Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Not so different now: Apple to use Intel chips

SAN FRANCISCO -- For two decades, Apple Computer Inc. touted its Macintosh as a superior alternative to PCs based on Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft Corp. software. In ads, it urged people to "Think Different" with machines that bucked the dominant forces of the PC industry.

But on Monday Apple started thinking a lot like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc. when it announced plans to switch the Mac to the same Intel chips that have powered Windows-based machines for years.

The deal, which has long been rumored, will help Apple better compete with the performance -- and potentially the price -- of Windows PCs. Still, Apple will continue to build its own computers and says it won't license its software to other PC vendors.

If past transitions are any indication, such a move is likely to be rocky for Apple, its customers and software developers. Analysts said such changes in the past have hurt the Mac's worldwide market share, which now is at 2.3 percent, according to the research firm IDC.

For starters, it must convince users and potential buyers that today's Macs will not become the technology equivalent of lame ducks. And it must get programmers to develop software that works on both versions of the Mac.

Speaking to thousands of software developers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the transition will start by mid-2006, with the entire Mac product line switched by the end of 2007. He said it won't to be a fast change, and the company is taking steps to make it easier.

"This is not going to be a transition that happens overnight," he said. "It's going to happen over a period of a few years."

Programmers can immediately start developing software in a format that will run natively on both existing and future Mac chips, he said. Apple also will have a technology in place that will translate the code so that older programs will run on the Macs with Intel inside.

Jobs revealed that Apple has been working on the move for at least five years, creating two versions of its Mac OS X operating system for both the current Mac chips and those built by Intel.

"Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life," he said.

He said the move was driven by the fact that its current chip suppliers -- IBM Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. -- could not promise the same horsepower and power efficiency as Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company.

Intel, on the other hand, has plans to make its chips more powerful without dramatically increasing electricity demands. That's critically important for notebook computers, which by some accounts are beginning to outsell desktops in the United States.

Intel, which reported about $34 billion in sales last year, isn't expected to see a huge increase in revenue from the deal. But it doesn't hurt to be associated with a company that doesn't treat computers like a commodity.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who joined Jobs onstage, said the chip maker was pleased to have Apple as a customer.

"I suspect there is a whole bunch of you that never thought you would see this logo on this stage," he said. "I was one of them for a while."

The news was greeted by a mix of cheers and laughs at the conference and uncertainty among Mac fans who believe a switch to Intel chips is like joining forces with the dark side.

Calming fears that Apple's switch would ignite a revolt among its most important software programmers, Jobs was joined onstage by two major developers -- Adobe Systems Inc. and Microsoft. Both announced that they would support Macs running the existing and new hardware.

Apple also quickly snuffed out the possibility that computer makers other than itself might someday offer Mac OS X. But it did not say how it would prevent users from installing a pirated copy of the software on their computers from Dell, HP or other PC makers.

It's also not clear whether the move might make Macs more vulnerable to attacks by viruses and other malware. To date, they've been mostly exempt.

In making the move, Apple is abandoning a processor known as the PowerPC that it developed with IBM and Motorola Inc. in the 1990s to compete against Intel's x86 architecture and which it touted as more powerful.

But the switch ends years of squabbling between Apple and its chip suppliers.

When Motorola -- and later its chip spinoff Freescale Semiconductor Inc. -- supplied G4 processors for Macs, Apple grew frustrated with the rate of improvements. In 2002, it signed a deal with IBM to provide advanced chips for its high-end desktop computers, the Power Mac G5.

But the IBM-Apple quickly grew rocky.

Jobs said Macs would top 3 gigahertz in processing speed by the summer of 2004, but IBM did not deliver. The IBM chips also were scarce for desktop computers and nonexistent for notebooks. The G5, in its current form, is simply too hot and consumed too much electricity for portables.

Though the Mac could benefit from Intel's chips, skeptical analysts questioned whether it was worth the risk. In the past, major transitions have led to defections by customers and software developers, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at the research firm Insight 64.

In the past, the Mac captured as much as 10 percent of the overall PC market, he said. But when Apple switched from Motorola 68000 processors to PowerPC chips, the Mac's share dropped to below 5 percent. When the Mac's operating system later changed to OS X, it fell to below 3 percent.

"I have a lot of trouble understanding why they would do it," Brookwood said of the transition to Intel processors. "Unless there's something magical, I would have to believe it's not a good move."

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