Members BOBA JFET Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by Array This is pretty interesting:http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr0502.htmAt $89 a pop, Microsoft made $4,678,730 from US sales alone, and $14,132,310 worldwide. This is assuming that every PC was sold with an OEM copy of Windows which costs $89 though. No, those sales numbers are listed in thousands. Multiply your results by 1000. 14 billion, holmes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Array Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by BOBA JFET No, those sales numbers are listed in thousands. Multiply your results by 1000. 14 billion, holmes. haha, OOPS! we need a blush smiley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 4, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by BOBA JFET No, those sales numbers are listed in thousands. Multiply your results by 1000. 14 billion, holmes. Hmmmm...now with my calculations...I'd love to be one of the 70 engineers making $100 millon for 2 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BOBA JFET Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by urbanscallywag Hmmmm...now with my calculations...I'd love to be one of the 70 engineers making $100 millon for 2 years. Right, but I don't see why you have to do your calculations based off of 2 years salary, because those sales numbers are just for 1 year. So, how does 200 million sound? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Array Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by BOBA JFET So, how does 200 million sound? Thats a lot of synths!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BOBA JFET Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 I'd build a snowfort. Out of cocaine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 4, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by BOBA JFET Right, but I don't see why you have to do your calculations based off of 2 years salary, because those sales numbers are just for 1 year. So, how does 200 million sound? I meant a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Birdienumnum Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Well I'm all for it--although all this might be a rumor. We won't know until Monday.No more waiting for a powerbook G5, now we can have portables running the Mac OS and they will be much faster. No more porting games to Mac where they run slower and have bugs. No more wishing I could run Giga this or Acid that. And I get to keep my beloved Mac OS. And iWork and iLife. I'm happy.And yes, this could really screw Microsoft. Again, I'm happy. If it's true... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members protues9 Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 So if there was or maybe an OS fo x86 I could use the same computer to run mac software that Im running windows on right now? I know the apples use a different CPU and instruction set, I didnt know they had a x86 thing in the works!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flat earth Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 forgive me if im wrong, and this may have already been bought up, But............. Arnt Apple being incredibly clever here? Think about it, the Mac platform is a niche market, Graghic Design and Music mainly, most people admit to prefering the Mac OS over windows, but, they dont want to shell out for a the Mac hardware. So.. Apple basically creates a new version of their desirable OS that works on X86 hardware, people start buying it, as a very good alternative to Windows, Apple slowly eats into the mainstream PC software market. I think the hardware side will become less of their target market, if this is the plan???? The software is the key i believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scubyfan Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by flat earth forgive me if im wrong, and this may have already been bought up,But.............Arnt Apple being incredibly clever here?Think about it, the Mac platform is a niche market, Graghic Design and Music mainly, most people admit to prefering the Mac OS over windows, but, they dont want to shell out for a the Mac hardware.So.. Apple basically creates a new version of their desirable OS that works on X86 hardware, people start buying it, as a very good alternative to Windows, Apple slowly eats into the mainstream PC software market. I think the hardware side will become less of their target market, if this is the plan????The software is the key i believe. I don't think Apple would be willing to offer an x86 version of the OSX or future releases of that OS to for non-Mac computers. Apple is what it is (stable, fast, bla bla) because the OS is specifically designed around the hardware and compatibility issues are at a minimum with peripheral hardware. In my opinion, all this shows is a simple choice of processors, from one to the other. Maybe there are no grand plans but only economical considerations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 4, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by scubyfan In my opinion, all this shows is a simple choice of processors, from one to the other. Maybe there are no grand plans but only economical considerations. Well, its far from a simple choice. I suppose the transition could be seamless if they used FAT binaries for awhile. When a developer would hit build in XCode, the program would be compiled for the old and new processor, and both binaries would be stored in the .app. When you open it on an old machine or new one it would launch as normal. Kind of like the 68k/PPC FAT binaries. Pentium M + revised instruction translation + FAT binaries might be what they're up to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Birdienumnum Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Even if software is the key to the kingdom, even if millions of IBM PCs will be running the Mac OS in the future, I am 100% positive that Apple plans to stay in the hardware business even as they push their OS to 086.It's their passion, it's what they enjoy doing. They will continue to innovate as they have done with hardware from the mouse and floppy disk to USB and FireWire, to name a few of Apple's inventions. They will continue to bring out their own line of innovative, higher cost computers to satisfy the niche market that has made billions of dollars for them--education, graphic arts, desktop publishing, entertainment industry, etc. Why should they stop doing hardware? They are the BMW/Mercedes computer line, and many people will always pay a little more to get the best. You don't see BMW falling on their sword just because they are not Ford. I speculate that we will see a hybrid Mac line until about 2010. That is, we might see Apple manufactured PCs wilth 086's and PowerPC's onboard, branded as the Mac line. The Mac PC. Then, around 2010, as Apple customers switch over their computers to the new ones, they will stop including PowerPC chips altogether. Just some speculation. http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/692.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 4, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 I like my FAT binary senerio better. No way OSX is going to run on generic x86. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SynthBaron Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 Originally posted by urbanscallywag No way OSX is going to run on generic x86. Meet Openstep, OS X's predecessor: http://toastytech.com/guis/openstep.html And it ran on generic PC's just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SynthBaron Posted June 4, 2005 Members Share Posted June 4, 2005 I forgot about Rhapsody, which was bascally the first real version of what OS X was supposed to be:http://toastytech.com/guis/rhap.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Birdienumnum Posted June 5, 2005 Members Share Posted June 5, 2005 Well, now it's official. For good or bad, this is it. The New York Times, June 6, 2005Apple Plans to Switch From I.B.M. to Intel for ChipsBy JOHN MARKOFF and STEVE LOHR AN FRANCISCO, June 5 - Steven P. Jobs is preparing to take an unprecedented gamble by abandoning Apple Computer's 14-year commitment to chips developed by I.B.M. and Motorola in favor of Intel processors for his Macintosh computers, industry executives informed of the decision said Sunday.The move is a chesslike gambit in a broader industry turf war that pits the traditional personal computer industry against an emerging world of consumer electronics focused on the digital home."This is a seismic shift in the world of personal computing and consumer electronics," said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a Seaford, N.Y., computer and consumer electronics industry consulting firm. "It is bound to rock the industry, but it will also be a phenomenal engineering challenge for Apple."Mr. Jobs is expected to announce the transition to Intel chips at Apple's annual developer conference, which will begin here Monday. Apple's intention to shift to Intel chips beginning in 2006 was reported Friday by CNET News.com, a technology news service. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Apple and I.B.M. were negotiating.Apple, according to analysts, has become increasingly alarmed by I.B.M.'s failure to deliver a new version of its Power PC chip, called the G5, that does not generate much heat - a crucial feature for notebook computers, which do not have as much room for fans and ventilation as desktop machines.Apple's notebooks now use the older G4 chips, made by Freescale Semiconductor, which was spun off from Motorola last year."That's a huge looming problem for Apple, if it can't keep up with Intel notebooks in performance," said Charles Wolf, an analyst for Needham & Company. "And that's been an I.B.M. problem. I.B.M. hasn't delivered a cool-running G5."Apple, I.B.M. and Intel spokesmen all refused to comment this weekend on the possible shift in alliances.The first move in the complex industry realignment now taking place was made more than a year ago when Microsoft broke with Intel and said that it would use an I.B.M. processor chip, similar to the one used by Apple for its Macintoshes, in the second version of its Xbox video game machine.What Microsoft has made clear recently is that the new Xbox, to be called the 360, will be much more than a video game player when it reaches store shelves this fall. It will perform a range of home entertainment functions, like connecting to the Internet, playing DVD movies and displaying high-definition television shows as well as serving as a wireless data hub for the home.Microsoft's decision to build its own computer hardware, with help from I.B.M., was a direct assault on a market that Intel was counting on for future growth. It is likely that Intel forged the alliance with Apple in an effort to counter the powerful home entertainment and game systems coming from Microsoft and Sony.While the new partnership is a clear and long-coveted win for Intel, the world's largest chip maker, it portends a potentially troublesome shift for Apple, the iconoclastic maker of sleek personal computers and consumer electronics gadgets.Apple was the largest maker of personal computers in the early and mid-1980's, but its share of the worldwide computer market fell steadily during the past two decades as the Windows-Intel alliance emerged as an overwhelming personal computing standard.That decline came despite Apple's earlier shift from Motorola microprocessor chips to the PowerPC processor, the fruit of a grand alliance that Apple entered into in 1991 with Motorola and I.B.M.Originally intended to counter Microsoft and Intel, the alliance was never able to stop the erosion of Apple's market share, as Apple customers were forced to upgrade their hardware and software to take advantage of the newer processor chip.Mr. Jobs, who left Apple in 1985 to found Next Inc., went through a similar transition when he moved his NextStep operating system from Motorola chips to Intel's x86 processors. When Mr. Jobs sold Next to Apple in 1997 and then returned to the company to lead its resurgence, he moved the operating system to the PowerPC. But it has been widely reported that the company has kept alive a small development project called Marklar that has developed an Intel-compatible version of the Macintosh operating system.For I.B.M., the end of the Apple partnership means the loss of a prestigious customer, but not one that is any longer very important to I.B.M.'s sales or profits. It further underlines how much I.B.M. and its strategy in recent years have moved away from the personal computer industry that it helped create. Last month, I.B.M. completed the sale of its personal computer business to Lenovo of China.Even as a chip maker, I.B.M. has moved aggressively beyond the PC industry, focusing on making the processors for video game consoles from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and specialized chips for other uses, like the Internet router computers made by Cisco Systems and cellphone technology by Qualcomm. I.B.M. also uses its Power microprocessors in many of its own server computers, which run corporate networks.By contrast, the chips I.B.M. makes for Apple represent less than 2 percent of chip production at its largest factory in East Fishkill, N.Y. And while the microelectronics business as a whole is strategically important for I.B.M., it is a small part of the revenue of a company that increasingly focuses on services and software. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, estimates that the company's technology group - mostly microelectronics - will account for less than 3 percent of I.B.M.'s revenues and 2 percent of its pretax income this year.I.B.M. supplies about 50 percent of the microprocessors used by Apple, providing them for desktop and server computers. Freescale makes the processors used in Apple's notebook and new Mac mini computers.For years, according to industry analysts, the work for Apple has been barely a break-even business for I.B.M. When the two companies were negotiating a new contract recently, Mr. Jobs pushed for price discounts that I.B.M. refused to offer. For I.B.M., "the economics just didn't work," said one industry executive who was briefed on the negotiations. "And Apple is not so important a customer that you would take the financial hit to hold onto the relationship."The attitude was very different in 1991, when I.B.M., Apple and Motorola contributed a total of 300 engineers to a project in Austin, Tex., code-named Somerset. Company executives hailed the project as a make-or-break effort to design PowerPC chips intended to be, among other things, a crucial weapon to wrest technological control of the PC industry from Intel and Microsoft.Mr. Jobs is scheduled to take the stage on Monday to face his software developers, an important constituency he must convince of the wisdom of the shift. It is the software developers who will need to do the hard work of making their programs run on Intel chips if Mr. Jobs's strategy is to succeed.Apple must be able to persuade software developers who make business and graphics programs for the Macintosh - Microsoft, Adobe, Quark and others - to overhaul their code."That's a huge challenge for Apple, to win the software developers over and drag them along," said Mr. Wolf, the Needham analyst.John Markoff reported from San Francisco for this article, and Steve Lohr from New York.Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 5, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2005 Originally posted by SynthBaron Meet Openstep, OS X's predecessor:http://toastytech.com/guis/openstep.htmlAnd it ran on generic PC's just fine. I'm well aware of the history of NeXT, Openstep, and all that jazz. I stand by my statement. You won't see OSX on generic hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 5, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2005 Originally posted by Birdienumnum And while the microelectronics business as a whole is strategically important for I.B.M., it is a small part of the revenue of a company that increasingly focuses on services and software.This is very true. Their microelectronics division doesn't generate much revenue at all. Their first and foremost function is to build Power chips for high end servers, which are highly profitable due to the services they offer with them. This is a big reason that yields have never been good with PowerPC. Time to market is much more important to IBM than researching ways to improve yields. The losses of low yields are hidden in the server costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Yoozer Posted June 5, 2005 Members Share Posted June 5, 2005 First question of those who switch: "Can I play $3d_game" on it?" And there's of course this certain Win XP corp edition without the activation nagging that's been circulating for ages. The generated codes are good enough to fool MS's checker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 5, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2005 Apple doesn't use serials with the OSs. Well, I'm on the wagon. Give me an Intel based Powerbook! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keyman_sam Posted June 6, 2005 Members Share Posted June 6, 2005 Ok, i dont get the whole idea. I'm asking this outta ignorance : whats the big deal if they switched? apple is still making computers right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jazzed Posted June 6, 2005 Members Share Posted June 6, 2005 Originally posted by keyman_sam Ok, i dont get the whole idea. I'm asking this outta ignorance : whats the big deal if they switched? apple is still making computers right? The main big deal is the CPU architecture. It's important whether Intel will make PowerPC processors or Apple will make OS X run on x86. If Apple switches to x86, it's a HUGE deal. Unless they come up with some BRILLIANT way of having both PowerPC compiled OS X software and x86 compiled OS X software running on the same system without any sort of slow emulation crap, ALL OS X SOFTWARE THERE IS WILL HAVE TO BE RECOMPILED. No current OS X software will run on the new OS X x86...there'll have to be new stuff. This'll mean a transition as bad if not worse as the original OS X from "classic" transition. I sincerely hope Intel is going to start manufacturing PowerPC...or that Apple/Intel has some other brilliant dual-architecture scheme.........or else there's going to be some serious transition chaos for a while. The other thing that some people wonder is whether OS X running on x86 processors could possibly mean that OS X will eventually run on generic hardware, meaning your off-the-bestbuy-shelf IBM PC clone. If this were to happen, Apple hardware would get much less popular, and Apple would probably end up becoming a software-only company. I don't believe this is going to happen any time soon. As urbanscallywag says, "You won't see OSX on generic hardware." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Birdienumnum Posted June 6, 2005 Members Share Posted June 6, 2005 Originally posted by jazzed This'll mean a transition as bad if not worse as the original OS X from "classic" transition. Actually, IMO I think that transition was fairly smoothly handled. It wasn't chaos, or even a mess. The only mistake Apple made was bringing out OSX 10.0 too soon. It wasn't really functional until 10.1, and not easy to use until 10.2. But in general Apple handled the transition pretty darn well...IMO again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members urbanscallywag Posted June 6, 2005 Author Members Share Posted June 6, 2005 Originally posted by Birdienumnum Actually, IMO I think that transition was fairly smoothly handled. It wasn't chaos, or even a mess. The only mistake Apple made was bringing out OSX 10.0 too soon. It wasn't really functional until 10.1, and not easy to use until 10.2. But in general Apple handled the transition pretty darn well...IMO again. And don't forget 68k to PowerPC. Those two architectures are completely incompatible. The transition was seamless, all the developer had to do was compile a FAT binary that contained data for PPC and 68k.The same will happen when Apple switches to which ever Intel platform they choose: the transition will be seamless.Transitions today are easier than 5-10 years ago. We have the internet, and updates are simply a compile away. There may be certain apps that break during the transition, but then again maybe not. If the software you use isn't updated for the new processor, that's not really Apple's wrong doing, its the developer's.For what its worth I never used Classic, either all out OSX or OS9. I still run both OSes (until my OSX machine died). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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