970's effect on MOT
Something that so far hasn't really been talked about ... well if it has it's been burried in pages and pages of general 970 talk...
Lots of IF's here but for now lets go with it...
- If the 970 is priced at/near and maybe even below the current G4's
- If Apple uses the 970 in it's PM and xServe line (and maybe others)
Over the past year+ I've not been shy with MY feelings (die die die) about MOT and all they've done for Apple in the past 4 years (die die die) but how do you folks feel the MOT chapter of the story will end (if at all)?
What will happen to MOT?
- Will they 'low ball' the prices on 'todays' G4s (great for CPU upgrade market I guess)
- Will they 'mothball' the G4s and move to embedded sales only?
- Will they regroup and try to win back Apple with an even more powerful design? (I'm trying not to laugh)
- Will they sell off their PPC division?
- Something else?
What do you think?
Dave
Lots of IF's here but for now lets go with it...
- If the 970 is priced at/near and maybe even below the current G4's
- If Apple uses the 970 in it's PM and xServe line (and maybe others)
Over the past year+ I've not been shy with MY feelings (die die die) about MOT and all they've done for Apple in the past 4 years (die die die) but how do you folks feel the MOT chapter of the story will end (if at all)?
What will happen to MOT?
- Will they 'low ball' the prices on 'todays' G4s (great for CPU upgrade market I guess)
- Will they 'mothball' the G4s and move to embedded sales only?
- Will they regroup and try to win back Apple with an even more powerful design? (I'm trying not to laugh)
- Will they sell off their PPC division?
- Something else?
What do you think?
Dave
Comments
<strong>S
- Will they 'low ball' the prices on 'todays' G4s (great for CPU upgrade market I guess)
- Will they 'mothball' the G4s and move to embedded sales only?
- Will they regroup and try to win back Apple with an even more powerful design? (I'm trying not to laugh)
- Will they sell off their PPC division?
- Something else?
What do you think?
Dave</strong><hr></blockquote>
they'll sell G4's to apple for low-end laptops and after a little "fade-out-time" the G4 will be gone. it will go embedded only as will the Mot-G5. unlike IBM, Mot isn't in the desktop-business ... they won't bring up the efforts to develop a comparable cpu (to the 970) ... it's not worth the effort for themselves... IBM sells it's own desktops and servers with the new 970 so they have a reason to develop such a cpu and will continue to develop the PPC-9xx series. it seems that they want to crush intel so that they can get the biggest possible part from the Linux-lowend-server-Market because of just one reason: SPEED!!!!
Krassy, You and I are very much alike cept you just need to add 50Mhz to that CPU speed and take 2 inches off the CRT.
<strong>
Krassy, You and I are very much alike cept you just need to add 50Mhz to that CPU speed and take 2 inches off the CRT.
good times are coming for people like us
yeaH!
<strong><snip>
What will happen to MOT?
</snip></strong><hr></blockquote>
I really could care less at that point. I will have a much better system, and they could fade away for all I care!
Plus, Motorola brought this on themselves by not supporting the chip. They basically told Apple to look elsewhere. How surprised could they be?
Motorola has already scaled back. They're focusing on embedded systems for their chips. They design them for low power w/o desktop speed (to Apple's chagrin). The low power customers are happy, and apparently that's a (more?) lucrative market for Motorola. Perhaps, it's all they are capable of doing (I do not know if it's easier but seems like it is, since IBM's chip is also low power but very fast). So Motorola has simply chosen to take the low road: value over speed. It's too bad Apple was a victim of their business model (or incompetence), but let's hope IBM is a great partner and move on.
I don't think Mot can compete on the high end until they get their fab situation sorted out: You can't sell what you can't build, and high end CPUs drive (and pay for) fab technology.
When their partnership with STM bears fruit, perhaps we'll see something interesting. They were working on a successor to the G4, after all.
In the mean time, bring on the 970.
<hr></blockquote>
That figure will double to treble for the last Mac tower I bought...
Lemon Bon Bon <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
There are some interesting things about the 7457 that I didn't think were a part of the 74xx series. The major one being the cache-lock feature that will allow software to "lock in" instructions into the L1 cache.
Another thing, absent from this is the fact that they don't give dates. A bit back, they spoke about the second half of the year, but they've done nothing to re-confirm this at all. My guess being that they will have problems fabbing this, just as they had trouble with previous versions.
In one corner, you have Motorola, over-hyping, and under performing [the chips themselves are good, I am referring to the process]
In the other corner, you have IBM, under-hyping and over delivering.
Seeing as the new info from the rumor boards are suggesting that there is going to be a 970cx made specifically for laptops, I don't see why a 7457 will even matter past one HW revision on Apple's side
May self respecting engineers spit in your face because of your ineptitude.
May your voyage to ignominy be both humiliating and public.
May your competitors laugh at your incompetence.
May you be compared disfavorably to Wang.
May you be heralded as the model for a European hardware company.
May your standards be rejected.
May the children of your employees lie to the other children on the playground about what their parents do.
May startups nibble your fingers off.
May your market become inconsequential.
May the grounds of your corporate campus be sewn with salt.
May your leaders live to see their company falter.
May your stock perform a reverse split.
May your interns strike their internships from their resumes out of shame.
May your chips be slower than emulators and hot enough to toast bread.
May your fabs be as clean as a public mens restroom in Berkeley CA.
May your wives divorce you over the shame they feel.
May Mac users be filled with boundless schadenfreude as their marketshare rises after leaving you.
Yes, that is how I feel about it, and that is what I think will happen.
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: Yevgeny ]</p>
<strong>Other interesting news on the 7457 chip from motorola <a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7457"; target="_blank">here</a>
There are some interesting things about the 7457 that I didn't think were a part of the 74xx series. The major one being the cache-lock feature that will allow software to "lock in" instructions into the L1 cache.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought they already had this feature implemented at some chache level...?
At least you are able to make some cache (3level?) act as normal ram, by locking data in it.
Correct me if Im wrong here, but i dont think this is interesting features for desktop computing.
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: blabla ]</p>
<strong>
I thought they already had this feature implemented at some chache level...?
At least you are able to make some cache (3level?) act as normal ram, by locking data in it.
Correct me if Im wrong here, but i dont think this is interesting features for desktop computing.
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: blabla ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's an interesting feature for any type of computing, unless you think the CPU is smarter than you.
<strong>
I really could care less at that point. I will have a much better system, and they could fade away for all I care!
well in a couple years when IBM fails to continue witht he PPC,what then, who will apple go to? i'm not sure you understand taht competition is KEY to change
Maybe there will be a desktop derivative of Mot's G5 CPU in the far future. And maybe Apple will use it. But I'm guessing that Mot is pretty much out of the desktop market.
Which is fine with me. If IBM is able to adapt the G3 to its 970 bus architecture (with Altivec, 900mhz bus, DDR, etc) then once the 970 comes out, Apple will have little need for Motorola.
Farewell Motorola. You won't be missed. Apple should have dropped you when they switched to PPC.
Although the G4 has had its day, especially in desktops, it was a good processor when initially released. In fact, according to Apple, it was a supercomputer for the masses that couldn't be exported to rogue states. Atleast during the last three years it got from 350MHz to 1.42GHz. During that same length of time, the IBM G3 only seems to have gone from 450MHz to 800MHz, atleast as used in the Apple line up. I'm sure faster versions exist, and it would have been developed further had the G4 not been introduced, but imagine if Apple's current top of the range PowerMac contained a 800MHz G3. Do you think Apple would still be in business today?
[ 03-01-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
<strong>Atleast during the last three years it got from 350MHz to 1.42GHz. During that same length of time, the IBM G3 only seems to have gone from 450MHz to 800MHz, atleast as used in the Apple line up.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's not so much the clock speed that we're upset about. It's the lack of a Front Side Bus anywhere near fast enough to keep the core busy.
<hr></blockquote>
Indeed, How dare Motorola not spend tens of millions of dollars for processors that only Apple would be interested in! Look, let's be realistic. Motorola has absolutely no reason to lose money hand over fist just so Apple can prosper. Designing a desktop processor is not a cheap endeavour and as far as anyone knows, Apple has failed to subsidize Moto for any of its R+D. Now if Apple had spent, say, $100 million in R+D and then Moto failed to build it, then sure, heckle Moto. But as it stands, Apple has given Moto no reason to concentrate on desktop CPUs in any meaningful way. In essence, the R+D for the desktop G4 has been subsidized by the embedded market and Apple has gotten a free ride.
It's not Moto's responsibility to save Apple's butt. Luckily, a miracle seems to have occurred - IBM has stepped in (for the moment).
As for Moto getting out of the market altogether, just what do people expect Apple to do if IBM doesn't make enough money off the 970? I'd say that like *any* new project, there's a 50% chance that the 970 will be cancelled in 3 years due to insufficient return on investment (No, I'm not being pessemistic - look at the products that IBM has killed over the years - many a *lot* larger than the 970). If Apple doesn't have a second supplier for PPC's, then it better be prepared to close up shop.
[ 03-01-2003: Message edited by: Tom West ]</p>