Robert X. Cringely on the Apple / Intel deal

  • Thread starter Thread starter Henry Nettles
  • Start date Start date
Fanciful, very fanciful. :-)
Click to expand...
Aw, c'mon, Yousuf. Live a little! You've got your spiffed-up and now
immortal x86 from AMD, and it's mopping the floor with Intel on
performance. Now dream of the outcome we'd *all* like to see.

RM
 
YKhan said:
Fanciful, very fanciful. :-)

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...
Apple's market cap is 31 Billion USD. So Intel would have to cough up
40B. And since Intel's PE is lower than AAPL it might not be good for
INTC stock. Also there is the coming up with the 40B. They could make
it a cash and stock deal or an all stock deal and issue another 1.5e9
share to go with the 6B shares already outstanding. Uffda. Lot of
money.
 
Apple's market cap is 31 Billion USD. So Intel would have to cough up
40B. And since Intel's PE is lower than AAPL it might not be good for
INTC stock. Also there is the coming up with the 40B. They could make
it a cash and stock deal or an all stock deal and issue another 1.5e9
share to go with the 6B shares already outstanding. Uffda. Lot of
money.
Click to expand...
Ain't gonna happen, either. Intel might have a contract out on Gates,
but they're going to need the money that they might use to buy out
Apple if they're going to go after Microsoft turf in any serious way.
I do think they've got much more that 2-3% of anything in mind here.

RM
 
"Remember, you read it here first."

Nup. Said it here aready. Payback time for Chairman Bill.

RM
Click to expand...
Don't forget that MSFT _DOES_ have a second source of chips - AMD. If
INTC is perceived by Chairman Bill to really intend to act as
described at the URL above, MSFT may counter by, for instance,
optimizing its code for AMD, leaving INTC even more behind in terms of
performance. Also MSFT has even greater cash reserves than INTC, and
can use some of it to help AMD increase production. Besides, IBM may
use the capacity freed by G5 to fab chips for AMD. And, finally, for
MSFT to acquire AMD outright is even easier than for INTC to buy AAPL
- wouldn't that be fun to see the competition of these 2 after these
mergers? After all, MacOS has only about 3% of the desktop market,
and Windows pretty much the rest, and in servers Mac is a non-entity.
I just don't see Intel going after 3% of the market and risking huge
losses in Windows PC/Servers, so they will have to proceed carefully
as to not ruffle Chairman Bill's feathers.
 
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050609.html

Very, very interesting. I have no idea if he's right, but a MAJOR
shakeup if he is.
Click to expand...

I have serious trouble taking someone seriously when damn near every
tidbit of information he throw's out is flat out wrong. A few
examples:

"OS X 10.4 -- Tiger -- is a 64-bit OS"

Actually Tiger includes very little 64-bit code and only very limited
support for the larger memory addressing that makes 64-bit chips
interesting. Calling Tiger a 64-bit OS is like saying that Win3.1 was
a 32-bit OS.


"remember, yet Intel's 64-bit chips -- Xeon and Itanium -- are high
buck items aimed at servers, not iMacs."

Uhh, is he forgetting about the fact that Intel released 64-bit
desktop processors a good 6 months ago? Intel even plans on pushing
out 64-bit Celeron processors for the low-end by the end of the year.


(speaking of AMD vs. Intel) "AND [AMD] does so at a lower price point
across the board?"

Has he checked the prices of AMD and Intel's newest chips? Intel's
most expensive Pentium-D is about the same price as the cheapest of
AMD's Athlon64 X2 chips!


"The CPU ID is still in there"

Actually it's not.


"just as every network device has its unique MAC address"

MAC address are NOT unique (just unique on a subnet).


"If Apple was willing to consider a processor switch, moving to the
Cell Processor would have made much more sense than going to Intel or
AMD,"

?!?! Has he SEEN how ridiculously different the Cell design is from
existing chips in Macs? There's just no way to do emulation of
current software on the Cell and make it run at acceptable speeds, and
porting applications to Cell would be FAR more complicated than
porting from PowerPC to x86. The simple fact is that the current
software paradigm just doesn't fit the Cell at all. In the closed
environment of a gaming console it is easy enough to change that
paradigm, but not with a general purpose PC.



<sigh> And this guy gets paid for all this?! Geez. If they wanted
someone to spew nonsense based on incorrect facts then PBS could have
just dredged through the postings at Slashdot!
 
Robert said:
Aw, c'mon, Yousuf. Live a little! You've got your spiffed-up and now
immortal x86 from AMD, and it's mopping the floor with Intel on
performance. Now dream of the outcome we'd *all* like to see.
Click to expand...


Uh no, as Del mentioned, paying between $30-40 Billion for a piece of
the iPod action doesn't seem very financially sane to me.

I think Mr. Cringely has decided that now that what was thought
impossible has happened, now anything else that seems impossible can
also happen. So he's going for a hail-mary of craziness. Next he'll be
predicting Dell will start using AMD processors, for example. :-)

Yousuf Khan
 
"just as every network device has its unique MAC address"

MAC address are NOT unique (just unique on a subnet).
Click to expand...

MAC addresses are unique, barring people changing them of course. Of course your
chances of accidentally changing it to match another devices address on
your subnet are very very small indeed.
 
Uh no, as Del mentioned, paying between $30-40 Billion for a piece of
the iPod action doesn't seem very financially sane to me.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It doesn't make much sense for Intel actually to buy Apple.
I do think Intel and Apple are making much bigger plans than just
having Intel replace IBM as a chip supplier, and that what Intel
brings to this action is not just plant capacity and a notebook chip
but also money.

RM
 
Don't forget that MSFT _DOES_ have a second source of chips - AMD. If
INTC is perceived by Chairman Bill to really intend to act as
described at the URL above, MSFT may counter by, for instance,
optimizing its code for AMD, leaving INTC even more behind in terms of
performance.
Click to expand...

I'd be very surprised if Intel didn't regard Microsoft's x86-64
decision as a declaration of war. That is to say, Microsoft already
_has_ optimized its code for AMD.
Also MSFT has even greater cash reserves than INTC, and
can use some of it to help AMD increase production.
Click to expand...

That would and should produce a shareholder revolt at Microsoft.
Besides, IBM may
use the capacity freed by G5 to fab chips for AMD.
Click to expand...

IBM's fab capacity is limited by its ability to make money making
chips, which it hasn't been doing in quite a while.
And, finally, for
MSFT to acquire AMD outright is even easier than for INTC to buy AAPL
- wouldn't that be fun to see the competition of these 2 after these
mergers? After all, MacOS has only about 3% of the desktop market,
and Windows pretty much the rest, and in servers Mac is a non-entity.
I just don't see Intel going after 3% of the market and risking huge
losses in Windows PC/Servers, so they will have to proceed carefully
as to not ruffle Chairman Bill's feathers.
Click to expand...

All the feathers are already ruffled. There is simply no way that
Gates cannot be taking a dark view of the Intel-Apple deal, and Intel
is already furious over 64-bit decisions (x86/Itanium) by Microsoft.
The only question is where the bodies lie when the shooting stops.

RM
 
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050609.html

Very, very interesting. I have no idea if he's right, but a MAJOR
shakeup if he is.
Click to expand...

How can he be right? This guy thnks Intel only does 64-bit in Xeons and
Itanium! He also thinks Intel/Apple as a merger works - Intel knows from
decades ago not to try to sell boxes and an OS.

As an alternative OS supplier/partner, Apple may make sense and as a tactic
to waken M$ from their AMD64 dreams it could be a good move for Intel.
It's still going to take a while to get from 2% of the market to where
Apple has much impact on Intel's sales numbers and ASP... if ever.
 
Robert said:
Agreed. It doesn't make much sense for Intel actually to buy Apple.
I do think Intel and Apple are making much bigger plans than just
having Intel replace IBM as a chip supplier, and that what Intel
brings to this action is not just plant capacity and a notebook chip
but also money.
Click to expand...

Maybe they might be trying to get Apple to start licensing MacOS out to
other manufacturers. So far Apple is refusing. But maybe they won't for
long. It can only help Apple's bottom line to sell MacOS independently.

Yousuf Khan
 
MAC addresses are unique, barring people changing them of course. Of course your
chances of accidentally changing it to match another devices address on
your subnet are very very small indeed.
Click to expand...

Actually, not they're not unique. They're designated in blocks and
several manufacturers have recycled MACs. As Tony said, which you seem to
agree, that they only need be unique on a subnet and ther eis little
chance of an "issue".
 
Agreed. It doesn't make much sense for Intel actually to buy Apple.
I do think Intel and Apple are making much bigger plans than just
having Intel replace IBM as a chip supplier, and that what Intel
brings to this action is not just plant capacity and a notebook chip
but also money.
Click to expand...

And chipsets. About the only chip that Apple (co-)designed in the
current PowerMac G5 systems is their memory controller chipset. I
wouldn't be at all surprised if that eat up a rather substantial
portion of their entire R&D budget. If they have to go through this
with every different chipset for each different market then they are
going to be talking about some serious money, even if they had IBM
helping out on some designs (as I believe was the case with the G5
chipset). Fortunately for them they decided to opt for a
hypertransport design on this chipset which allowed them to use AMD's
8131 PCI-X and 8111 I/O chips for the rest of the I/O in the system,
but the memory controller was a customer design.

Intel may also be bringing a few other things to the table with
regards to compilers and development tools.

However I think the real question that is floating around with all of
this is how the software works into things. ie Will MacOS X run on
non-Apple branded computers. That is the real question that keeps
floating around in my head at least. If so, then Apple becomes more
of a software vendor that just happens to also sell some kinda funky
PCs to the artsy crowd. And will Apple PCs using Intel chips also run
Windows? Will Apple SELL PCs with Windows?
 
MAC addresses are unique, barring people changing them of course. Of course your
chances of accidentally changing it to match another devices address on
your subnet are very very small indeed.
Click to expand...

The fact that they can be changed (easily) and are not FORCED to be
unique means that you can most definitely not *depend* on them being
unique, ie trying to design some sort of DRM scheme around MAC
addresses is an exercise in futility.

Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if we're starting to push up against
the limits of some MAC address ranges. 48-bits does give you a hell
of a lot of addresses, but there are some restrictions within that
space and EVERY network connected device ever made has a MAC address.
Sooner or later we're just going to start running out of new ones and
have to re-use old ones. In fact, this has probably already happened
just because, as mentioned above, you are not FORCED to have unique
MAC addresses except on an individual subnet.
 
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