I'm about to enter the NDA zone at WWDC 2005. It's a self-imposed precaution, but I won't walk into the first NDA session before I post what I gathered during the last on-the-record discussion. My analysis will be in my Ahead of the Curve column in InfoWorld. But to answer some of the questions I raised here, I'll lay out the relevant facts I've acquired since my last post.
First, Apple is not switching to the software business. I make that leap too easily, knowing what a pain in the butt hardware is. It's too easy for me to imagine Apple saying "screw hardware" after IBM flat-out failed to deliver on its promises, leaving Apple swinging for failing to satisfy its customers. At any rate, Apple will remain a system maker.
A couple of salient points relate to the proprietary/commodity boundary. I mentioned earlier that Apple would be excoriated if it dared to build a proprietary box with Intel inside. Apple knows that, of course, so it chose a smart strategy: The hardware will not be proprietary, but OS X will be. In other words, you could run Windows or Linux (I reiterate, "why?") on an Intel-based Mac, but you will not be able to run OS X on non-Apple systems. Apple will sell boxed copies of OS X Tiger for Intel. They'll just come with Intel-based Macs attached. Look at it as 40 pounds of copy protection.
Apple has built some hundreds of Pentitosh desktops for developers ready to sign that $999 check. The PCs are in Power Mac G5 cases, making me wonder (with no purpose) whether Apple had extra cases assembled or relieved some Power Mac G5s of their guts. The two machines that I saw outside non-disclosure each had one single-core 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, or so Apple's About This Mac dialog reported. Apple's hardware spokesman was insistent that these machines are not representative of Apple's design.
Apple clarified its position on compilers. The open source GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) is still Apple's favored compiler back end for its Xcode IDE. Intel's interest in having its compilers generate universal binaries (x86 and PowerPC bound in one executable) is not in doubt, and neither is Apple's interest in having developers target PowerPC and Intel with every build.
As for servers, mum's the word for Apple, but Xserve G5 and Xserve RAID are the crown jewels of Apple's product line. That is not a formula with which Apple should tamper (my opinion, as always). When Apple does sweep IBM out of its lineup, Apple needs to replace it with a server that outperforms the G5. You have to look down Intel's roadmap for that.
Or Apple could look to Austin. I'm partial to my dual-core, dual CPU Opteron server. If it could run OS X Server (it already counts Darwin among its VMware-hosted children), its spindles would never touch Windows or Linux again.
That's most of it. I have to save something for print.
--------Posted by Tom Yager on June 6, 2005 09:13 PM
