Apple's partnership with Motorola has deteriorated into a comedy
of errors over the last year or so. Production problems, pricing
fiascoes, and hitting the MHz brick wall have all contributed to a
black eye for Apple. The perceived "slowpoke" status of the Macs does
nothing for marketing and doesn't help sales. Those grand "snail" ads
from a couple of years ago don't help matters much. What goes
around....
Hollering "MHz don't matter" is just preaching to the tech
literate crowd, not the average Jane in the store.
IBM is out there with faster PPC chips, but the taboo of sleeping
with the enemy rarely rears its head. What if Apple got cozy with
Intel? This speculation is not new, but OS X opens up some intriguing
possibilities. Theoretically, making OS X run on Intel hardware is
just a recompile away.
Are there advantages to this? Intel may be just as bad a chip
partner as Motorola. Rather than focusing on delivering the best
products, Intel has been chasing the Will 'o the Wisp speed crown of
AMD. Their production problem with their own 1.13 GHz chips is hardly
a sign of a solid supplier.
So what can Apple really do about Motorola's poor performance?
Motorola is a massive company with plenty of other revenue streams.
Is Apple's weight as a buyer big enough for them to start making
threats against Motorola?
While Apple's chip business may not make up the bulk of Motorola's
sales, losing Apple's business would definitely have a negative
impact on the bottom line. Motorola is likely not in a position to
simply dismiss sales to Apple as inconsequential.
Apple has managed to keep things spiced up with ever faster iMacs
and a dual processor G4. Unfortunately, the line is now pretty much
maxed out. There is no more speed to give. Unless Motorola
comes out with some faster chips quickly, Apple will likely be in
trouble with investors. New products only go so far if the chassis
remains the same, and there are only so many ways that you can
improve a computer before that clock speed starts looking pokey.
Theoretically, Apple can still introduce G4 iMacs, but what comes
after that?
Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. The longer chip speeds
stay the same, the better off current owners will be. No need to
worry about processor envy when everyone is maxed out.
It's time for Apple to start brandishing the big stick. OS X can
work on Intel, AMD, and Transmeta. Why wait for Motorola, which
doesn't seem to be too interested in staying ahead of the pack?
Time is growing short, and the next Mac lineup refresh had better
include something more than low-end iMacs with faster processors.
Stephen Van
Esch is the founder and president of
the
E-learning Foundry, an online training
resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual,
since he's also fluent in Windows and French.
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