News for Saturday, 4 June 2005

One of our reader has sent us this disturbing news published by Reuters.
Reuters is mentioning Cnet as the source of this information, and as a result reports that Steve Jobs should announce on Monday June 6th during the WWDC Keynote, the reverse "switch" of Apple's computer from PowerPC to x86 processors. Such transition should progress stepwise, starting from entry-level models to end-up with PowerMacG5 in 2007.
This report is disturbing on several points:
- it is entirely based on a rumor, something quite unusual for such a news network.
- if the best place for such announcement is indeed the WWDC, but it would be surprising that Apple announces such a turn which could be synonyms of a short-term suicide. Indeed, with such a migration plan, it would immediately kill sales for PMG5 up to their migration to x86-based processor. In other words, knowing that high end models are the most profitable ones for Apple, such a move would be financially dangerous for Apple. Even though with the current success of the iPod/iTMS couple, Apple can not take this risk, both on the business and financial aspects.
- now why starting with low end models? The main complain of Apple vs. IBM is its delay to release faster G5/970-97x. So far every technology revolution has always started from the top, the high-end model, and then applied to lower end models.
- to conclude, the choice of IBM by Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo for the processor which will power their respective next generation game console proves that the Power technology has a bright future. Quitting the current Power revolution would for sure be a humongous mistake if Apple decides to go for x86, and an unusual lake of vision from Steve Jobs.
While waiting for Monday's keynote, this rumor will for sure stimulate Mac-dedicated forums over the world.