No, companies produce what is profitable. However good the power PC is as a
chip, it is not in the same league of unit profitability as a Pentium god
knows what. Intel will use vastly greater resources to keep it that way, and
they have some other areas of performance growth to investigate too.
Last time I looked IBM were doing better per cycle on the same hardware with
the RS line so there isn't really even a geek reason to promote Mac on power
PC. I guess that you could try XENIX on a Mac if you really, really believe
in the hardware....
The vast majority of Apple customers don't care what's in the box, they care
about the user interface and the "cute" styling. If that is an issue, blame
Apple's own marketing for it, no-one else. What it means is that the value
added in a Mac is in the intellectual property of a few UNIX extensions, not
in the hardware. The only way the hardware will become an issue is if Apple
get off their A**es and do something which really can't be done by an Intel
platform, eg really small and powerful, cool, quiet, whatever. Don't hold
your breath, though- they've got another 6 Ipods to design this month, and
that's where the profits are.
On(ish) topic:
The OM cameras were NEVER intended to be niche players. In their day they
were fighting feature for feature with the competition, and Oly were fully
engaged in the great price crash of the early eighties. The only element of
niche here is that we enjoy using them 20 years past their sell-by date.
They became niche through lack of investment by a company whose interests
moved on to other, more profitable things.
Julian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Steinman" <Jan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 4:37 AM
Subject: [OM] [OT] Is The MAC Dead
>
> From: "Julian Davies" <julian_davies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> As hardware the Mac has a limited run left in it. Expect OSXI to be
>> ported
>> to an Intel compatible platform.
>
> I guess that's why Scientific American recently ran an article that
> claimed Intel cannot continue Moore's law because their processors have
> become too complex, and in the sidebar, noted that IBM's PowerPC line
> is simpler, gets much more work done with each clock cycle, and will
> not see the sort of fundamental limits that Intel is facing for at
> least several more years.
>
> While actual performance leapfrogs every year or so, the PowerPC line
> consistently beats Intel in work accomplished per area of silicon, and
> work accomplished per watt of power consumption. That sounds like
> growing room!
>
> This story falls under the heading of "yet another rumor" that Mac
> users have had to put up with for decades -- that it will soon be
> ported to inferior Intel hardware in an effort to gain market share.
>
> People either "get" the Mac, or they don't.
>
> :::: Real peace in a petroleum-fueled world means rejecting petroleum
> dependence in all possible ways. -- Jan Lundberg
> :::: Jan Steinman (a petroleum-free zone)
> <http://www.Bytesmiths.com/Van>
>
>
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