the specifics are the idea of moving to the PentiumD chip which is to
be a multicore processor - essentially dual (or potentially more)
processors in a single chip die.... that and the huge volume of media
(music/movie) content buyers that can be pushed on to a single
hardware based digital media copy protection standard.
Intel would probably still have to wrangle pretty hard and show a
lot of cash to get rights to develop and manufacture the PPC chip
though with Motorola's constant on again off again "are we a computer
processor chip manufacturer or are we an imbedded chip manufacturer"
stand and IBM's lackluster R&D commitment that may be easier than we
are lead to believe.
One idea that no one here has floated so far is what if Apple is moving to
Intel, but not to x86? Perhaps they're going to move to Intel and get them
to make PPC for them.
Although I don't know exactly what was in the supply and development
contracts that Apple and IBM signed, I do know that IBM promised them quite
a bit more than they've actually delivered (3Ghz) and that there was very
serious penalty clauses for not delivering on it, including giving Apple
substantial control over the IP related to PPC. Isn't a lot of PPC an Open
Standard already anyway?
I'm guessing we'll know all by tomorrow morning, once Steve Jobs has
delivered his Keynote address at WWDC, in any case it's going to fascinating
to see what comes out. What new wonders will we see? Mac OS X on x86?
Windows on Apple/Intel hardware? Intel PPC chips? Maybe it's all BS and
someone is laughing their arse off about how far we've all been sucked in?
Only time will tell. :P
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