses worried immediately, but the long-term implications
could be enormous. It has definitely got people thinking and talking
on all sides - Intel/AMD/PPC/x86/Mac/Linux/Windows ... As far as EPIC
is concerned I don't know enough to make an intelligent comment,
perhaps you could fill me in ... One of the long range possibilities
for Apple, if the Intel deal isn't quite as compatible as advertised,
is eventually to make a switch to AMD - provided AMD would be able to
handle Apple's demand. Once the switch to x86 goes through, the
switch from Intel to AMD or back again would be nothing. AMD lovers
hopes abound.

re: 2) Yes it is possible, even probable that Apple was not pleasing
IBM. However, I have known for years, that IBM has had difficulty
(since the late 1990's) keeping up with Apple's needs/demands.
This has been a growing problem and frustration for Apple. Regarding
the "master plan", quite frankly it seems that Apple has been
hedging their bets all along. Good for them. I assume that this is
not the only "just in case" scenario they have been looking at.
Plan B, C, ...

 

[Gary L.]

Outside of the initial cost, Macs won on every front, virtually every
time: Hardware, software and training. When the cost of the hardware
and software were factored in with the maintenance and upkeep, Macs
were always less expensive - considerably less (ranging up from 20%
difference on good PC's (not often enough) to much, much more when we
used clones - big mistake).

Factors involved:
Service on the hardware: time, parts and personnel (more people
needed per PC).

Assuming we're talking about recent, modern systems, the cost should
be the same. Macs use the same commodity parts as PCs: the same
memory, the same video cards, the same hard drives, the same optical
drives, etc. They are assembled in the same Taiwanese and Chinese OEM
factories as name-brand PCs. It is the same stuff inside, apart from
the CPU and the motherboard.

If we disregard the super-cheap PCs build from garbage parts, the
hardware reliability and repair figures should be virtually identical.
In other works, your $1500 PC is going to be equally reliable as
compared to your $1500 (or $2000) Mac, and the cost of replacing a
hard drive, RAM module or power supply will be the pretty much the
same.

Service on the software: time, training and personnel (more time
needed per PC).

Again, OS X and Win XP are similar in most respects: both have
automatic updates. And both are reasonably stable with good quality
hardware. I don't see a big difference in your typical service call
with either system (e.g., "I can't print on the network printer").
Certainly, the DOS-based Windows variants are less stable and have
higher support costs than either OS X or XP, but then Mac OS 9 and
earlier weren't the most stable either.

I can't see how the training costs are going to be greater on Windows:
Teaching someone to use Word for Windows as compared to Word for Mac
should be about the same. In fact, given the market share of Windows,
the amount of training required for Windows is likely to be less than
for the Mac OS.

The only area where there is a significant difference is in problems
caused by viruses, worms, spyware and similar malware. Undoubtedly,
the Windows platform is much more susceptible to these problems. The
Windows default settings (allowing ActiveX controls, html mail, etc.)
invite an attack. Locking down the systems to control this threat is a
significant expense these days. Mac OS X ships with better security
defaults, and its miniscule market share makes it a less attractive
target for malware. Securing an organization from these threats is a
significant and growing expense.

And there is the alternative of Linux on the desktop: just as secure
as Mac OS X but using cheaper hardware. But probably some additional
cost in training and configuration.

It would be interesting to see some *real* numbers on this stuff,
rather than just anecdotal evidence.