Praise be to Steve
I am pretty happy that Steve had this contingency covered - Motorola is losing the portible performance war, and Apple was able to handle it.
By adding this efficient translation layer and fat binaries, Apple is now able to pick and choose the best processors in the future. We are now processor independent, and that means that microprocessors will become a commodity item. I think that he could have spun the marketing better as processor independence rather than "switch to Intel", but he needs the Intel folks on his side right now.
And to those worried that Apple will not survive the transition, if I am reading their balance and income sheets right, they could survive the next two years with no revenue from computers at all (no net debt, $5 billion in cash, 50% of revenue from macs, burn rate is $6 billion per year).
By adding this efficient translation layer and fat binaries, Apple is now able to pick and choose the best processors in the future. We are now processor independent, and that means that microprocessors will become a commodity item. I think that he could have spun the marketing better as processor independence rather than "switch to Intel", but he needs the Intel folks on his side right now.
And to those worried that Apple will not survive the transition, if I am reading their balance and income sheets right, they could survive the next two years with no revenue from computers at all (no net debt, $5 billion in cash, 50% of revenue from macs, burn rate is $6 billion per year).
Comments
Originally posted by e1618978
I think that he could have spun the marketing better as processor independence rather than "switch to Intel", but he needs the Intel folks on his side right now.
Exactly! Intel got a whole bunch of positive press from this Apple announcement. Apple could just as easily touted this as a move toward processor independence.
No matter how it's phrased though, it is still mind bogglingly clean engineering. Way to go apple!