If you’re a reader of “i, cringely” then you probably saw his latest editorial – “Going for Broke”. It’s an interesting article about the possibility that Intel and Apple are really attempting to merge into one company to go up against Microsoft. Now, Cringely usually comes up with some far out concepts (and to his benefit, many of them end up correct) however this one is so far out in left field that I feel like it needs a rebuttal of some sort. So I’ll attempt to address as many of his points as possible.

1. Power PC performance advantage
At the end of the day – it had nothing to do with the performance of the PowerPC. It was about two major categories – getting faster and faster CPUs and getting a high performance chip for a mobile platform such as the PowerBook. It was clear that the G5 was not going to see 3GHz + speeds anytime soon. With x86 processors well in the 3GHz+ space, Apple felt like it needed to compete the numbers game (even if in some scenarios it really did not need to). Besides – Mr. Jobs promised all of us a 3GHz system did he not? He sure looks a bit foolish now doesn’t he?

Plus, IBM seemed content to focus on other deliverables such as the Cell processor for the Sony gaming market (and we all know Jobs is probably furious about this one).

On the other front, there was the mobile platform. The G5 was not being redesigned in any way to reduce heat output. Power hungry CPUs need bigger and faster fans which mean lower battery life and louder systems. Let’s face it folks – the Intel Pentium M was the way to go for the mobile platform. It’s cool, fast, outperforms Pentium 4’s in many respects.

2. The 64 bitness is still there folks. Remember that the x86 now has the 64 bit extensions which were first designed by AMD. So what if Itanium stays on the upper echelons of computing with the high end server market. All selling desktop processors will have 64 bit extensions by the end of next year. Intel’s roadmap clearly shows x86 with 64 bit extensions as the way to go. In fact it was Intel who mistakingly ignored the 64 bit world for the common desktop. Now they’re catching up and you’ll see 64 bit goodness all over. So, the 64 bit OS X will find a new home with this platform.

3. Where is AMD? It comes down to a few things. First off – AMD doesn’t make chipsets for its processors. Is this a big deal? Sure it is. If I’m Apple – I want there to be as few variables in my system boards as possible. Do I want a processor from AMD, a chipset from NVIDIA, a graphics card from ATI? Sure it works on the PC side but it causes more headaches for Apple. Validating a reference board from all these sources is a pain. Intel practically owns the entire reference platform folks! A bigger reason? it has all the resources in the world to qualify and validate it.

Thus it comes down to size – Intel’s bigger, has more resources, and will be there for the long haul. Apple only has to bitch at one company as opposed to many smaller ones.

4. Why announce it this early? Come on now.. Apple developers need to know ahead of time. Sure in some cases it only takes 2 hours to recompile their application. But the truth is.. if you want to squeeze as much performance out of the app as possible, you need a fair amount of advance notice. You also need to make sure the system compilers are thoroughly tested and validated. Is this going to hurt current sales? Of course – but probably not as much as you think. With a unified binary format, most application vendors will probably cover both platforms with a minimal amount of overhead. The fact is – if you need an Apple system today – a PPC system is still the way to go and an excellent investment in the foreseeable future. With nearly 10 yrs of PPC systems under Apple’s belt, the market is certainly large enough such that Apple and software vendors will need to continue supporting it for quite a long ways.

5. Who cares?

And finally, it comes down to Intel. Does Intel really want a company like Apple? No. Intel is all about selling microprocessors. That’s where the huge margins come in. There’s predictability here. They’re great at producing processors (AND a lot of them). When it comes to software, it’s not quite the same anymore – software changes rapidly and most importantly, sales are not as predictable.

Intel will do almost anything to HELP sell more processors. If anything – this keeps Microsoft honest. At Intel – software has always been second best. There have been some pretty awesome s/w minds at Intel in the past but it boils down to the hardware. Processors makes the most money – has the highest returns – and is responsible for where Intel is now. Intel needs Microsoft in the market and it needs other players like Linux and OS X. It all comes to selling more processors folks.

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