[CentOS] apple to Intel

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

From: William Warren <hescominsoon at emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com>
> I am wondering what the list's opinion is on the Apple to Intel 
> switch.

It means that IBM thinks like a foundary, not like a PowerPC partner.
Let's face it, for Sony and Microsoft, they make millions of units of
the exact same product.  For Apple, they are wanting multiple products
with 1/10th the volume.

So this wasn't a surprise, especially with Intel courting Apple since '03.
It also explains why Apple didn't go AMD, even though they were
using HyperTransport for I/O interconnect on the PowerPC 970/G5
(although not the full NUMA/HyperTransport that A64/Opteron does).

AMD can't offer the "preferred status" deals/margins that Intel can.

> This is going to put a slick desktop that runs on top of 
> BSD directly into the mainstream.

Well, I always thought Apple was mainstream.  It's still not a PC.
It won't run on all PCs.  That's fine, I always liked Apple's designs more.
If they become the economies-of-scale competitor to Dell, that's fine
with me -- and I'll even pay 20% more than Dell for them.

In fact, I hope to God that Apple's firmware ends up being a standard
approach that replaces the God awful PC BIOS.  Even if Apple won't
ever open it up so MacOS X runs on regular PCs, at least it will be nice
to see a good firmware on a PC platform for once!  (God I hate the PC
BIOS compared to countless other platforms!)

> What does this hold for Linux in general, Linux on the desktop..and
> microsoft.

It means that you'll be able to tri-boot.  And if Apple does as good
of a job on the new PC firmware that they did on their PowerPC, then
multi-boot geometry/conflicts are a thing of the past.



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org