What's Really up With Motorola?
The health of Motorola is of vested interest to every Apple person. The fortune of Motorola has, whether we like it or not, always been intrinsically linked to Apple's core business. And unless Apple shifts over completely to IBM or another manufacturer, Motorola is what we're concerned with.
We've all been angry at times with the inability of Motorola to move faster in the chip wars. However, with all of the vitrol and posturing aside, I'd like to know what really is going in with Motorola. We know about the thousand man lay-offs - there was a lot of fear and loathing during that period. Then everything quieted down.
So what's the reality now? Is the SPS division still in danger? Are competent individuals still employed there? Can Motorola really deliver what we're looking for going forward? Informed opinions please.
We've all been angry at times with the inability of Motorola to move faster in the chip wars. However, with all of the vitrol and posturing aside, I'd like to know what really is going in with Motorola. We know about the thousand man lay-offs - there was a lot of fear and loathing during that period. Then everything quieted down.
So what's the reality now? Is the SPS division still in danger? Are competent individuals still employed there? Can Motorola really deliver what we're looking for going forward? Informed opinions please.
Comments
2. Motorolla employs only incompetent a**holes who can't get a job elsewhere
3. Motorolla is in league with the devil
4. Motorolla wants apple to go bust so that they can have an excuse to have an office party and go for all the colleagues they've always fancied
. . . Informed opinions please. . . oh, sorry didn't see that bit!
Why? Probably a few reasons.
1. It isn't profitable enough. With the tiny market share Apple has, there is little incentive to develop a Pentium 4 slayer CPU. Now that Apple is buying almost all of their CPUs from Moto, it may help a bit, but still it isn't much business.
2. Some executives at Moto want to exact revenge upon Apple for killing the clones. Many will say this doesn't happen in business, that businessmen only think logically about what's best for business--to that I say BULLSH!T! Businessmen are no different from any other human, and some would say they are actually a lower form of life than most humans. They tend to be power-hungry, greedy, and mean-spirited, so it should be no surprise that some of them sought revenge after the clones were killed. As further proof, consider that Moto switched from Mac to PC around that time, now, does it make good business sense to stock one's business with the competitor's computers? Wouldn't you think it a bit odd if you walked into a factory making Craftsmen tools, and all the workers were using some other brand of tools to make the Craftsmen tools?
3. Even if Motorola wanted to produce a Pentium 4 slayer, they have neither the resources nor talent to do so. Fabbing high performance CPUs is not easy. Motorola doesn't have the expertise to make such advanced CPUs, and I don't mean engineers, I mean all the way down the line, from the janitors to the EE engineers. Their fabs are dirty and their engineers are incompetent (no doubt their Texas residence is partly to blame). j/k. But really, Moto could throw twice as much money at the G5 as Intel spends on P4 R&D, and still I doubt they could design a competitive chip. The talent and expertise at Intel goes back DECADES, and they certainly have a corporate culture that fosters good chip design, as well as a plethora of trade secrets that Motorola would suck dick to learn.
4. Motorola suxxor!
Making processors is capital intensive. You need massive amounts of money to pay engineers and to build billion dollar factories. Since the market for x86 chips is 20 times as big as for PowerPCs, economies of scale are simply against Motorola. Almost every other processor family has given up trying to keep up clock speed against x86 since Intel and AMD began all out competition.
There's no villains here. If you have $20,000 to plan a wedding it's going to come out nicer than if you have $2,000. This is what Motorola is up against. Why is this so hard to accept? Why must people (not meaning JYD but others) cry and complain because things don't turn out the way they'ed like them to.
A more mature thing to do would be to simply accept that x86 is going to get faster and faster because of market forces and decide what to do from there.
Maybe Apple can move to an x86 variant that is slightly different to keep them proprietary if they feel that is necessary. I'm sure for 4 million chips a year AMD would be willing to do a little extra work to get a good sized contract.
Yet, if the economics of scale is what's holding Motorola back, how could AMD possibly take Intel head on as it has? AMD's line has a smaller market than the PPC, does it not? And certainly AMD is a smaller corporation than Motorola. So I don't believe we're talking about economics of scale here.
I have to believe Motorola can compete. But I still don't have a good idea as to what's really happening inside the company.
Consider this. Remember when there was more or less a three way battle between Intel, Cyrix, and an upstart called AMD? That was fun to watch. Why was it not a four way battle? Where was Moto in that brawl? The answer is Windows. Windows did not become dominate because of the x86 platform. The x86 platform became dominate because of Windows.
If AMD had chosen PPC and Moto chose x86, their positions would be the reverse of what they are today. Apple does not command the market share to demand the greatest third party development. The CPU is just another third party product in the grand scheme of things.
Why doesn't Apple have access to the best vid cards and sound cards and TV tuners and mobos and everything else? Is there something wrong with all the companies that make these products? Even software like Viavoice is absolutely pathetic on the Mac compared to its Windows counterpart. From what I can tell, Nvidia, Creative Labs, Hauppauge, and all the rest are just fine. Apple is the one with the problem. It's not that you can get all the great products for the PC, it is that you can get all the great products for Windows. That is a big difference.
For all of you who think market share doesn't matter, let this be a lesson. Apple is too small to be so proprietary. If Apple wants the best hardware and (in some cases) software, then apple will have to build it themselves. They are too small to get someone else to do it for them.
One more thing. If Moto was the one with the problem, why would Apple continue to tie themselves to a sinking ship? Simple! Apple needs Moto more than Moto needs Apple. Who else would put up with Apple? I doubt AMD would want to divert resources to build a special processor for Apple. Apple is the one with the lack of options.
Spent. Wipeout. Over reach.
Having a single fpu as opposed to the old Motorola half an fpu has clearly left them wondering on how they can improve upon this groundbreaking feat.
Still, I'm being optimistic when I say this, I'm hoping that the Apollo Macworld New York (TM) chip will have 1 and a quarter fpu to make 'power'Macs perform more competitvely for their meagre monies.
Lemon BOn Bon :eek:
Ouch.
Lemon Bon Bon <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />