> From: J Philippe Chaperon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > What a real nightmare Steve Jobs has sprung on some of us!! I'm still trying > to fathom what all this will mean for the 'believers'.
Philippe, I was similarly shell-shocked at first when Steve confirmed the rumours. However, I think we are all suffering an emotional rather than logical reaction - yes there will be some disruption over the next two years, but I don't think it is nearly as bad as many of us fear and there are significant advantages down the track. > It'll be very hard > right now for the evangelists to evangelize the heathen to the Apple > religion.... Actually - in the case of new users, it will be far easier to "evangelise the heathen" in a year's time - we'll be able offer new Macs that will almost certainly be able to run any of their Windows software as fast as on an intel PC (instead of using slow Virtual PC emulation) something that has usually been a sticking point in the past. And they'll have the reassurance that they could always trash Mac OS X and run Windows on the Macintel box if Mac OS X doesn't pan out. Of course we all know they will find themselves so enamoured with OS X that they won't change back(!) :-) but having that escape route will be an important security blanket for many. Also, anyone who plays games will also benefit from the ability to run all those Windows games titles that never make it to the Mac or come over poorly ported. However, you are correct that it will be a more difficult argument over the next 12 months until the first Macintel boxes are released. > One thing I am certain of is that my dual G5, purchased to last me through > many upgrades, both software and hardware, or so I thought some months back, > is now like a lame duck sitting in the very busy Intel highway. I think you are really in a similar situation to someone who bought a 68k Mac before the first PowerPC Mac was announced or a G3 Mac before the G4s or a G4 before the G5 or a 486 PC before the Pentium was announced. In each case it was known that *future* software that specifically used native PPC code or the Velocity engine of the G4 or 64bit code or the Pentium wouldn't run on the older respective systems, but did that make them lame ducks? No - as any software/hardware company that didn't support these older systems (that would continue to make up the majority of the market for a long time to come) would lose out - this is the usual situation in an industry where the only constant is change. In this case, the major problem is the new systems are not due for a year, so we have to hope Apple can weather the potential "Osbourne Effect" of lower Mac sales until then. Thankfully the ascendant iPod (up now to 76% marketshare from 64% of the total MP3 market (flash and HD)), the iTunes Music Store (up now to 82% marketshare from 70%) and 7 billion dollars in the bank should tide them over. :-) You will have 2 years of good use out of your Mac before a Macintel replacement for the high-end G5 Macs even becomes available let alone starts making up a significant share of the market so it will be cutting edge fro quite some time to come yet. > I now have absolutely no incentive to update to Tiger, I was planning to > place an order for one today!! My current 10.3.9 will do until it dies out, > and hopefully by then the effects of Jobs' decision would be clearer. I am > just not in a mood anymore to put my heard earned cabbages to support > something built on shifting sand. I feel your pain, but give it a few more days and I think the emotion of it all will subside and logic will seep in and the advantages of Tiger for your system today will become more evident - it took a while for me to work thru it all too! -Mart
