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Monday, June 06, 2005

Is it time to gang up on Billy the Bully?

(To say that I was spectacularly wrong is to underestimate how spectacular a supernova of miscalculation can be. A modest man would have erased or re-edited, but I prefer to leave them online. Primarily because I believe words?once written?deserve to remain as record, foolish or not. It goes to fidelity and veracity. And also because I know no-one read this thing anyway. Enjoy.)

It’s hours before Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2005 and the newswires are alight that Apple is switching to Intel. True or not, consider the message. Is the world now looking for a savior from years of Windows hegemony?

Since I do so badly at prognostication, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring now and see if I can make a few qualified predictions. Please mind your head, keep your arms inside the ride at all times and, as always, no wagering on who survives.

Apple will not switch to x86 processors - Apple builds “walled gardens” like Macintosh and iTunes, places where there’s freedom but safety. Opening up the gates to x86 compatibility would reintroduce the spectre of Orange/PowerComputing-type clones. I can’t see that happening.

The PowerPC spec is open - anyone can build them. Perhaps Intel will become the primary manufacturer since IBMs going to have their hands full making all those 3+Ghz G5s for Microsoft’s XBox. Altivec - Moto & IBM’s versions - would be a problem, but the G5 architecture takes care of much of the Altivec advantage. The bait to the Intel rumor has been the new Pentium D processor - with DRM handily built-in. If Intel can build it into a Pentium, why not a PowerPC?

Did I say ‘IBM’ and ‘3+ Ghz G5’ in the same line? Sure I did - do you think Steve likes following behind Bill for anything? Add a dash of hubris and you can see why Intel now becomes attractive to Steve.

Lastly, why leave a hardware platform that’ll soon have games developed for it? Games have always been Apple’s ‘Achilles Heel’, and with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo adopting the G5, what kind of advantage would there be to drop it now? The G5s that will be used in future game systems are scaled-down and streamlined verisons of the Apple core…if anything, porting should be easier.

There’s likely either alot more to this or alot less, but it does do one very important thing - worth all the media attention draped across the subject this weekend: it marks a line in the sand that both Apple and Intel are willing to crossing over. Is this the opening salvo in a war against the bully of the marketplace, Microsoft? MS dumps Intel for IBM, and Intel promotes Apple’s security over Microsoft. Sony is getting cozy with Apple. Intel. Sun.

There’s blood in the water and everyone can smell it.