An Apple is still an Apple - even with its core removed
Of all the responses to last week's announcement that Apple will switch from using IBM-made PowerPC chips to Intel processors, the one from tech commentator Robert Cringely was certainly the most provocative. He thinks the deal is an attempt by Intel to fight Microsoft, ultimately by buying Apple.
Full marks to him for raising eyebrows, but the idea is really rather daft. Perhaps he will be proved right, but I doubt it.
Whatever these companies have in mind - and the only thing we can know for certain is that what they said publicly is not what they are really thinking - they have made quite a splash.
We are constantly reminded that Apple now has only about 3per cent of the entire PC market, even if the iPod phenomenon has been a great boon to the brand and the shareholders. IBM will put its PowerPC chips into servers and Xboxes, and Intel will own the desktop. So what has changed?
Despite the fact that a few rabid followers of Apple have said they will never buy another Mac, the truth is few users understand or care what is inside a computer, Intel or otherwise.
For years, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has shown us demonstration after demonstration of Adobe Photoshop performing so much better on a PowerPC than on an Intel-based system. Now he must go back on his word.
That would not be new for him or anyone else in the business. Things change, we learn to deal with the change or we get grumpy and are eventually marginalised.
There is some speculation that Intel would like to be associated with a company that actually innovates rather than one that only monopolises.
That could be true. Certainly Apple, considering its size, has had more success at innovating and coming up with 'insanely great ideas' than many other technology companies. Microsoft has always been a business powerhouse, not a technology one (and many people have not understood that difference).
That is what happens when you have a monopoly: no competition means you can dictate the rules by which others get to play.
That has been great for earning money, but it has had an almost stifling effect on innovation, despite all kinds of protests from Microsoft to the contrary.
The company has done nothing.
Intel has been a great deal better at some of the games played by these companies than others.
It avoided the terrible problems of being investigated by the United States government simply by going to Washington and making a deal, the details of which were never made public.
Microsoft, on the other hand, decided to fight and has been mired in legal battles for years.
Intel also dodged a bullet with its technology. It has been quite good at pushing the clock speed on its chips, and it is now playing with multi-core chips. Itanium has been less than an inspiration, but the company is rolling in so much money it is one of the few in the world that can actually afford to make a billion-dollar mistake and live to talk about it.
The most interesting aspect of all of this is how Apple will prevent others from putting the Mac OS on bog-standard Intel boxes. They have said there will be no cloning. They will make efforts to prevent people from putting their OS on any old PC. That will be quite a challenge.
One thing the Linux community has taught us is that almost anything is possible. If Apple starts putting expensive, proprietary hardware inside its computers, the price will remain high or even go up. Many people are hoping this deal with Intel will help level the playing field for cost. We shall see.
Many people have been waiting for a long time for Apple to raise the speed on its PowerBooks and iBooks, but that has been slow in coming. A few megahertz here and a few there, but nothing to brag about.
Intel has done a great job at creating speed, and it has done it in ways that ordinary people can understand, never mind what the reality is. (The reality is that speed is a terribly difficult thing to measure and has a lot to do with disk speed, memory, software and many other things. Benchmarks are useless.)
One thing should be certain: this transition should be a lot easier to manage than the last two.
Switching from Motorola to PowerPC was very well handled, and Apple actually had a far larger share of the market then. The recent switch from OS 9 to OS?X has been quite smooth.
Everybody should remember that Apple's greatest ability has been in the interface design. It is truly irrelevant what the underlying chip technology is, so long as the product is fast and easy to use.
If Intel can help make that happen, we should all be cheering.
